Syllabus for Rhetoric 189: Mediated Republic: From Broadcast to p2p

Tuesdays and Thursdays, 5:30-7, 20 Wheeler
Instructor: Dale Carrico (dalec@berkeley.edu)
Course Blog: http://artificeandagency.blogspot.com

What is the shape and what might be the significance of a transformation from a mass mediated public sphere into networked public sphere? We will spend some time studying the broader institutional and practical history of modern media formations and transformations before fixing our attention on the claims being made by political economists, critical theorists, policymakers, and media activists about our own media moment. We will also cast a retrospective eye on the role of media critique from the perspective of several different social struggles in the last era of broadcast media, the better to contemplate changes we may discern in the problems, tactics, and hopes available to these struggles in the first era an emerging peer-to-peer public sphere.

Grade Breakdown:

Report: 15%
Reading and Co-facilitation: 20%
Attendance/Participation: 30%
Take-Home Final Examination: 35%

Provisional Schedule of Meetings:

January

T16 Intro/Syll
R18 Intro/Speeches

T23 Benkler, The Wealth of Networks, Chapter One

Report:
Co-facilitation:

R25 Benkler, The Wealth of Networks, Conclusion

Report:
Co-facilitation:

T30 Peter Daou, The Triangle (online)

Report:
Co-facilitation:

February

R1 Chomsky and Herman, Propaganda Model

Report:
Co-facilitation:

T6 Two pieces by Phil Agre

Report:
Co-facilitation:

R8 Brin on the Surveillance Society; Cascio on the Participatory Panopticon

Report:
Co-facilitation:

T13 Paul Hughes, A Cypherpunk's Manifesto
Clay Shirky, The RIAA Succeeds Where the Cypherpunks Failed

Report:
Co-facilitation:

R15 Short Story, Maneki Neko by Sterling

Report:
Co-facilitation:

T20 James Boyle, Second Enclosure Movement and the Construction of the Public Domain

Report:
Co-facilitation:

R22 James Boyle, Enclosing the Genome: What Squabble Over Genetic Patents Could Teach Us
Annalee Newitz, Genome Liberation

Report:
Co-facilitation:

T27 The Making of a Movement, Robert W. McChesney & John Nichols

Our Media, Not Theirs: Building the U.S. media reform movement by Robert W. McChesney and John Nichols

The Problem of the Media: David Barsamian interviews Robert McChesney, Z magazine, February, 2006

Report:
Co-facilitation:

March

R1 Dan Gillmore, We the Media, Chapters 1 and 9.

Report:
Co-facilitation:

T6 Jurgen Habermas, The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere

Report:
Co-facilitation:

R8 Jurgen Habermas, The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere

Report:
Co-facilitation:

T13 Paul Starr, The Creation of the Media

Report:
Co-facilitation:

R15 Paul Starr, The Creation of the Media

Report:
Co-facilitation:

T20 Cintra Wilson, A Massive Swelling: Celebrity Considered as a Crippling Disease

Report:
Co-facilitation:

R22 Cintra Wilson, A Massive Swelling

Report:
Co-facilitation:

27-29 Spring Break

April

T3 Edward Said, Covering Islam [ISBN: 0679758909]

Report:
Co-facilitation:

R5 Edward Said, Covering Islam

Report:
Co-facilitation:

T10 Edward Said, Covering Islam

Report:
Co-facilitation:

R12 Susan Faludi, Backlash [ISBN: 0385425074]

Report:
Co-facilitation:

T17 Susan Faludi, Backlash

Report:
Co-facilitation:

R19 Susan Faludi, Backlash

Report:
Co-facilitation:

T24 Michelangelo Signorile, Out in America

Report:
Co-facilitation:

R26 Michelangelo Signorile, Out in America

Report:
Co-facilitation:

May

T1 An Inconvenient Truth (in-class screening and discussion)

Report:
Co-facilitation:

R3 An Inconvenient Truth (in-class screening and discussion)

Report:
Co-facilitation:

T8 Final Comments, Turn in Take-Home Final Examinations