Week 1
Introductions. What is mass communication? What is mass comm. theory? Why do we create theories, and how are they useful? How does the scientific method apply to mass comm.?
> Read Severin and Tankard, pp. 1-19 and pp. 23-44.

Week 2
Models and their uses. Shannon's information theory model and variations on it. The difference between a theory and a model.
> Read Severin and Tankard, pp. 47-69.

Week 3
Perception. Comparison of schema and framing.
> Discussion leader sign-up begins. Choose your subject area and date.
> Read Severin and Tankard, pp. 73-88 and pp. 277-280; and Eickelman and Anderson, pp. 1-16, "Redefining Muslim publics."

Week 4
Encoding/decoding. How does the audience's interpretation of a message interact with the intentions of the sender of the message?
> Discussion leader sign-up ends.
> Read Severin and Tankard, pp. 91-107, and Hall, pp. 166-176.

Week 5
Propaganda. What are the tools (or devices) of propaganda? When are they effective?
> The first discussion leader presentation(s) will be given this week. Presentations continue until the end of the semester.
> Read Severin and Tankard, pp. 108-128, and el-Nawawy and Iskandar, pp. 175-196.

Week 6
Effects theories: Bullet theory, cultivation theory, limited and powerful effects, spiral of silence, third-person effect, framing analysis, Marshall McLuhan.
> Read Severin and Tankard, pp. 262-289, and McLuhan, pp. 129-138.

Week 7
Agenda-setting theory. Do the news media set the public agenda? Who sets the agenda for the news media? How scholars study and measure these effects.
> Read Severin and Tankard, pp. 219-241.

Week 8
Mid-semester test.

Week 9
Mass media today. Four theories of the press (1956) and what people say about them now. Walter Lippmann and "the pictures in our heads"; the beginning of public relations.
> Read Severin and Tankard, pp. 309-342.

Week 10
Mass media in Southeast Asia. Development journalism: Is it a fifth theory?
> Read Wong, pp. 25-40; Wang, pp. 67-88; and Shafer, pp. 31-52.

Week 11
Media structures and globalization.
> Read McQuail, pp.190-214 ("Media Structures and Institutions"), and pp. 224-232 (media transnationalization, international media dependency, international news flow).

Week 12
The knowledge-gap hypothesis. How does a public become "informed," or knowledgeable? Unequal distribution of knowledge, the role of the news media, the role of education level and socio-economic status.
> Read Severin and Tankard, pp. 245-260, and Eickelman and Anderson, pp. 158-177, "Civic pluralism denied? The new media and Jihadi violence in Indonesia."

Week 13
Uses and gratifications. What do people want from mass media? Why do they make the choices they make?
> Read Severin and Tankard, pp. 293-303; McQuail, pp. 387-390; Armfield and Holbert, pp. 129-144.

Week 14
Internet theories: How do scholars study the new media?
> Read Severin and Tankard, pp. 366-386, and Eickelman and Anderson, pp. 45-58, "The Internet and Islam's new interpreters."

Week 15
Persuasion theories: Attitude change, inoculation theory, process models.
> Read Severin and Tankard, pp. 151-182.

Week 16
Final test.