Telecom Fall Course Offering - T505 Media Organizations Fall 2009

T505 | 11523 | Deuze, Mark
E-Mail: mdeuze@indiana.edu
Office: RTV Building, Rm. 319
Phone: 856-5884
Class meetings: once a week, 9:30AM - 12:15PM Thursday

The world of media is changing rapidly, or so it seems: audiences for mass entertainment are dwindling, teenagers are more likely to blog than to ever read a newspaper, and job cuts in the US media industries are rampant as the production work gets outsourced internationally.
Yet at the same time more media gets produced and consumed all the time. Every year we spend more time watching TV and movies, playing computer and video games, listening to music, following the daily news. Surely this must be a golden age for the media business?

This course explores this fascinating paradox by going deep inside the organizations across all the media industries (including journalism, advertising, marketing and public relations, film, radio, TV, music and recording, computer and video games) that produce culture for our global economy. Our focus is on understanding and analyzing the most current paradigms and key debates within these industries regarding financing, management, production, marketing and distribution of content and experiences.

The Media Organizations course expects students not just to understand and master the past and present of the ways media organizations function and media careers are made. A significant part of the grading in this course will be based on your ability to come up with new and innovative ways to think about future strategies for media professionals and organizations. The literature for this course focuses on academic and trade readings in the area of media production and management, including works on design, the management of creativity and innovation, legal and financial aspects, the economics of production and use, labor issues and work rules, ethics, and organizational communication.

In combining theories about media work, learning research methods for understanding media organizations, and developing conceptual strategies for media industries, students will learn all aspects of theory and practice regarding the way media are made.