As you recall, COMS 441 pursues the four objectives:
[] to understand key researchers and to appreciate the intellectual traditions within the Critical Theory and the Cultural Studies domains of communication research.
[] to develop a sense of the historical contexts (social, economic, and political) that made certain questions interesting to researchers.
[] to develop a sense of how these questions were answered, i.e., what satisfied the requirements for validity and reliability.
[] to develop the ability to pose a researchable communication question and to frame an answer in the intellectual tradition employed.
Accordingly, the final examination will test your grasp of "significant details" and understanding of the "big picture." Part I of the exam asks you to answer forty multiple-choice questions geared to identifying and explaining concepts, and Part II asks you to write ONE essay developing one of the perspectives we have studied. DOUBLE SPACE your essay.
This part asks you to answer forty multiple choice question questions geared to identifying and explaining the important concepts we studied in the course, with a view to identifying the best answer. Record your answers to the questions in the answer booklet, e.g., 1 (c), 2 (b), 3 (d), and so on.
Some examples: code, connotative sign, consumer capitalism, discourse, the ethnographic turn, genre, hyperspace, ideology, iconic sign, interpretive community, the narrative turn, negotiated code, nostalgia, the postmodern dilemma, and the social role story telling plays.
This part asks you to choose ONE statement from a list of four statements--they represent the central features of some of the Critical Theory and Cultural Studies approaches or perspectives we studied--and in an ESSAY of about 400 words expand it, adding the details as well as the examples you deem important. Imagine that you are a researcher working in this tradition, explaining the representative research to a student who will be taking COMS 441 next term. Base your response on at least two of the papers we read in Gray and McGuigan (1997). Be sure to formulate a sample research question and to outline the appropriate theoretical framework and analytical technique(s).
Example:
From a symbolic interactionist perspective, we can say that communication is the process of producing the world, that is, doing "symbolic" work and then taking up residence in the symbolic environment that we have created. We human beings are social world makers. We constantly tell stories about our pasts, presents, and futures, and (and this is important) we do so together, "writing" the story of the world around us: its times, places, plots, and so on. We tell stories and make meanings, constructing ourselves and the world around us.
Study the texts we read, as well as the notes I've circulated/posted on the COMS 441 web site, with an eye to identifying and explaining key statements and concepts upon which the researchers build their arguments.
After you have sifted through the texts we have studied as well as your notes, step back and reflect on the concerns which run through the texts. For example, you may well realise that many of the figures we studied examine aspects of the following theme: The cultural, the economic, and the political are entangled. Raymond Williams, Stuart Hall, Erica Carter, and Fredric Jameson help us understand the dynamics of this relationship. For example, Carter (1984) uncovers the ways in which people--especially girls and women--live out the contradictions of their lives via a culture of consumption (p. 119). Comparing and contrasting the texts in terms of such themes enables you to see "the big picture."
Remember: The exam will be held in MFH 164 on December 16th from 8:00-10:00 am. Good luck!