Escaping the Zoo! Exploring Personal World Views and Other “Natural” Aspects of Culture

Courses: Intercultural Communication, Communication and Diversity

Objectives: This activity is designed to help students better understand the concept of world views in everyday life. It also provides an understanding of how world views may be connected to values, norms, and ethnocentrism in very personal and direct ways. Finally, it helps students to understand the cultural nature of what is often seen as simply a natural fact of life.     

Exploring diversity through dialogue: avowed and ascribed identities

Courses: Intercultural Communication, Conflict and Communication, Interpersonal Communication

Objectives: After completing this single-class activity, students should be able to (1) differentiate between the avowed versus ascribed dimensions of cultural identity construction; (2) articulate the contested nature of cultural identity, including how cultural stereotypes guide perceptions of the Other; and (3) demonstrate tolerance through active and supportive listening to facilitate a nuanced appreciation of cultural diversity.     

Exploring Cultural Identities: Renewing the Family Interview Assignment

Objectives: Through an examination of their cultural and familial histories, students will develop an awareness of how they are situated within the socio-cultural landscape of the US and the global village. Students will identify how family histories assist in their construction of cultural identities.

Courses: Intercultural Communication and Family Communication     

Encountering my privilege (and others’ oppression)

ABSTRACT

Courses: Communication and Diversity, Intercultural Communication, Gender Communication

Objectives: After completing this semester-long activity, students should be able to (1) articulate a systems-of-oppression (privilege←→oppression) approach to thinking about difference; (2) confront and “interact differently” with one social identity category where they have privilege; and (3) explain the corresponding form of oppression at individual, institutional, and societal/cultural levels.     

Using Barbie Stories To Develop An Understanding of Polysemy and Encoding/Decoding

Courses: Media Studies, Gender and Communication, Communication Research Methodologies

Objectives: Students will develop a complex understanding of the critical/cultural media studies concepts of “polysemy” and “encoding/decoding” used in audience research and apply their knowledge of these theories in writing.     

Connecting with What Is Out There!: Using Twitter in the Large Lecture

Objectives: Students and teachers will develop both practical skills and theoretical/cultural understanding with regards to how Twitter can be used to present ideas and create dialogue between individuals and communities within and outside the classroom.

Course(s): Primarily, this student engagement method can be used in any large lecture class (e.g., Introduction to Mass Communication, Introduction to Communication Studies). However, such methods can be used for any course where frequent and short communications are required and/or encouraged between members of the class.     

Katz and Aakhus’ Theory of Apparatgeist: Students’ Perceptions of Normative and Non-normative Behaviors for Technology Use

Course: This activity was used in an upper-level, undergraduate, special topics course entitled “Issues in Mobile Communication.” However, the activity could also be used in undergraduate courses relating to mediated communication, interpersonal communication and communication theory

Objectives: The purpose of this activity is to increase students’ awareness of how norms for mobile communication technology use are established     

Star gazing: Transing gender communication

ABSTRACT

This activity implores students and pedagogues to engage intrapersonal gender subjectivity through the analytic practice of transing gender communication. Specifically, Yep, Russo, and Allen (Pushing boundaries: Toward the development of a model for transing communication in (inter)cultural contexts. In L. G. Spencer & J. C. Capuzza (Eds.), Transgender communication studies: Histories, trends, and trajectories. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2015, pp. 69–89) suggest gender is best understood as: (1) intersectional, (2) a performative and administrative accomplishment, (3) multiple, and (4) self-determined. Students are asked to analyze their gender sense of self through each of the pillars in a hands-on creative activity. The end result is a means of narrating one’s own gender in relational tension with other gender subjectivities.

Courses: Interpersonal Communication, Intercultural Communication, Gender and Communication, Performance Studies

Objectives: Designed to accompany a sustained conversation on questions of gender and communication, this unit- or semester-long activity imparts a critical approach to gender understanding through one’s own subjective gender experience by engaging the analytic work of “transing” (Stryker, Currah, & Moore, Introduction: Trans-, trans, or transgender? WSQ: Women’s Studies Quarterly, 2008;36(3–4):13). Further, the activity equips students with a working understanding of trans-affirming discourse including the critical capacity to de-center normative gender through lived experience. Finally, students are provided a space in which to explore and voice, through creative means, their own gender “galaxy” (Yep, Russo, & Allen, Pushing boundaries: Toward the development of a model for transing communication in (inter)cultural contexts. In L. G. Spencer & J. C. Capuzza (Eds.), Transgender communication studies: Histories, trends, and trajectories. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2015, p. 70).     

Communications For Developing Nations

Charlotte Dietrich, Der Rundfunk in Afrika An fang der Siebziger Jahre: Strukturen and Daten (Broadcasting in Africa in the Early Seventies: Structures and Data) (Department of Mass Communication, University of Salzburg, Sigmund Haffner Gasse 18, A-5020 Salzburg, Austria---$5.00, paper, plus cost of shipping)

Communication Policy and Planning for Development: A Selected Annotated Bibliography by Syed A. Rahim (285 pp., October 1976, price not given, paper)

An Overview of Communication Research in Asia: Status, Problems and Needs by Gloria D. Feliciano (20 pp., June 1973, on request, paper)

Mass Media Use and the “Revolution of Rising Frustrations:” A Reconsideration of the Theory by Robert C. Hornik (27 pp., July 1974, on request, paper)

Communication and Development in China (Communication Monograph No. 1), by Godwin Chu, et al. (116 pp., September 1976, price not given, paper)

Communication in the Pacific, edited by Daniel Lerner and Jim Richstad (96 pp., June 1976, price not given paper)

The Use of Radio in Adult Literacy Education, by Richard C. Burke (116 pp., £1.50 or about $2.40, paper)

Programmed Instruction for Literacy Workers, by Sivasailam Thiagarajan (136 pp., £1.95 or about $3.12, paper)

Mass Communication in Malaysia, compiled by Lim Huck Tee and V.V. Sarachandran (91 pp., 1975, 12 Singapore dollars outside Asia)

Mass Communication in India, compiled at the Indian Institute of Mass Communication (216 pp., 1976, 18 Singapore dollars outside Asia)     

Cultural identity forum: Enacting the self-awareness imperative in intercultural communication

Courses: Intercultural Communication; any course with an intercultural communication unit.

Objectives: Students will demonstrate the self-awareness imperative in intercultural communication, explore their own cultural identities, and reflect on others cultural identities in order to build their intercultural communication competence.     

Clothes Make the Person? Performing Gender Through Fashion

Objectives: Students will: (1) think critically about how they perform gender through clothing choices and (2) recognize how different cultures define masculinity and femininity

Courses: Communication Theory, Gender and Communication, Popular Communication, Rhetorical Theory, Visual Rhetoric     

General Communications

Brent D. Ruben, ed. Communication Yearbook 2 (New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Books (Rutgers), 1978---$24.95)

Eric A. Havelock and Jackson P. Hershbell, eds. Communication Arts in the Ancient World (New York: Hastings House, J978---$12.50)

Kit Laybourne and Pauline Cianciolo's Doing the Media (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1978---$6.95, paper, with both library and trade hardbacks also available)

Periodicals: just begun under the (temporary) auspices of the Institute of Communication Research (122B Armory, University of Illinois, Champaign, Ill. 61820)

Warren K. Agee, Phillip H. Ault, and Edwin Emery's Introduction to Mass Communications (New York: Harper & Row, 1979---$7.95, paper)

Godwin C. Chu and Brent Cassan, Modern Communication Technology in a Changing Society: A Bibliography (1977, 162 pp., $1.50)

Syed A. Rahim, et al. Planning Methods, Models, and Organization: A Review Study for Communication Policy Making and Planning (1978, 260 pp., $3.00):     

Gender on the box: Self-reflexivity as a starting point

This self-reflexive activity acts as an introduction to how we talk about and express gender identity, as well as the assumptions we may have about gender identity norms and expression. The activity illuminates student’s subconscious behaviors and understandings of gender, pushing them to sit self-reflexively with their own understandings of gender as an identity, expression, binary, and potential locus of shame/freedom.

Courses: Introduction to Women and Gender Studies, Intercultural Communication, Media Studies, Gender and Communication, Performance Studies

Objectives: Designed to introduce students to their own understandings and embodiment of gender, this activity asks students to be honest about their preconceived notions regarding gender that they bring with them into the classroom. The activity utilizes predesigned components that test students’ subconscious knowledge of the gender binary. This is a one-time activity that can be conducted in one 50- or 75-minute class period.     

Was that logical? Demonstrating decision-making constraints in the contemporary workplace environment

Courses: Organizational Communication, Small Group Communication, Organizational Decision-making, and Communication Technology.

Objective: The objectives of this activity are twofold: (1) to engage students in the practice of small-group decision making bounded by temporal, situational, and cognitive constraints; and (2) to demonstrate how these constraints influence the success of small-group decision making by facilitating logical, illogical, or analogical reasoning.     

“Listening is an act of love”: Learning listening through StoryCorps

Courses: Interpersonal Communication, Basic Survey Course, Group Communication, Organizational Communication, Intercultural Communication, Listening, Family Communication, Interviewing, Business and Professional Communication.

Objectives: After completing this single class activity, students will be able to: (a) define listening; (b) identify listening as a top skill employers desire; (c) explain how listening may be perceived as an act of love; and (d) critically assess ways in which their listening behaviors may be improved.     

Foreign and International Communication

Approaches to Communication Planning edited by John Middleton (1980, 300 pp.)

Communication Planning for Development: An Operational Framework by Alan Hancock (1981, 198 pp.)

Impact of Modern Communication Technology I: Australia, by Chris Duke (n.d., 122 pp.)

Impact of Modern Communication Technology II: Indonesia (n.d., 72 pp)

Flow of News in the Gulf, by Phil Harris, et al. (n.d., 70 pp.)

Protection of Journalists (no author, n.d., but 142 pp.)

82. The Book in Multilingual Countries by Abul Masan (1978, 40 pp.)

83. National Communication Polic Councils: Principles and Experiences by M.A. Rodrigues Dias, et al. (1979. 44 pp.)

84. Mass Media: The Image, Role, and Social Conditions of Women: A Collection and Analysis of Research Materials (1979, 78 pp.)

85. News Values and Principles of Cross-Cultural Communication (1980, 51 pp.)

(86) Special Issue: Mass Media Codes of Ethics and Councils: A Comprehensive International Study on Professional Standards by J. Clement Jones (1980, 80 pp.)

87. Communication in the Community (this title not yet seen)

88. Rural Journalism in Africa by Paul Ansah, et al. (1981, 35 pp.)

89. The SACl/EXERN Project in Brazil: An Analytical Case Study by Emile G. Mc- Anany et al. (1981, 46 pp.)

90. Community Communications: The Role of Community Media in Development by Frances Berrigan (1981, 50 pp.)

1. Historical Development of Media Systems–Japan by Shinichi Ito, et al. (1979, 69 pp.)

2. Historical Development of Media Systems–German Democratic Republic by Emil Dusiska (1979, 35 pp.)

3. Communication Indicators I: Communication Indicators and Indicators of Socio-Economic Development by Rita Cruise O'Brien, et al. (1979, 96 pp.)

4. Communication Indicators II: 100 Years of Mass Communication in Germany by Anton Galli, et al. (1979, 28 pp.)

5. Sccio-Economic and CommunicatioA Indicators in Development Planning: A Case Study of Iran by Majid Tehranian (n.d., 126 pp.)

6. Communication Methods to Promote Grass-Roots Participation by Jeremiah O'Sullivan-Ryan (n.d., 155 pp.)

7. Importation of Films for Cinema and Television in Egypt by Gehan Rachty (n.d., 77 pp.)

Reporting of International News and Roles of the Gatekeepers (1980) is a summary of two late 1979 meetings on the subject in Paris. (18 pp.)

Intergovernmental Conference on Communication Policies in Africa (1981, 81 pp. plus 47 page working paper for same meeting)

Intergovernmental Conference for Co-operation on Activities, Needs and Programmes for Communication Development (1980, 65 pp. plus 32 page working paper)

List of Documents and Publications in the Field of Mass Communication 1979 (no. 5 in the series, 1980, 187 pp.)

Mass Media and the Transnational Corporation by Basskaran Nair (Singapore: Singapore University Press, 1980—$12.50/7.50)

Mass Media and National Cultures, by the International Association for Mass Communication Research (Leicester, U.K.: Adam Bros., and Shardlow Ltd., 1980—price not known, paper)

Organisations Internationales et Regionales de Journalistes [International and Regional Organizations of Journalists] (Prague: International Organization of Journalists, 1980—price, if any, not given, paper)

Bruce L. Cook, Understanding Pictures in Papua New Guinea (David C. Cook Foundation, Cook Square, Elgin, Ill. 60120—$8.95, paper)

Paul Lendvai, The Bureaucracy of Truth: How Communist Governments Manage the News (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1981—$24.75)     

Other Foreign Media

John A. Lent's Asian Mass Communications: A Comprehensive Bibliography (Philadelphia: Temple University School of Communications and Theater, 1975---$44.00, paper with spiral binding)

H.Edward English (ed.) Telecommunications for Canada: An Interface of Business and Government (Toronto: Methuen, 1973---price not known)

Television Advertising Conditions in Europe

Communication Policies in Ireland, by John Stapleton (1974, 73 pages, $3.95, paper)

Communication Policies in Hungary, by Tamas Szecsko and Gabor Fodor (1974, 58 pages, $3.30, paper)

Communication Policies in the Federal Republic of Germany, by Walter A. Mahle and Rolf Richter (1974, 86 pages, $4.95, paper)

Communication Policies in Sweden, by Lars Furhoff, Lennart Jonsson, and Lennart Nilsson (1974, 76 pages, $4.65, paper)     

Metaphorically Examining Organizational Communication: A Student's Perspective

Courses: Organizational Communication (assignment can be adapted easily for other theory courses, such as Interpersonal Communication, Rhetorical Theory, Communication Theory, or Persuasion)

Objectives: Students who successfully complete this assignment will be able to analyze critically and describe creatively an organizational concept or theory.     

International Communication

Gertrude Joch Robinson, News Agencies and World News in Canada, the United States and Yugoslavia: Methods and Data (Institute for Journalism and Mass Communication Research, University of Fribourg, Fribourg, Switzerland 1981—price not given, paper)

Uplink: The Newsletter of the Rural Satellite Program (AID Rural Satellite Program, Academy for Educational Development, 1414 22nd St. NW, Washington, D.C. 20037—free on request/quarterly)

Thesaurus of Development Communication (Clearinghouse on Development Communication, 1414 22nd St. NW, Washington, D.C. 20037—$4.00, paper)

William E. McCavitt's Broadcasting Around the World (Blue Ridge Summit, Pa.: TAB Books, 1981—$22.95)

Judith Budd, Register of Current British Research on Mass Media and Mass Communication: December 1980 (Leicester Documentation Centre for Mass Communication Research, Centre for Mass Communication Research, University of Leicester, 104 Regent Rd., Leicester LEI 7LT, United Kingdom—price not given, paper)

Peter Calvocoressi, Freedom to Publish (Humanities Press, Atlantic Highlands, N.J. 07716—$15.50, paper)