The Curriculum

The concentration in Media Criticism consists of 8-9 courses, for a total of 32-36 credits. All Journalism majors must also complete a second major within CAS and an Evaluation Portfolio, as outlined in the General Requirements for the major.

Note: Students wishing to also enroll in NYU’s Study Abroad program must begin the Media Criticism concentration no later than their sophomore year in order to complete the program.

Typical full-time course of study

Fall Semester I

• Foundations of Journalism (V54.0501)
• History of the Media (V54.0610)

Spring Semester I

• Reading the Media (V54.0611)
• Journalistic Inquiry (V54.0101)

Fall Semester II

• The Beat: Lapdogs, Attack Dogs, and Watchdogs (V54.0621)
• Elective

Spring Semester II

• Advanced Reporting: New Forms (V54.0630)
• Elective

Three required lectures

Foundations of Journalism

V54.0501 No prerequisites. For the Journalism major and the prospective Journalism major. Also for Public Policy and Law and Society students. Offered only in the Fall term.

This is Journalism’s gateway course, a lecture centered on articles and primary historical documents that have had profound impact on the course of American Journalism as practiced today. In addition, recitation sections will meet once a week for further discussion of the readings and the writing of a series of essays designed to assess students’ understanding of important journalistic concepts and practices, as well as their potential as writers and reporters preparing for leadership in the field.

History of the Media

V54.0610 No prerequisites. Offered only in the Fall term.

A historical survey of the media from language and the earliest uses of images to the Web. The emphasis, in an attempt to gain perspective on our own communications revolution, is on the reception, uses, and political, social, and philosophical consequences of different forms of communication.

Reading the Media: Introduction to Media Criticism

V54.0611 No prerequisites. Offered only in the Spring term.

From Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave” to Marshall McLuhan’s Understanding Media to The Matrix, philosophers and pop-culture creators have tried to make sense of the media representations that swim in our heads, affecting our perceptions of ourselves and the world. An introduction to the field, Reading the Media is designed to acquaint students with various schools of media criticism and their angles of analytical attack on the media environment—-the mass-media messages (whether words or images) that increasingly constitute our cultural reality, shaping our knowledge of the world around us and our sense of who we are, as individuals and as a society. The course draws on a wide array of analytical strategies, including cultural studies, literary criticism, press criticism, semiotics, reader-response theory, cultural anthropology, feminism, film studies, TV criticism, writings on visual culture, postmodern theory, and personal essays.

Three required skills courses

Journalistic Inquiry

V54.0101 Prerequisites: Foundations of Journalism

First-level reporting. Emphasis in this course throughout the term is on sophisticated reporting and research technique as students concurrently survey the various forms of journalistic writing, from the essay, to the hard-news pyramid, to feature writing to broadcast style.

The Beat: Lapdogs, Attack Dogs, and Watchdogs: Press Criticism

V54.0621 Prerequisites: Foundations of Journalism, Journalistic Inquiry, Reading the Media. Offered only in the Fall term.

If the press monitors the powers that be, who keeps a vigilant eye on the fourth estate, a power unto itself? The “beat,” in this case, is the newsmedia themselves. In this course, we delve deep into the issues and ideas that have engaged critics of the newsmedia throughout the modern era, from I.F. Stone to Ben Bagdikian, Noam Chomsky to Anne Coulter. More profoundly, we deconstruct their analytical methods and lay bare their agendas, critiquing the critics. This course involves a significant writing load, most of which will incorporate both academic argument and journalistic reportage.

Advanced Reporting: New Forms

V54.0630 Prerequisites: History of the Media, Reading the Media and The Beat: Lapdogs, Attack Dogs, and Watchdogs.

New Forms is the concentration’s capstone course, focusing on new media and the new conceptual paradigms implicit in them. Drawing on the body of theoretical and historical knowledge students have accumulated in the concentration, New Forms will ask students not only to analyze new forms of media, but to conduct their own experiments, exploring the expressive possibilities of various media. In the end, students will be expected to produce a long-form critique, heavily reported and rigorously argued, of a media-related issue. The project can be produced in print; online/interactive media; or other, experimental forms. As with all work in the concentration, the capstone project should engage the public mind, rather than an academic audience.

One journalism elective

In addition to the above required courses, students must choose one journalism elective from the following offerings:

• Topics in Media Criticism (V54.0622)
• Journalism Ethics and First Amendment Law (V54.0502) or any of the Journalism and Society sections (V54.0503, prereq V54.0501, Foundations), which include such topics as Women and the Media, Minorities in the Media, Mass Media and Government, and Muckraking. Issues and Ideas courses (V54.0505), such as God, Science and Culture Wars, would be acceptable, as would a Methods and Practice course (V54.0202), such as Journalism by the Numbers.

One outside elective

Media Criticism students must also choose one elective from outside the department. The elective in question can be within their second major or outside of it.

Note: The Department chose the courses listed below for their compatibility with the Media Criticism concentration. However, students are responsible for ensuring that the course they’re interested in is open to non-majors (if it is outside their major) and that the department in question is willing to waive the prerequisite (if any).

Journalism majors’ enrollment in electives outside the Department is dependent on space in a given class, the approval of the department offering the class, the faculty member teaching the course, and the Department of Journalism, especially if a student is interested in taking an elective not listed below. (Professors Dery or Stephens must approve all extra-departmental electives).

Cathleen Dullahan is available to assist students in reconciling extra-departmental requirements with the Department’s Media Criticism curriculum.

Possibilities include:

• Anthropology of Media, V14.0123, (Anthropology), Ganti. (Prerequisite: V14.0001).
• Religion and Media, V14.0220, (Anthropology), Zito.
• Communication Systems in Modern Societies, V93.0118, (Sociology), Maisel.
• Introduction to Human Communication and Culture, E59.0005, (Culture & Communication).
• Walter Lippmann and the Manufacture of Consent, K20.1458 (Gallatin), Duncombe.
• The Struggle for The Word: History of Mass Media I, K20.1055 SOC, (Gallatin), Duncombe.
• The Politics of Media: Power, Persuasion, Perception, K20.1241 SOC, (Gallatin), Duncombe.