American Government is designed to meet the scope and sequence requirements of the single-semester American government course. This title includes innovative features designed to enhance student learning, including Insider Perspective features and a Get Connected Module that shows students how they can get engaged in the political process. The book provides an important opportunity for students to learn the core concepts of American government and understand how those concepts apply to their lives and the world around them. American Government includes updated information on the 2016 presidential election.Senior Contributing AuthorsGlen Krutz (Content Lead), University of OklahomaSylvie Waskiewicz, PhD (Lead Editor)

In this course students will become familiar with the history, current industry practices, and controversies involved in the mainstream mass media (newspapers, magazines, books, radio, television, film, recordings, and the Internet), their information and persuasion industries (news, advertising and public relations) and media issues (including impact, legal, and ethical issues).

In doing so, students will come to understand the relationships among the history of the media, their current industry practices, and the controversies that arise from these practices. A series of reading assignments, lectures, discussions (online, groups, pods) make up the course material. You are expected to read the assigned material before class and bring any questions or items for discussion. Following that discussion, we will explore areas in class that are beyond the readings.

This class is a survey of the mass media, including newspapers, magazines, television, radio, book publishing, music publishing, motion pictures and advertising and how all of those have been affected by the development of the Internet. This course emphasizes the history and structural biases of the mass media, and encourages students to critically analyze the role of media in society, and to become media literate.

This new publication by UNESCO is a timely resource and highly topical subject for all those who practice or teach journalism in this Digital Age. UNESCO's new handbook is an essential addition to teaching syllabi for all journalism educators, as well as practising journalists and editors who are interested in information, how we share it and how we use it. It is mission critical that those who practice journalism understand and report on the new threats to trusted information. Political parties, health professionals, business people, scientists, election monitors and others will also find the handbook useful in navigating the information disorder. Written by experts in the fight against disinformation, this handbook explores the very nature of journalism - with modules on why trust matters; thinking critically about how digital technology and social platforms are conduits of the information disorder; fighting back against disinformation and misinformation through media and information literacy; fact-checking 101; social media verification and combating online abuse. The seven individual modules are available online to download that enables readers to develop their own course relevant to their media environment.
This handbook is also useful for the library and information science professionals, students, and LIS educators for understanding the different dimensions of fake news and disinformation.

Table of Contents
Module One | Truth, Trust and Journalism: Why it Matters | by Cherilyn Ireton
Module Two | Thinking about "Information Disorder": Formats of Misinformation, Disinformation and Mal-Information | by Claire Wardle & Hossein Derakshan
Module Three | News Industry Transformation: Digital Technology, Social Platforms and the Spread of Misinformation and Disinformation |by Julie Posetti
Module Four | Combatting Disinformation and Misinformation Through Media and Information Literacy (MIL) | by Magda Abu-Fadil
Module Five | Fact-Checking 101 | by Alexios Mantzarlis
Module Six | Social Media Verification: Assessing Sources and Visual Content | by Tom Trewinnard and Fergus Bell
Module Seven | Combatting Online Abuse: When Journalists and Their Sources are Targeted | by Julie Posetti

Additional Resources: https://en.unesco.org/fightfakenews

This course examines the nature of attitudes, beliefs, and values, and the influences which indiviudals' attitudes have upon their behavior. Various theories of attitude organization and attitude change are discussed, and the development of social attitudes is explored by examining the differential impact of the family, the educational system, the mass media, and the general social environment. The changing content of public opinion over time and its relationship to the political system are also discussed.

Seminar explores approaches to representation for very distributed cinematic storytelling. The relationship between story creation and story appreciation is analyzed. Readings are drawn from literary, cinematic criticism, as well as from artist's descriptions of interactive, distributed works. Students analyze a range of storytelling techniques, develop a previsualization, story construction, or audience participation model. Individual or group final projects.

Survey of the history, industry practices, and controversies involved in the media of mass communication. Mainstream mass media of books, newspapers, magazines, film, radio, recordings, television, and the Internet. Analysis of news, entertainment, advertising, and public relations strategies, as well as media impact, legal issues, and ethics.

Analysis and discussion of ethical issues related to television, Radio and Emerging Media. Case histories and role playing provide value judgments concerning entertainment, information, and advertising functions of mass media.

This course is the same as Philosophy 3319.
This course is the same as Television, Radio and Emerging Media 3223.

In-depth industrial and cultural historical overview of the development of electronic mass communication. Historical and legal approaches and methods.

This course provides an in-depth look at the main critical and theoretical approaches to studying television in particular, and the mass media in general. Students will learn the key concepts of theoretical approaches such as semiotics, ideological analysis, narrative theory, audience studies, psychoanalysis, feminism, and cultural studies and will learn how to use these theories to understand and critically analyze media texts, industries, audiences, and institutions. This is a writing-intensive course, and we will pay considerable attention to the process of researching, writing, and editing critical essays.

Understanding Media and Culture: An Introduction to Mass Communication was written to squarely emphasize media technology. Jack believes that an introduction to mass communication text should be a compelling, historical narrative sketching the *ongoing evolution* of media technology and how that technology shapes and is shaped by culture — and that is what he set out to deliver with his new textbook.

Today’s students are immersed in media technology. They live in a world of cell phones, smart phones, video games, iPods, laptops, Facebook, Twitter, FourSquare, and more. They fully expect that new technology will be developed tomorrow. Yet students often lack an historical perspective on media technology. They lack knowledge of the social, political and economic forces that shape media technology. This is not knowledge for knowledge’s sake. It is knowledge that can help them understand, comprehend, appreciate, anticipate, shape and control media technology.

With this focus, Understanding Media and Culture becomes an appropriate title. Indeed, the title has particular significance. Marshall McLuhan’s Understanding Media is a key text in media studies. Written in the 1960s, Understanding Media was the subject of intense debates that continue to this day. Its central message was that the technology of media — not their content — was their most important feature. In a typically pithy phrase, McLuhan said, ”The medium is the message.“ The title, Understanding Media and Culture: An Introduction to Mass Communication, situates the introductory text in a large, engrossing theoretical conversation.

The goal is to adopt a textbook that will support and complement your teaching of this course. Jack Lule’s, Understanding Media and Culture: An Introduction to Mass Communication, will support an engaging and interesting course experience for students that will not only show them the powerful social, political and economic forces will affect the future of media technology, but will challenge students to do their part in shaping that future.