Communication

This course explores the contemporary host culture through the lenses of intercultural studies. It covers current cultural, societal, and political themes in the host city, compares ethnic and racial identities in the host country and the United States., and explores the experiences of diverse populations within the host country. The course examines the complexity of host culture values, beliefs, and practices and how to identify the cultural differences and similarities between the host culture and U.S. American cultures. It also discusses key intercultural communication theories, frameworks, and leadership practices in order to deepen cultural self-awareness, acquire new perspectives, and effectively communicate and interact with culturally diverse populations.

The course examines Seoul, deploying a palimpsest as a heuristic device, exploring the layering of buildings and paved roads and bridges, as well as the history of those who lived in the different urban spaces over time. Through accretion, these layers create both a complex and vibrant story that remains only visible in a contemporary form where the old still bleeds through the layers of traces that partially remain. Particular attention is given to a wide variety of digitally mediated narrative practices (e.g., Naver blogging, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, etc.) and the institutions that control these technologies. The course looks at the many facets of this diverse and dispersed digital ecosphere where just about anyone with access to a computer or mobile device can integrate digital images, social media, recorded audio narration, video clips, and music alongside a range of delivery channels with meta-information (e.g., hashtags, rankings, and comments by users) to reach a broad audience. This course illustrates how such sites are layered with many significations and complicated histories. It intends to offer a more compelling narrative of Seoul, not merely as a “republic of apartments,” but a place of crucial bearers of cultural memories and a vast archive of stories of a given group’s past.

This course is an introduction to the basic content of strategic communication of various organizations (local, global, business, social) in China. Based on the theoretical viewpoints and constituent elements in the fields of strategic management, public relations, organizational communication and marketing communication, this course introduces the core ideas, viewpoints, components, subject nature of the new research direction of strategic communication, and emphasizes its development in China.

This course critically examines advertising, exploring its effects on our notions of society and self within the context of larger economic, social, political, and global shifts. Beginning with an overview of the development of advertising, the course introduces a methodological framework for understanding how advertisements create meaning, and then explores how such meanings interact with, and impact upon, the culture at large.

This course introduces "open" tools and methods for processing and visualizing data types such as structured data, text data, and temporal data. It discusses the opportunities and challenges in relation to working with large amounts of data, including ethical conditions regarding data acquisition, storage, aggregation, publication, and use. The course applies theories and concepts to define and analyze issues relating to large amounts of data. Students learn to develop solutions for retrieval and sorting structured and unstructured data, as well as process and represent data visually. The course largely involves hands-on cases working with relevant data sets, including an introduction to the language Python and the use of Python for data analysis such as text mining and sentiment analysis. It also introduces the principles behind FAIR data and explores ethical issues when working with open data.

To what extent do stereotypes and prejudices affect the way we read and interpret news? How is wrong or inaccurate information conveyed, and how can we detect and contrast it? Is fake news a novelty of our time? This course examines the characteristics of the contemporary Italian media landscape in the light of some specific cultural traits of the country: attachment to family, distrust of institutional power, the influence (now in decline) of the Catholic Church, and the low propensity to read books and newspapers. The course analyzes historical moments where information, disinformation, and counter-information are closely intertwined, including the rumors after the fire of Rome under Nero; the anonymous epigrams of Pasquino and other "talking statues" in the 16th century as a reaction to papal censorship; the cause célèbre around a child, Edgardo Mortara, stolen in the mid-19th century from his Jewish family by the papal state; and will include moments from the last decades. The topics covered include the era of "Hollywood on the Tiber"; the media coverage of two cases between Italy and the US; the Islamophobia phenomenon; the long silence on the Italian colonial past finally broken thanks to Black Lives Matter protests; the controversies on vaccines; and the memes and the conspiracy theories related to the pandemic. Students research, discuss, and edit and produce texts, images, and audio and video materials on each topic within a simulated newsroom.

This course considers the unique aspects of Italian media and how it impacts and influences everything from cultural heritage to politics. Students explore Italy's eccentric media characters, from right-wing Matteo Salvini and chauvinistic Silvio Berlusconi to the tweeting, headline-making Pope, and consider how seriously Italians take what they get from the press. This course explores the historical development of Italian media from the "Acta Diurna" bulletins sent from the Roman Forum through phases of Fascism and national terrorism, all the way to the digital age. Students play documentarian by following the media treatment of an Italian news topic of their choice, ranging from culture, fashion, or food to gay rights, climate change, politics, or the economy, in order to fully understand how the media shapes public perception and vice versa. Topics include the media treatment of the Vatican, the Mafia, gender issues and sexism, fashion, food, cultural heritage, and the economy. Students also consider how Italy stacks up against media in the United States and the United Kingdom in terms of press freedom, transparency, and infotainment (the melding of news and entertainment).