Comm 1001: Introduction to Mass Media St. John's University

Part I: Media Theory — Understanding Communication and Power

The first four weeks introduce students to the major theories that define how we study media and communication. Beginning with foundational models of communication, the course explores how meaning, ideology, and influence are produced and circulated through mass media. From early radio broadcasts and debates about “fake news” to the Frankfurt School’s critique of the culture industry and postwar research on audience behavior, students learn to question the assumption that media simply transmit information. Instead, these theories reveal media as complex social systems that shape emotion, identity, and power.

Core Concepts in Media Studies

Students explore how communication has been theorized across disciplines—as transmission, as culture, and as power. The course introduces foundational perspectives, from Shannon and Weaver’s information model to Raymond Williams’ notion of culture as “a whole way of life.” By tracing how scholars like McLuhan, Hall, and Carey defined communication as both a social process and a political struggle, students learn to see media not as neutral conduits but as environments that shape perception, identity, and collective life.

Fake News, Regulation, and Radio

Early radio dramas and propaganda campaigns reveal how truth and fiction have always been entangled in mass communication. The War of the Worlds broadcast (1938) famously blurred news and narrative, prompting widespread concern about the public’s ability to distinguish fact from performance. In its aftermath, educators, policymakers, and journalists debated the responsibilities of radio broadcasters—what it meant to have ethical obligations in an emerging mass medium capable of shaping public emotion and belief. These early controversies anticipated today’s “fake news” crises, showing that misinformation has always been as much a question of media form as of content.

Frankfurt School & Critical Theory

Emerging in the shadow of fascism and mass industrialization, Frankfurt School theorists such as Theodor Adorno, Walter Benjamin, and Siegfried Kracauer examined how modern media could both reflect and reinforce systems of power. They warned that the same technologies capable of democratizing art and information could also serve as tools of domination—by authoritarian states and by capitalist industries alike.

Adorno’s critique of the culture industry argued that mass media pacifies the public, offering pleasure as a substitute for genuine freedom and community. Benjamin, by contrast, saw potential in mechanical reproduction to disrupt hierarchy and invite new, collective forms of seeing. Kracauer, meanwhile, traced how cinema expressed the unconscious desires and anxieties of modern society. Together, they framed mass culture as a paradox: a site of both ideological control and critical possibility. Their insights continue to resonate in the age of streaming, influencer economies, and algorithmic entertainment.

Media Effects & Audiences

How does media influence behavior—and how do audiences shape media in return? This section traces the evolution of media research from one-way models of influence to more interactive understandings of reception. Early “effects” studies, inspired by concerns about propaganda, gave rise to the two-step flow of communication, which showed how opinion leaders mediate mass messages. Herta Herzog’s pioneering “uses and gratifications” research reframed audiences as active participants, choosing media to meet personal and social needs—from companionship to escapism. Later, George Gerbner’s “mean world syndrome” revealed how long-term exposure to televised violence cultivates fear and mistrust, while Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann’s “spiral of silence” explored how public opinion is shaped by people’s fear of isolation.

Together, these theories reveal the tension between agency and influence at the heart of media life. Students examine how these classic frameworks help decode today’s algorithmic feeds and influencer ecosystems, where users appear empowered but remain entangled in systems of persuasion and prediction.

The Psychology of Mass Media: Typography, Perception, and Marshall McLuhan

This topic explores how media shape not only what we think, but how we think. Through the lens of Marshall McLuhan, students consider the psychological and sensory effects of communication technologies—from the invention of typography to the rise of digital screens. McLuhan’s famous claim that “the medium is the message” anchors our discussion of how each medium reconfigures human attention, emotion, and social organization.

Typography, in particular, becomes a case study in perception and power: how the printed word trains linear, individualistic thought, fostering what McLuhan called the “Gutenberg mind.” Students examine how visual design—letterforms, layout, and the rhythm of reading—has influenced cognition and culture, paving the way for modern notions of identity, rationality, and progress. By comparing typographic media to the fragmented, multisensory world of electronic communication, we ask how the psychology of media continues to evolve in an age of constant connectivity.

Part II: Mass Media Technologies — The Electric Age and the Evolution of Communication

This section examines how successive waves of media technology have reshaped human perception, culture, and power—from the invention of the printing press to the rise of the internet. Guided by Marshall McLuhan’s insight that “the medium is the message,” students explore how each technological shift reorganized society’s ways of seeing, knowing, and connecting.

Print and the Newspaper Revolution

The invention of the printing press created new publics and new forms of authority. Students analyze how typography standardized language, enabled mass literacy, and fostered the rise of the modern nation-state. Newspapers became the first “mass” medium—producing shared narratives and daily rhythms that helped define modern public life.

Photography and the Illustrated Press

Photography introduced a new way of witnessing reality. Through the work of early photojournalists and publications like Life and National Geographic, students examine how images shaped empathy, surveillance, and historical memory. The integration of photography into newspapers and magazines blurred the line between evidence and aesthetic, truth and persuasion.

Contemporary Advertising

Modern advertising unites image, sound, and psychology to produce desire. Building on Bernays’ Engineering of Consent, students trace how mid-century campaigns evolved into today’s algorithmic persuasion—where emotion, identity, and data intertwine.

The Birth of Film

Cinema transformed time into narrative and spectacle into ideology. Students study early silent films, newsreels, and propaganda to understand how film both mirrored and molded social desires. The development of montage, realism, and sound introduced new languages of emotion and persuasion that continue to inform digital media.

Modern and Postwar Film

As film matured, it became a medium of both entertainment and critique. From postwar neorealism to Hollywood spectacle, students explore how directors used visual form to question history, modernity, and human psychology. This section links film to later debates on ideology, spectatorship, and the culture industry.

The Electric Age: Radio, Television, and Collective Experience

With the advent of electricity, communication became instantaneous. McLuhan’s electric age brought about the global village—a world bound together through sound and image. Students explore radio’s intimacy, television’s visual spectacle, and how both redefined domestic life, politics, and celebrity. Programs like I Love Lucy and the evening news created shared emotional events, uniting dispersed audiences through rhythm and repetition.

Part III: Contemporary Media — Digital Culture, Ethics, and the Politics of Attention

The final part of the course examines the technological and psychological dimensions of the digital age. Students connect earlier media theories to current debates about surveillance, social media, and artificial intelligence—asking how communication technologies shape not only what we know, but how we feel, behave, and imagine.

Personal Computers and the Commercial Internet

The rise of personal computing transformed users from consumers into producers. Students explore how early cybernetic optimism gave way to the commercial internet and the attention economy. Through case studies in social media, search engines, and e-commerce, this topic asks how today’s digital interfaces extend—or erode—the human capacity for connection and thought.

Surveillance Culture and the Politics of Privacy

Drawing on scholars such as Shoshana Zuboff and Michel Foucault, this topic investigates how surveillance capitalism converts personal experience into behavioral data. Students consider how smart devices, social media, and predictive algorithms create new forms of visibility—and vulnerability.

From the dot-com boom to the rise of platform capitalism, students trace how the web shifted from an experimental, open system to a data-driven economy. The course explores early hopes for online community alongside the emergence of targeted advertising, influencer culture, and digital labor.

The Psychology of Social and Mobile Media, Polarization, and Thought Bubbles

Smartphones blur the line between attention and addiction. Using insights from cognitive science and affect theory, students analyze how mobile interfaces exploit psychological reward loops, shaping identity, self-presentation, and empathy. The discussion bridges media theory with mental health, intimacy, and civic engagement.

This section also connects mid-century media effects research to the algorithmic present. Students study how personalization and engagement-driven design foster echo chambers, emotional extremity, and moral tribalism, reframing old propaganda models for the digital public sphere.

Global Communication and the Digital Divide

Digital networks promise global connection, but access and representation remain uneven. Students explore the geopolitics of media infrastructures—from undersea cables to content moderation—considering how language, labor, and algorithmic bias reinforce global inequalities.

Special Topics in Machine Learning, Quantum Media, and Algorithmic Thought

Although taught before the release of ChatGPT, this unit anticipates the rise of generative AI, examining early machine learning, quantum computing, and predictive analytics as cultural as well as technical phenomena. Students consider how these systems model—and often distort—human judgment, creativity, and ethics.

Media Literacy, Debate, and the Practice of Critique

The course concludes by returning to its central question: How can we think critically within the media systems that think for us? Students develop tools for identifying misinformation, practicing healthy disagreement, and cultivating digital empathy. Through guided debates and case studies, they learn that critical media literacy is not about cynicism—but about curiosity, responsibility, and collective imagination.