Results for COMM

The institutions and practices of mass media, including television, film, radio, and digital media, and their role in shaping culture and social life. The media's shifting relationships to politics, commerce, and identity.

Techniques of news reporting and writing. The value and role of news in democratic societies. Gateway class to journalism. Prerequisite for all COMM 177/277 classes. Limited enrollment. Preference to COMM majors.

(Graduate students register for COMM 208. COMM 108 is offered for 5 units, COMM 208 is offered for 4 units.) The process of communication theory construction including a survey of social science paradigms and major theories of communication. Recommended: COMM 1 or PSYCH 1.

(Graduate students register for 216. COMM 116 is offered for 5 units; COMM 216 is offered for 4 units.) Laws and regulation impacting journalists. Topics include libel, privacy, news gathering, protection sources, fair trial and free press, theories of the First Amendment, and broadcast regulation. Prerequisite: Journalism M.A. student or advanced Communication major. Email instructor for permission to enroll. Preference for enrollment will be: Communication majors and co-terms, then seniors from other disciplines. Total enrollment in COMM 116/216 combined will be limited to 20. Students pursuing a degree from the COMM department as an undergraduate or Masters student must take C116/216 and for a letter grade. All other students taking the class as an elective may also elect to take the class on either a grade or S/NC basis.

(COMM 128 is offered for 5 units, COMM 228 is offered for 4 units. COMM 328 is offered for 3-5 units.)This seminar covers the intersection of politics, media and art in the U.S. from the end of the Vietnam War in 1975 to the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. Topics include globalization and financialization; the rise of the New Right; the personalization of media technology, from television to computing; postmodernism and political art; feminism, queer, and sex-positive activism; identity politics and the culture wars. Open to juniors, seniors, and graduate students.

This course examines the theory and practice of deliberative democracy and engages both in a dialogue with critics. Can a democracy which emphasizes people thinking and talking together on the basis of good information be made practical in the modern age? What kinds of distortions arise when people try to discuss politics or policy together? The course draws on ideas of deliberation from Madison and Mill to Rawls and Habermas as well as criticisms from the jury literature, from the psychology of group processes and from the most recent normative and empirical literature on deliberative forums. Deliberative Polling, its applications, defenders and critics, both normative and empirical, will provide a key case for discussion.

An ensemble course with research components for making data-driven music. Improvised and composed pieces make use of large, time-based data sets chronicling humans' digital-life and real-life experiences, and explore how temporal data can be transformed into live musical performances. Data sets will include the Human Screenome Project and the music will go where it goes following the group's ears and instincts. A series of workshops with guest musicians will continue throughout the year and group members will be able to take part beyond the course.

(Graduate students enroll in COMM 262. COMM 162 is offered for 5 units, COMM 262 is offered for 4 units.) This course examines the theory and practice of American campaigns and elections. First, we will attempt to explain the behavior of the key players -- candidates, parties, journalists, and voters -- in terms of the institutional arrangements and political incentives that confront them. Second, we will use current and recent election campaigns as "laboratories" for testing generalizations about campaign strategy and voter behavior. Third, we examine selections from the academic literature dealing with the origins of partisan identity, electoral design, and the immediate effects of campaigns on public opinion, voter turnout, and voter choice. As well, we'll explore issues of electoral reform and their more long-term consequences for governance and the political process.

Focus is on how politicians and government learn what Americans want and how the public's preferences shape government action; how surveys measure beliefs, preferences, and experiences; how poll results are criticized and interpreted; how conflict between polls is viewed by the public; how accurate surveys are and when they are accurate; how to conduct survey research to produce accurate measurements; designing questionnaires that people can understand and use comfortably; how question wording can manipulate poll results; corruption in survey research.

(Graduate students register for COMM 272. COMM 172 is offered for 5 units, COMM 272 is offered for 4 units.) The literature related to psychological processing and the effects of media. Topics: unconscious processing; picture perception; attention and memory; emotion; the physiology of processing media; person perception; pornography; consumer behavior; advanced film and television systems; and differences among reading, watching, and listening.

(Graduate students register for 276. COMM 176 is offered for 5 units, COMM 276 is offered for 4 units.) In-depth reporting and production using audio, images and video. Focus on an in-depth journalism project with appropriate uses of digital media: audio, photography, graphics, and video. Topics include advanced field techniques and approaches (audio, video, still) and emphasis on creating a non-fiction narrative arc in a multimedia piece of 10-12 minutes. Comm 104 or some reporting experience OR audio/video production experience. Contact instructor: jrnicol@stanford.edu

Practical, collaborative, hands-on exploration of environmental journalism as an agent of change. Students learn how to identify and execute engaging and impactful stories about environmental science, policy, and justice through critique of environmental journalism pieces and extensive workshopping of each other's work. Emphasis on a just transition to climate adaptation and mitigation through elevating marginalized voices by using the tools and practices of journalism to spur positive change. Limited class size, preference to Environmental Communication and Journalism MA students. Prerequisite: EARTHSYS 191/291, COMM 104W, or consent of instructor. Admission by application only (https://forms.gle/C84WQRqbTFtuEfM49). Email instructor Chloe Peterson-Nafziger with any questions; chloepn.biosphere@gmail.com. Meets Earth Systems WIM requirement. (Graduate students enroll in EARTHSYS 277C/COMM 277C for 4 units; Undergraduates enroll in 177C for 5 units.)

(Graduate students register for 277T. COMM 177T is offered for 5 units, COMM 277T is offered for 4 units.) This course introduces students to the process of building interactive web applications and visualizations for the news. Students will study examples from the news industry and gain proficiency in a range of technical languages, skills and tools: version control, HTML, CSS, Javascript, Python, web protocols, and web hosting and deployment. Class exercises and projects will focus on the use of these technologies to produce applications that tell a story and engage the public. Students must have basic proficiency in Python, SQL and the Unix shell.

(Graduate and coterm students must register for COMM 286. COMM 186W is only for undergraduates and is offered for 5 units, COMM 286 is offered for 4 units.) This course considers major themes in the cultural analysis of the body in relation to media technologies. How do media and information technologies shape our understanding of the body and concepts of bodily difference such as race, gender, and disability? We will explore both classic theories and recent scholarship to examine how technologies mediate the body and bodily practices in various domains, from entertainment to engineering, politics to product design.

Qualifies students to conduct communication research. Student must apply for department honors thesis program during Spring Quarter of junior year.

For students with high academic standing. May be repeated for credit.

Supervised research with a faculty member of the Department of Communication to fulfill COMM major capstone requirement. See https://comm.stanford.edu/major for prerequisites of individual COMM faculty. For permission number to enroll, email a brief research proposal including the expected number of hours per week to the prospective faculty advisor.

(Graduate students register for COMM 208. COMM 108 is offered for 5 units, COMM 208 is offered for 4 units.) The process of communication theory construction including a survey of social science paradigms and major theories of communication. Recommended: COMM 1 or PSYCH 1.

(Graduate students register for 216. COMM 116 is offered for 5 units; COMM 216 is offered for 4 units.) Laws and regulation impacting journalists. Topics include libel, privacy, news gathering, protection sources, fair trial and free press, theories of the First Amendment, and broadcast regulation. Prerequisite: Journalism M.A. student or advanced Communication major. Email instructor for permission to enroll. Preference for enrollment will be: Communication majors and co-terms, then seniors from other disciplines. Total enrollment in COMM 116/216 combined will be limited to 20. Students pursuing a degree from the COMM department as an undergraduate or Masters student must take C116/216 and for a letter grade. All other students taking the class as an elective may also elect to take the class on either a grade or S/NC basis.

(COMM 128 is offered for 5 units, COMM 228 is offered for 4 units. COMM 328 is offered for 3-5 units.)This seminar covers the intersection of politics, media and art in the U.S. from the end of the Vietnam War in 1975 to the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. Topics include globalization and financialization; the rise of the New Right; the personalization of media technology, from television to computing; postmodernism and political art; feminism, queer, and sex-positive activism; identity politics and the culture wars. Open to juniors, seniors, and graduate students.

This class takes a global perspective and historical approach to understanding digital civil society in democracies. 'Civil society' includes social movements, philanthropists, unions, nonprofits, informal associational life, individual activism, and cooperatives, among others. Students will interrogate how civil society is evolving in a world of pervasive digitization and data collection. This year's syllabus divides the class into three "clusters" of topics: Elections, Culture and Community, and Company Towns. Through these clusters we will study tech workers unionizing, digital ID systems, disinformation, voting and democracy in digital times, the human labor behind content moderation, digitization's effects on intellectual property and creativity, and community efforts to shift corporate and/or government power. Class includes guest speakers and an optional field trip.

This course examines the theory and practice of deliberative democracy and engages both in a dialogue with critics. Can a democracy which emphasizes people thinking and talking together on the basis of good information be made practical in the modern age? What kinds of distortions arise when people try to discuss politics or policy together? The course draws on ideas of deliberation from Madison and Mill to Rawls and Habermas as well as criticisms from the jury literature, from the psychology of group processes and from the most recent normative and empirical literature on deliberative forums. Deliberative Polling, its applications, defenders and critics, both normative and empirical, will provide a key case for discussion.

(Graduate students enroll in COMM 262. COMM 162 is offered for 5 units, COMM 262 is offered for 4 units.) This course examines the theory and practice of American campaigns and elections. First, we will attempt to explain the behavior of the key players -- candidates, parties, journalists, and voters -- in terms of the institutional arrangements and political incentives that confront them. Second, we will use current and recent election campaigns as "laboratories" for testing generalizations about campaign strategy and voter behavior. Third, we examine selections from the academic literature dealing with the origins of partisan identity, electoral design, and the immediate effects of campaigns on public opinion, voter turnout, and voter choice. As well, we'll explore issues of electoral reform and their more long-term consequences for governance and the political process.

Focus is on how politicians and government learn what Americans want and how the public's preferences shape government action; how surveys measure beliefs, preferences, and experiences; how poll results are criticized and interpreted; how conflict between polls is viewed by the public; how accurate surveys are and when they are accurate; how to conduct survey research to produce accurate measurements; designing questionnaires that people can understand and use comfortably; how question wording can manipulate poll results; corruption in survey research.

(Graduate students register for COMM 272. COMM 172 is offered for 5 units, COMM 272 is offered for 4 units.) The literature related to psychological processing and the effects of media. Topics: unconscious processing; picture perception; attention and memory; emotion; the physiology of processing media; person perception; pornography; consumer behavior; advanced film and television systems; and differences among reading, watching, and listening.

Learn how to find, create and analyze data to tell news stories with public service impact. Uses relational databases, advanced queries, basic statistics, and mapping to analyze data for storytelling. Assignments may include stories, blog posts, and data visualizations, with at least one in-depth project based on data analysis. Prerequisites: COMM 273D or Journalism M.A. student.

(Graduate students register for 276. COMM 176 is offered for 5 units, COMM 276 is offered for 4 units.) In-depth reporting and production using audio, images and video. Focus on an in-depth journalism project with appropriate uses of digital media: audio, photography, graphics, and video. Topics include advanced field techniques and approaches (audio, video, still) and emphasis on creating a non-fiction narrative arc in a multimedia piece of 10-12 minutes. Comm 104 or some reporting experience OR audio/video production experience. Contact instructor: jrnicol@stanford.edu

Practical, collaborative, hands-on exploration of environmental journalism as an agent of change. Students learn how to identify and execute engaging and impactful stories about environmental science, policy, and justice through critique of environmental journalism pieces and extensive workshopping of each other's work. Emphasis on a just transition to climate adaptation and mitigation through elevating marginalized voices by using the tools and practices of journalism to spur positive change. Limited class size, preference to Environmental Communication and Journalism MA students. Prerequisite: EARTHSYS 191/291, COMM 104W, or consent of instructor. Admission by application only (https://forms.gle/C84WQRqbTFtuEfM49). Email instructor Chloe Peterson-Nafziger with any questions; chloepn.biosphere@gmail.com. Meets Earth Systems WIM requirement. (Graduate students enroll in EARTHSYS 277C/COMM 277C for 4 units; Undergraduates enroll in 177C for 5 units.)

(Graduate students register for 277T. COMM 177T is offered for 5 units, COMM 277T is offered for 4 units.) This course introduces students to the process of building interactive web applications and visualizations for the news. Students will study examples from the news industry and gain proficiency in a range of technical languages, skills and tools: version control, HTML, CSS, Javascript, Python, web protocols, and web hosting and deployment. Class exercises and projects will focus on the use of these technologies to produce applications that tell a story and engage the public. Students must have basic proficiency in Python, SQL and the Unix shell.

This project-based course will explore the field of computational journalism, including the use of Data Science, Info Visualization, AI, and emerging technologies to help journalists discover and tell stories, understand their audience, advance free speech, and build trust. This course is repeatable for credit; enrollment priority given to students taking it for the first time.

(Graduate and coterm students must register for COMM 286. COMM 186W is only for undergraduates and is offered for 5 units, COMM 286 is offered for 4 units.) This course considers major themes in the cultural analysis of the body in relation to media technologies. How do media and information technologies shape our understanding of the body and concepts of bodily difference such as race, gender, and disability? We will explore both classic theories and recent scholarship to examine how technologies mediate the body and bodily practices in various domains, from entertainment to engineering, politics to product design.

MA thesis course. Focuses on development of in-depth journalism project, culminating in work of publishable quality.

Individual research for coterminal Media Studies students.

For students interested in research in political science, psychology, or communication. Methodological techniques for studying political attitudes and behaviors. May be repeated for credit.

This course offers an introduction to the practice and politics of ethnographic fieldwork. It provides a "how to" of ethnographic research, in which students will conduct an ethnographic project of their own, complemented by weekly readings and discussions. In the process, we will discuss the theory and epistemology of fieldwork, along with the practicalities and politics of fieldwork in different domains. We will examine different stages of ethnographic research (entering the field, conducting and recording fieldwork, exiting the field and writing it up), different methods (observations, interviews, "going along"), as well as distinct styles of ethnographic work (virtual ethnography, organizational ethnography, narrative ethnography, etc.). The course will serve as a participative workshop for students to exchange field notes, share practical advice, and consolidate their research interests. Email instructor for permission to enroll.

(COMM 128 is offered for 5 units, COMM 228 is offered for 4 units. COMM 328 is offered for 3-5 units.)This seminar covers the intersection of politics, media and art in the U.S. from the end of the Vietnam War in 1975 to the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. Topics include globalization and financialization; the rise of the New Right; the personalization of media technology, from television to computing; postmodernism and political art; feminism, queer, and sex-positive activism; identity politics and the culture wars. Open to juniors, seniors, and graduate students.

This course examines the theory and practice of deliberative democracy and engages both in a dialogue with critics. Can a democracy which emphasizes people thinking and talking together on the basis of good information be made practical in the modern age? What kinds of distortions arise when people try to discuss politics or policy together? The course draws on ideas of deliberation from Madison and Mill to Rawls and Habermas as well as criticisms from the jury literature, from the psychology of group processes and from the most recent normative and empirical literature on deliberative forums. Deliberative Polling, its applications, defenders and critics, both normative and empirical, will provide a key case for discussion.

Digital devices (e.g., computers, smartphones, wearables) and platforms (e.g., social media sites, forums, virtual worlds) mediate much of our daily life. Each time we use digital media for communication, information seeking, or entertainment, we leave behind psychologically revealing digital footprints. In this course, we will explore how digital footprints can be used to understand individual differences in thinking, feeling, and behaving. Class activities and assignments will require students to apply the concepts to their own research projects. Course enrollment limited to PhD-level students.

This will be a project-based course for graduate students to take a deep dive on a specific topic within media psychology. All topics will share an underlying focus on individual differences. Example topics include: describing individual differences in use of digital devices (e.g., computers, smartphones, wearables) and platforms (e.g., social media, forums, virtual worlds), explaining what may be driving such differences (e.g., psychological factors, contextual factors), applying and developing methodological approaches for understanding and assessing mediated personalities, and exploring applications of psychologically tailoring media to peoples characteristics and contexts. Students will work collaboratively with the instructor and other students in the course to produce a novel work by the end of the quarter.

This course presents a selection of influential ways of thinking about culture, media, technology, and institutions in contemporary societies. It is organized around different disciplinary and methodological traditions, including symbolic interactionism, Foucault, Bourdieu, feminist theory, neo-institutionalism, the sociology of translation, the e/valuation perspective, and racial capitalism, with a specific focus on how these concepts shed light on the interplay between media, culture, and institutions.

Combined with LAW 7036 (formerly Law 577). This course is intended to give students a basic understanding of the themes in the legal regulation of elections and politics. We will cover all the major Supreme Court cases on topics of voting rights, reapportionment/redistricting, ballot access, regulation of political parties, campaign finance, and the 2000 presidential election controversy. The course pays particular attention to competing political philosophies and empirical assumptions that underlie the Court's reasoning while still focusing on the cases as litigation tools used to serve political ends. Elements used in grading: Class participation and one day take home final exam. (POLISCI 327C; LAW 577)

Internet platforms like Google and Facebook play an enormous role in our online speech and information environment today. This class will review the laws that shape platforms' decisions about online content, with a primary focus on intermediary liability laws like the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), Communications Decency Act Section 230 (CDA 230), and the EU's eCommerce Directive. The majority of course material will be from the U.S., but some will explore international models and in particular laws in the European Union. Some classes will explore the impact of related areas of law, including privacy law, and some will go beyond current legal models to explore forward-looking legislative and policy proposals. Important themes of the class include Constitutional and human rights constraints on intermediary liability laws; legal limits (or lack thereof) on platforms' enforcement of privatized speech rules under their Community Guidelines or Terms of Service; global enforcement of national laws requiring platforms to remove content; and tensions between the goals of intermediary liability law and those of privacy, competition, and other legal frameworks. Students will be encouraged to think pragmatically about the legal, operational, and product design choices platforms may make in response to particular laws, drawing on the instructor's experience handling such questions as Associate General Counsel at Google. Students will be responsible for (1) posting six reading response comments or questions to a class discussion board (these are due before class meets on six class days of your choice, they can be very brief and informal); (2) participating in class discussion, potentially including discussion of points raised in your written questions; and (3) completing a final examination.