COM 101: INTRO TO COMMUNICATION

From a child's cry to the onomatopoeia of an expression like "yuk!" through the complex development of extended metaphors in public orations to the slogans for advertising campaigns masterpieces or television shows, and even to so-called hive consciousness -it is all communication. But what is communication? Why do we communicate? What do our communication practices say about how and why we relate to each other and the world? This course offers a wide-angle lens on the "problem" of communication, with a particular eye toward topics that make up the concentrations of the Major in Communication, including media, journalism, production, creative writing, and organizational exchanges. The point is to examine the means by which human beings interface with each other and express their sense of things in the world. We will do this by exploring communication as it appears in speech, constructed texts, visual imagery, digital realms, and elsewhere. Specifically, we will carry out thought experiments around the abovementioned topics. At each step of the way, we will transpose these thought experiments into thought pieces (short written audio essays) that demonstrate your thinking-and rethinking-about communication as something that exists at the heart of our meaning-making and message-making activities.