Week 1: August 25

Introduction to visual communication, syllabus, key course concepts, the new COM curriculum

Semiotics of architecture: a campus tour

Remembered images | What is culture? Visual culture?

For Wednesday: Read the syllabus, for a quiz on the syll.

Due Friday: 2 or 3 images you remember AND a definition of "culture" using no outside sources and posting to BC's blog

Week 2: Sept. 1

Seeing, sensing (ooh!), selecting, perceiving
Ways visual messages are delivered

No class Monday: Labor Day (use some of your long weekend to do the reading -- four chapters this week!)

Google's Chrome comic book

For Wednesday: Read Chapter 1 (possible quiz); List of as many ways visual messages are communicated as possible (contest)

For Friday: Find two examples of light as metaphor or as significant visual component.

Week 3: Sept. 8

Light as metaphor | How we see

Electronic ink | The Good Sheet @ Starbucks | more on Esquire's electronic ink

Discuss research projects, topic proposals

Visual communication theory

• Gestalt
• Semiotics
• Memory

For Monday: Read chapters 2-4 (possible quiz).

For Wednesday: Read chapter 5 (possible quiz).

Due Friday: Select a photo and identify its iconic, indexical and symbolic elements. Must have all three types of element. Type it up, print it out. Attach copy of the photo or image. No email.

Week 4: Sept. 15

Visual communication theory & Ways of seeing

Kembrew McLeod to visit Friday; will discuss documentary filmmaking. Also, Kembrew is delivering the first Oxbridge lecture Thursday night:
"To Quote or Not to Quote: Resistance and Repression in the Age of Intellectual Property"
Thursday, Sept. 18, 7 p.m., Science Auditorium

The Medium blog at The New York Times
Best of Multimedia Design from the SND
Wall Street Journal's new Web design
. . . and an explanation
Democracy Video Challenge from the State Dept.
Austin, TX church site

Due Monday: Topic/research paper proposals. Typed up, printed out and turned in (no email); Also, bring printout, photo or object with a symbol significant to you -- any symbol. Read Times article on campaign ads.

Due Friday: Topic re-submits

For Friday: View Kembrew's short documentary on copyright

Week 5: Sept. 22

Semiotics & The Daily Show | Denoting/Connoting

No class Friday: BC in Chapel Hill | Research Day!

For Monday: Read chapter 6

Berry Style Guide (.pdf download)

Week 6: Sept. 29

Persuasion in Advertising | Product Placement

Ugly MySpace Page contest

No class Wednesday or Friday: BC in Seattle | Research Days!

View Dodgeball before Monday (on reserve in Berry library). Catalog and describe the product placements. What works? What doesn't? Why/why not? Have at least six. Typed up, printed out, submitted on time. (no email)

Week 7: Oct. 6

Stereotyping (The Race Draft) | Analyzing a visual message

No class Friday: BC in Columbia, S.C. | Research Day!

For funsies: The Food Pyramid | Times's "Styles" criticized for manufacturing trends

For Monday: Read Ch 7 (stereotypes); S4 section on analyzing visuals (possible quiz)

• Due Sunday, Oct. 5: Response or comment to blog post on indiscriminant melding of commercial messages and culture
• Due Monday, Oct. 6: Paper outlines. Typed up, printed out and turned in (no email)
• Due Wednesday, Oct. 8: Two ads -- one with stereotype; one without

Week 8: Oct. 13

Finish stereotypes & caricatures | Analyzing a visual message

No class Monday: Fall Break

Read S4 & Chapter 8

Due Tuesday, Oct. 12: Response or comment to blog post on commerce & culture.

Week 9: Oct. 20

For funsies (Type sketch) | also for funsies (CatholicVote)

Obama, Change & Gotham | Gotham's print shop | Obama.com | campaign artifacts

Read Chapters 8 & 9

Surf The Font Blog | Identifont

Due Wednesday, Oct. 22: Analyzing an image

Week 10: Oct. 27

Graphic Design

Great logo examples | for funsies: visual thesaurus

Read Chapter 9

• Due Monday, Oct. 27: 2 type exercises
• Quiz Wednesday, Oct. 29: pps. 154-161; 166-173

Week 11: Nov. 3

Photo Safari:
Meet Wednesday in front of Memorial Library

Photo Safari II:
Capturing the ugly, the mundane, the meaningful

Information Graphic: Times map | New magazine

Due Monday, Nov. 3: research papers -- double-spaced, numbered pages, with signature of honor pledge (no email)

Due Wednesday, Nov. 5: three photos: the mundane, the ugly, the poignant (hard copy or digital file)

Week 12: Nov. 10

Photography | Cinema

Reading quiz (matching) on Wednesday on Ch. 12 (focus on people and their films, not technology)

For funsies (Rocky Horror Election Show); Holographic News Coverage (HCNN); Carroll for President (from Chad)

Friday: La Jetée

Read for Wednesday Chapter 13

Due Monday, Nov. 10: Your response to Dr. Carroll's "Photography is like . . ." on the Wandering Rocks blog. Due Monday morning at 9 a.m.

View Rear Window (by next Monday)
View Truman Show (by next Wednesday)
Both on reserve in the library

Week 13: Nov. 17

Cinema (Monday, Wednesday | Television (Fri.)

For funsies: Watching in the dark (from Jimmy)

Week 14: Nov. 24

Television

No class Wednesday or Friday: Thanksgiving

Due next Monday (Dec. 1): Critique of local news broadcast as entertainment; critique of The Daily Show as news

Week 15: Dec. 1

What is culture? What is visual culture?

keep your eyes on the prize!

“Seeing comes before words. The child looks and recognizes before it can speak.” –John Berger, Ways of Seeing (1972)

“It is a paradox of the twentieth century that while visual images have increasingly come to dominate our culture, our colleges and universities traditionally have devoted relatively little attention to visual media.” – Sturken and Cartwright, Practices of Looking (2001)

• Visual Communication, Richard Lester (Thomson)
• A digital camera (make, model, sophistication not factors)
• Thumb drive or flash memory to store and deliver your work

• Ways of Seeing, John Berger (Penguin)
• The Image, Dan Boorstin (Vintage)
• Ourspace, Christine Harold (University of Minnesota)
• Meggs’ History of Graphic Design, Philip B. Meggs and Alston W. Purvis (Wiley)
• Visual Methodologies, Gillian Rose (Sage)
• Graphic Communications Today, Ryan and Conover (Thomson)
• On Photography, Susan Sontag (Picador)
• Practices of Looking: An Introduction to Visual Culture, Marita Sturken and Lisa Cartwright (Oxford)

Professor: Dr. Brian Carroll
Office: Laughlin Hall 100
Office phone: 368.6944 (anytime)
E-mail: bc@berry.edu (not bcarroll or bdcarroll)
Home page: www.cubanxgiants.com
Blog: Wandering Rocks

Policies

• Attendance: Attendance is a part of your grade. Be here every day on time, just as you would for a job, surgery or even a haircut. Everyone gets one unexcused absence >> no questions asked. Stuff happens. After that, unexcused absences will result in deductions from the "professionalism and participation" portion of your grade -- one point for each unexcused absence and/or lateness to class. What is excused is at the instructor's discretion, so you are best served by discussing situations and extraordinary circumstances prior to class whenever possible.

• Distractions: This instructor is easily distracted. Ringing cell phones, therefore, will be lobbed out of the classroom window or run over with a car. Chatter during lecture will result in "professionalism and participation" point deductions, as will Facebooking, texting or any other Internet use during lecture or topic presentations, particularly after warnings have been issued. Do homework for other classes somewhere else. If you have to arrive late or leave early, clear it with the instructor beforehand whenever possible. Basic civility is what is expected. If you are at all unclear as to what “basic civility” implies, the professor would be more than happy to elaborate.

• Preparation: Complete the assignments and be ready to tackle the activities of the day. Be ready to discuss and debate ideas, approaches and opinions.

• Deadlines: When an in-class/in-lab assignment is due, it is due. This reflects the reality of many mass communication professions and work environments. Late in-class assignments will not be accepted unless permission for extension had been granted prior to deadline. Turn in whatever has been done by deadline. If we have out-of-class assignments, they will be accepted for up to one week after deadline, but late assignments will be penalized. Remember, penalized work is not necessarily the same as 0 (zero) points. Complete out-of-class assignments and learn from them, even if they are turned in late. After an assignment is more than a week late, however, that work is not eligible for points. Please note: If a student misses a class when an assignment is due and that student has a legitimate excuse, the professor will accept the late assignment without penalty at his discretion. The professor defines what constitutes a legitimate excuse and reserves the right not to grant full credit for assignments turned in under these circumstances.

How you will be graded:

To compute your final grade, add up your point totals, apply the appropriate percentages, then refer to the grading system summarized here:

Berry Viking code
Academic dishonesty in any form is unacceptable because any breach in academic integrity, however small, strikes destructively at the college’s life and work. The code is not just policy, it is foundational to the academic environment we enjoy and in which scholarship thrives. It is in force in this classroom.

For the complete Viking Code, please consult the student handbook. In short, each student is “expected to recognize constituted authority, to abide by the ordinary rules of good conduct, to be truthful, to respect the rights of others.” The College’s mission, in part, commits to a community of integrity and justice. During an era when ethics are sometimes suspect, there seems no higher goal toward which students ought to strive than that of personal honor.

Students with special needs
If you have special needs of any kind, including learning disabilities, please let me know. Come discuss it with me. I want to make sure on the front end that we prevent any problems associated with the course. Martha Van Cise, director of the Academic Support Center, suggests: “Students with disabilities who believe that they may need accommodation in this course are encouraged to contact the Academic Support Center in Krannert Room 301 as soon as possible to ensure that such accommodations are implemented in a timely fashion.”

Finally, I believe we are here for a good time, not a long time, so let’s have some fun!

bc home | berry home | email the prof
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