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School of English & Cultural Studies

Winter 2018
Tuesday 7pm-9:50pm
Sprouse Hall, room 201

ENG*2333 (0.5 credit)

Canadian English Culture:
The Medium and the Messenger: Media Studies and McLuhan in the 21st
Century

THE TRANSMEDIUM IS THE MESSAGE 25%

Using the theory of synecdoche, create a transmedia story to relate McLuhans writings
to your life using the internet. With the camera equipment of your choice, create a short
(2 minutes max), autobiographical video work. Make sure your transmedia work
includes a narrative, cuts (rather than one continuous shot), and some sort of sound
(voiceover/dialogue).
There are three phases to this project:
(1) narrative writing, script, storyboard, and/or other materials that reveal your creative
process; 10%
(2) a rough cut of your transmedia story; 5%
(3) a short, written reflection (500 words); 10%.
(applies to Learning Outcome i, ii, iii)
REFLECTIVE ZINE 25%
Throughout the semester, prompts will be periodically provided in class for students to
write/create a demonstration of critical thinking and self-reflection. Students are
encouraged, a la McLuhans The Medium is the Massage, to demonstrate their
understanding of remixing, mash-ups, intertextuality, and bricolage by making their
journal into a personal zine. Zine will be collected mid-semester to check progress, and
can be discussed at any time (during office hours) for feedback on improvements.
A total of nine prompts should be submitted.
(applies to Learning Outcome i, iii)
SEMIOTICS OF SELF 25%
McLuhan insists that media are powerful because they are extensions of ourselves. This
assignment asks you to engage in a media ecological discussion, by picking a SINGLE
symbol (brand, company, corporation, network, celebrity, emoji, the list goes on) and
analyzing its significance in its relation to your own selfhood. Your analysis should
engage the methods and language of semiotics.
(applies to Learning Outcome i, iii)
FINAL EXAM 25%

Course-specific
Learning Outcomes
Apply new digital literacy
skills and existing digital
competencies to advance
scholarship through
analysis, creation, and
criticism of various types
of media.
Demonstrate creativity,
integrity and self-
reflexivity by creating
works of transmedia.
Evaluate personal beliefs
vs. credibility from media
sources by researching in
ways that prevent bias and
seek to look at perspectives
other than their own.
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Teaching and Learning Assessment Methods
Activities
- Semiotics SEMIOTICS OF SELF
Workshop: the class 25%
becomes a question Analysis should engage the
period after the methods and language of
lecture on semiotics.
Semiotics.
-
- Process is split into THE TRANSMEDIUM
three steps, all due IS THE MESSAGE
at different times to Assignment 25%
assess students Students create transmedia
understanding of films in three stages:
i) creative process,
ii) rough transmedia (1) narrative writing,
video & iii) script, storyboard, and/or
reflective writing. other materials that reveal
- Group discussion to your creative process; 10%
be held after (2) a rough cut of your
creating films to transmedia story; 5%
discuss what (3) a short, written
techniques were reflection; 10%
discovered and their
outcomes, allowing
students to learn
from each other.
- Prompts provided REFLECTIVE ZINE
in class each week 25%
encourage students On select weeks, prompts
to reflect on what will be provided in class for
they have learned. students to write/create a
- Ongoing learning demonstration of critical
- Students hand in thinking and self-
their prompts mid- reflection. Zine will be
semester to collected mid-semester to
encourage them to check progress, and can be
write, explore and discussed at any time
critique their own (during office hours) for
practice of media. feedback.
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Week One Introduction to the Course

Pre-Reading: McLuhan, Marshall and Quentin Fiore. The Medium is the Massage
Zine Prompt: How do we use technology? How does technology use us?

Week Two Historical Perspectives on Digital Etiquette

Read: McLuhan, Chapter 4 - The Gadget Lover: Narcissus as Narcosis
(Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man)
Zine Prompt: What is your personal relationship to technology?

Week Three Technological Nostalgia and the Death of Print

Read: McLuhan, Chapter 1 The Medium is the Message, Chapter 2 Media Hot
and Cold, Chapter 3 Reversal of Overheated Medium, Chapter 5 Hybrid Energy,
Chapter 6 Media as Translators, Chapter 9 Written Word, Chapter 21 Press
Zine Prompt: How does the digital experience of reading & writing differ from print?
*Transmedium Creative Process due

Week Four Unintended Consequences and Domestic Technology

Read: McLuhan, Chapter 12 Clothing, Chapter 13 Housing Chapter 26
Typewriter
Zine Prompt: Have you ever experienced an unintended consequence of personal
technology?
* Transmedium Rough Cut due

Week Five Visual Culture, Image & the Body: Photo, Film, Reality T.V.
Read: McLuhan, Chapter 16 The Print, Chapter 17 Comics, Chapter 20
Photograph, Chapter 23 Ads, Chapter 29 Movies, Chapter 31 Television
Zine Prompt: Must TV, comics, ads, movies and/or photographs have a conscience?
Group Discussion: Transmedia Techniques

Week Six Personal and Public Safety, Technology and Film

Read: McLuhan, Chapter 8 Spoken Word, Chapter 14 Money, Chapter 15
Clocks, Chapter 25 Telegraph, Chapter 27 Telephone, Chapter 28
Phonograph, Chapter 30 Radio
*Zine due for Mid-term Check-In
*Transmedium Reflection due

Week Seven Politics, Privacy and Public Space: Surveillance Society

McLuhan, Chapter 10 Roads, Chapter 19 - Wheel, Bicycle & Airplane, Chapter 22
Motorcar, Chapter 24 Games
Zine Prompt: Discuss the balance between personal risk and regulation around
personal technology.

Week Eight Semiotics Workshop

Group Discussion: What is semiotics? How does one write a semiotic
analysis? And More
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Week Nine Robotics and Militarization

Read: McLuhan, Chapter 32 Weapons
Zine Prompt: What could science-fiction teach us today?
*Semiotics of Self Assignment due

Week TenInnovation and Collaboration

Read: McLuhan, Chapter 7 - Challenge & Collapse
Zine Prompt: Brainstorm and discuss an idea for a new technology that could improve
society.

Week ElevenEmbodied Technology

Read: McLuhan, Chapter 33 - Learning a Living
Zine Prompt: Go on a technology fast or do digital self-tracking; write about your
experience.

Week Twelve Techno-Utopianism vs. Techno-Skepticism

Group Discussion: Where do we stand re: the course, the exam, media
ownership and digital literacy?
*Zines Due in Class

*Final Exam Date TBA

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Works Consulted:

1. Fiske, John. Understanding Popular Culture. Boston: Unwin Hyman, 1989.

2. Williams, Raymond. Culture and Society 1780-1950. New York: Anchor Books, 1960.