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Special Topics Research Seminar (525-0-26)

Topic

Stirring Up Sh*t in the Field of Communication

Instructors

Nathan Walter

Meeting Info

Annenberg Hall G01: Mon 2:00PM - 4:50PM

Overview of class

The goal of this course is to improve students' critical engagement with key findings, theories, perspectives, and moments throughout the history of communication research. In order to achieve this goal, we will center our discussions on controversies, provocations, and polemics that came to define the field of communication. From collision between administrative and critical research and the debate surrounding the effects of violent video games on aggression to the competing interpretations of cultivation and two-step flow data, calls to retire certain theories and concepts, as well as more recent debates between the proponents and the opponents of open science practices. As such, this course both provides a unique perspective on the history, presence, and future of the field and it demonstrates several effective approaches to deal with scholarly disagreements.