Welcome to Sociology 43, Survey of Mass Media. By now, you should be properly registered for the course, found a way to connect to it online, and purchased the textbooks. So now it's time to start learning and thinking about media.
This course looks at many different aspects of the media from many different perspectives. But the course's overarching concern is understanding the role of media in social life. And this is not an easy thing to understand. Part of the problem is that the media are so much a part of our world that most of the time, we barely notice them. To us, media are like water to fish.
To get around this problem, it helps to look at the very big picture, to look at media in the context of global society as a whole, and in the context of long term historical change over hundreds of years or more. Modern media are not commonplace for all people, in all times and places, and comparing and contrasting life with and without media is an important way of understanding the differences that media make. So in the first week of this course, you will be learning about some abstract concepts: modernization, history, and social process.
To get started, view this online version of a photoessay from National Geographic (Vol. 196, No. 2, August 1999, pp. 2-33), called Global Culture."
Think about the differences between your life and the lives portrayed in the photos. Once you've done that, post to the discussion list, in the folder called "Life in the Matrix Part I & II." (Be sure to read the instructions for discussion lists on the Course Information Page first.) As this will be your first post to the list, introduce yourself to the others in the class by giving us your name, where you live, and then briefly compare your life to one or more of the images in the photo essay. Complete this this no later than midnight on May 26th.