COM-126 is a communications survey course covering mass media, culture, and society. The course focuses on how and why U.S. media operate as they do, as well as on how media performance might be improved, with outcomes including analyzing the interrelationship of media and culture, creating multimedia presentations, and researching communication using popular and scholarly tools.
How and why U.S. media operate as they do
The course examines the structural, economic, and cultural forces that shape how U.S. mass media actually functions, moving beyond surface description into genuine explanation of media behavior.
Evaluating and improving media performance
COM-126 doesn't stop at description — it asks students to critically evaluate media performance and consider how it might be improved, treating media criticism as an active, evaluative skill rather than passive consumption.
Key topics in COM126
- Mass media's relationship to culture and society
- Structural and economic forces shaping U.S. media
- Analyzing media and cultural trends
- Creating multimedia presentations
- Researching communication using scholarly and popular sources
- Evaluating and critiquing media performance
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Worked example: explaining, not just describing, media behavior
- Surface description: Observing that certain stories receive more media coverage than others
- Structural explanation: Understanding the economic and organizational incentives that drive that coverage pattern
- Lesson: COM-126 teaches that genuine media literacy requires this deeper structural understanding, not just noticing patterns
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Frequently asked questions
Simply cataloging media content doesn't explain why certain stories, formats, or narratives dominate while others don't, but understanding the economic incentives (advertising revenue, audience attention), organizational structures, and cultural forces that actually shape media production reveals the deeper logic behind media behavior. COM-126 emphasizes this explanatory depth because genuine media literacy requires understanding these underlying forces, not just recognizing surface-level media patterns.
COM-126 focuses specifically on mass media's role in culture and society — analyzing how media institutions like broadcasting, journalism, and mass entertainment shape and are shaped by cultural forces — while COM-127 covers communication more broadly within business and organizational contexts, tracing the communication profession's development and applying communication theory to workplace scenarios. A student might take both to gain a complete picture of communication spanning both mass-media and organizational contexts.