COMM227

This General Education course examines the evolution of news and how American journalists have chronicled the history of our nation. The course covers practices, technologies, achievements, ethical confrontations and abuses through a prism of time and evolving media from the 17th Century to the present. Students will develop news literacy skills by analyzing news values journalists use to determine coverage and understand the role of journalism in a democracy and its influence in society. Students will analyze how news and information have always been shaped by technology, economics, politics and culture. They will examine how mainstream journalists have historically used the power of the press to persuade mass audiences to act on movements of the day, and have also systemically left communities out of coverage leading to the rise of an ethnic and alternative press.