Arizona State University WST 220: Gender, Media and Culture Fall 2013 INSTRUCTOR INFORMATION: Name: Shannon

Lank E-Mail: Shannon.Lank@asu.edu Office: UASB 208B (Tempe Campus) Phone: Office Hours: Mon 10am-12pm, Thurs 10:30am-12:30 & by appointment

COURSE DESCRIPTION: This course examines various areas of popular culture that effect both women and men. Using film, text, discussion, and activities we will explore how the different aspects of popular culture weave their way into everyday lives. Throughout the course we will discuss various topics including, race, gender, sexuality, class, etc. and how media and culture influence every decision made. COURSE REQUIREMENTS: Online Course This is an online course and therefore there will not be any face-to-face class sessions. All assignments and course interactions will utilize internet technologies. TEXT: Gender, Race, and Class in Media, 3rd Edition isbn: 978-1412974417

Studying and Preparation Time A three-credit course requires 135 hours of student work. Therefore expect to spend approximately 9 hours a week preparing for and actively participating in this course. COURSE REQUIREMENTS: Computer: This course requires that you have access to a computer that can access the internet. You will need to have access to, and be able to use, the following software packages: A web browser (Internet Explorer, Safari or Mozilla Firefox)

Adobe Acrobat Reader (free) Adobe Flash Player (free) Microsoft Office Suite: Excel, PowerPoint, Word, etc.

You are responsible for having a reliable computer and internet connection throughout the course. If you have a question about the technology being used in the course, please contact the UTO Help Desk for assistance (480-965-6500 or http://help.asu.edu/). DVD/Video Each student must have the ability to rent DVDs/videos. The library also has a vast collection the students can borrow as well as film on demand. Please check with the library to see if they can assist you. Campus Network or Blackboard Outage When access to Blackboard is not available for an extended period of time (greater than one entire evening - 6pm till 11pm) you can reasonably expect that the due date for assignments will be changed to the next day.

Technical Support Contact Information For technical assistance 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, please contact the University Technology Office Help Desk: Phone: 480-965-6500 Email: helpdesk@asu.edu Web: http://help.asu.edu/ For information on systems outages see the ASU systems status calendar, please visit http://syshealth.asu.edu/ and http://systemstatus.asu.edu/status/calendar.asp

ACCESSIBILITY STATEMENT: In compliance with the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, Section 504, and the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, professional disability specialists and support staff at the Disability Resource Centers (DRC) facilitate a comprehensive range of academic support services and accommodations for qualified students with disabilities. DRC staff coordinate transition from high schools and community colleges, in-service training for faculty and staff, resolution of accessibility issues, community outreach, and collaboration between all ASU campuses regarding disability policies, procedures, and accommodations.

COMMUNICATION: When questions arise during the course of this class, please remember to check these three sources for an answer before asking me to reply to your individual questions: 1. 2. 3. Course syllabus Announcements in Blackboard The Frequently Asked Questions discussion board

This policy will help you to potentially identify answers before I can get back to you and helps your instructor to not have to answer similar questions or concerns multiple times. If you cannot find an answer to your question, please first post your question to the Frequently Asked Questions discussion board. Here your question can be answered to the benefit of all students by either your fellow students who know the answer to your question or the instructor. You are encouraged to answer questions from other students in the discussion forum when you know the answer to a question in order to help provide timely assistance. If you email a question and it has already been answered via one of the methods above, your email will not be answered. If you have questions of a personal nature such as relating a personal emergency, questioning a grade on an assignment, or something else that needs to be communicated privately, you are welcome to contact me via email. I tend to check my email during the week frequently and can usually respond to email in less than 24 hours. However, I do not check my email regularly on the weekends and I do not check it on holidays. Also please keep in mind that even though you may be up at 2am working, I will not be, and emails sent in the wee hours of the morning most likely will not be returned until late morning. Email and Internet: When you enrolled at ASU you were given an email address with a @asu.edu end. This will be the only way that I will communicate via email. It is the email address connected to the class roster and Black Board, therefore it is the easiest. You must have an active ASU e-mail account and access to the Internet. Please plan on checking your ASU email account regularly for course related messages. If you receive an email that is not explicitly addressing you within the body of the email, it is safe to assume that it is a mass email to the entire course. When receiving an email from the Professor, do not consider the email concluded until you see a signature. When writing an email to any professor do not reply to a mass email, send a separate email, if not your response might be lost among the many other responses. Never attach a paper to be turned in to a mass email. If your email is not addressed or signed, it will not receive a reply. When sending an email to a professor it should be professionally written. All course related materials will utilize Blackboard. Discussions, assignment submissions, and posted grades will all be found on Blackboard.

Discussion Board: This counts towards 25% of your grade. Students will be expected to attend class regularly and keep up with all reading assignments. Regularly means often, at the bare minimum you should be checking the announcements and FAQs at least 3 times a week. All discussion board post are graded on a 2 point scale, so you should expect that there will be 6 point available for a week with 2 questions; 2 points each for your original answers and another 2 point for your response to another posting. Each set of readings will have discussions questions that follow, every student must participate in these discussions. Students that answer questions in one or two words will not receive full credit. Each question should be answered thoughtfully and at a minimum be a paragraph in length. When replying to a student post you will not receive cumulative credit for multiple one line answers. You should regularly expect 2 questions a week. You will be required to answer each question and respond to at least one of your classmates post. Which means you will be posting at least 3 times per week. All discussion board questions are designed to make students link what theyve read to things that they may come across on a regular basis. Discussion board questions are the same questions one would find in a face to face course discussion. They are designed to make you think. Each student may take something different from the reading that another student may not have thought about. Every week starts and ends at 8am Monday morning. This is a very important fact to remember because at 8am every Monday the last weeks discussions and quizzes will be closed to new additions and the new weeks discussions and quizzes will be uploaded to Blackboard. Everything in this course will be given at least a week for completion. Everything in this course is due on Mondays at 8am. I will ensure that certain rules are adhered to in an effort to make the classroom as comfortable as possible for people to speak in. No individual or group of individuals will be allowed to dominate discussions Please be cautious in how you communicate with your fellow students; if there is wrong and/or disturbing information flying about in a discussion, do not attack NO HATE SPEECH: Racist, ethnocentric, sexist, homophobic, transphobic, and other discriminatory acts are NOT WELCOME HERE!

Proper classroom (Blackboard) behavior is not something that is negotiable. If you cannot behave you may be banned from participating in the discussions and it will affect

your grade. It is my job as the instructor to ensure that each and every student feels safe. Some of the topics that will be discussed over the course of the semester may be rough for some students due to personal experience, so I will expect that especially during these discussions that we will all take care to be sensitive to others. If there is a post that I find to be inappropriate the post will be deleted and the student will receive a separate email from the instructor as to why. If the behavior is a continued problem that student will be blocked from participating in discussion board. STUDENT CONDUCT: Continuing with this discussion, all students are required to adhere to certain behavior standards, these standards which are defined by the Arizona Board of Regents can be viewed by visiting the website (http://www.abor.asu.edu/1_the_regents/policymanual/chap5/5Section_C.pdf) I also strongly suggest that each of you take the time to visit (http://asu.edu/studentaffairs/studentlife/srr/index.htm) to review the ASU Academic Integrity Policy. This policy is very clear about what is acceptable and what is not. Academic Dishonesty: In short, DONT DO IT! I do not tolerate any form of academic dishonesty! Any form of academic dishonesty, including any form of cheating or plagiarism, will be punished in accordance with University guidelines. Academic dishonesty includes, but is not limited to: 1. Copying someone elses work from ANY source (e.g., article, book, internet website, or a friends paper) and passing it on as something that you wrote for this class. 2. Using a paper or assignment written for another class, written either by you or someone else. I expect all the work in the class to be original, specifically for this class, and written by you. 3. Directly quoting someone and not using quotation marks to denote that it is a direct quotation rather than a paraphrase. 4. Failing to correctly cite ANYTHING that is not your idea, either within the text or in the bibliography page. You should use the Chicago Manuel of Style, the MLA style, or any other professional citing method to cite and create your bibliography. All styles can be found on the internet. Students should familiarize themselves with the University guidelines: http://www.west.asu.edu/studentlife/forms/acadinteg.htm

The minimum sanction for academic dishonesty will be a grade of XE (failure due to academic dishonesty) for the course, which will be permanently displayed on your transcript. I will also write a formal complaint to the Dean of the college and your dishonesty will be part of your permanent record. There will be no exceptions to this rule. If you are unsure as to what counts as academic dishonesty, please see instructor before turning in your assignment. Ignorance will not excuse you from an XE grade. (reprinted with permission in its entirety from Dr. Bertha Alvarez Manninen). Extra Credit and No Whining Policy: In short there is no extra credit so please do not ask. I do not give grades, you earn them. Please do not come to me whining and complaining. I respond well to open, honest, and objective feedback. I consider myself to be a fair, reasonable, and challenging instructor. If you read your assignments, attend class, and complete all of your work on time, you will get a good grade in this class. If you do not, you will not. I strive to be objective in my grading, and I will always attempt to explain to you what I am looking for in any given assignment, as well as why you have received the grade you have. My office hours are clearly stated at the beginning of the syllabus, if you cannot make it during those times I am more than happy to make an appointment with you to discuss whatever it is that you need. Do not come to me with complaints of losing your scholarship. It takes a series of events to put your scholarship at risk, and I will not assume blame for your previous mistakes. I will treat each of you with respect and fairness, and I expect the same of you. Additionally, I expect you to extend the same courtesy to the other students taking the course, as well as the TAs. Late Policy: I do not accept late assignments/papers unless there is a documented emergency. It is your responsibility as a student to contact your Professors and inform them of issues that arise. If you do not contact me prior to assignment/paper is due I will assume that you are simply not turning it in. All papers/assignments are due on the dates that are clearly marked within the syllabus. Do not wait until the last minute to complete assignments for this course. A blackboard timeout on Monday morning at 7:30am is not an excuse for not turning in an assignment, you will have had a week to complete the assignment and it is not my fault that you chose to wait until the last minute to complete said assignment. QUIZZES: There will be no make-up quizzes or exams given. It has been clearly stated within the syllabus as to when these quizzes and exams will take place and it is therefore your job to ensure their completion. Each quiz and exam will have a time limit applied; you will always have at least 7 days to complete each. Full instructions for each quiz and exam will be found on Blackboard for you to read prior to the start of

each quiz and exam. All quizzes are multiple choice and true/false questions. Remember everything is due on Mondays at 8am. Mid-Term and FINAL EXAM: The mid-term will be based on everything prior to the exam and the final exam will cover everything after the mid-term. The final will not be cumulative. Both the midterm and the final are essay questions in which you will be required to cite a certain number of readings from the course. You must properly cite within each exam and have a works cited at the bottom of each essay. Projects: There are multiple projects for this course. The due dates for these projects are clearly marked on the syllabus. There are 5 projects listed. 4 of the projects are short and 1 long, it is up to you to determine which project you make your long project. You will need to email me your decisions by September 2 nd , once you have made your choice you cannot change. Please refer to the project list on blackboard. The parameters for all of the projects can be found on Black Board. The short projects need to be 2 pages minimum while the long project is a minimum of 5 pages. Please read the instructions carefully. SYLLABUS: As the professor I reserve the right to change the syllabus at any given time. I may change, add, or cancel readings/quizzes/ exam dates, etc. I dont do this to make your life difficult; I do this in case I find an article that better illustrates the topic at hand or if other problems should happen to arise. These changes will always be found in Announcements, so check it often.

POINT BREAKDOWN: Distribution Mid-Term Final Large Project Small Projects (4) Quizzes (3) Discussion Board Total Points 15 15 10 20 15 25 100

Grading is done on a plus/minus scale. Students receive the exact grade that they have earned throughout the course. Students have 2 weeks from the date that each assignment grade has been posted to discuss concerns with the grade. Due Dates: All projects are due by 8am on the date listed Syllabus Quiz- 9/2 Toy Project 9/16 Quiz 2 9/30 Comic Project 10/14 Midterm 10/21 Product Project 11/4 Quiz 3 11/11 Ad Project 11/18 Music Project 12/2 Final 12/9

SCHEDULE: All chapter numbers come directly from the textbook. All blackboard readings will be found in a clearly labeled in a folder, under the course information tab, for that weeks class. WEEK DATE TOPIC Activities Introductions on discussion board Take syllabus quiz ASSIGNMENTS DUE Read Syllabus Obtain Textbook

1 2 3 4

8/228/26 8/269/2 9/2-9 9/9-16

Introduction History of Pop Culture Gender Construction Hegemony & Cultural Studies

Chapters 2, 23, 48, 51, 59 Ch 8, 13, 25, 28 Toy store project Ch 1, 4, 5, 27, 41

5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16

9/16Film: This film is 23 Film/TV not yet rated 9/23Race & 30 Ethnicity Quiz 2 9/3010/7 Comics 10/714 Sexuality Comic Project 10/1421 Midterm 10/21Video 28 Games/Internet 10/2811/4 Health Product Project Quiz 3 11/4Body Film: Killing us 11 Image/Ads Softly 4 11/11Ad Project 18 Sports 11/18Film: Dream 25 Music worlds 3 11/25Animation/ Music Project 12/2 Fantasy 12/2-9 Final

Ch 14, 17, 44, 50 Ch 3, 10, 12, 24, 36 All readings on Blackboard Ch 9, 19, 37, 38, 58, 65

Ch 45, 46, 47, 61, 62 Ch 34, 43, 56, 57 Ch 22, 26, 29, 40 Black Board Readings Ch 11, 20, 49 Ch 16, 35, 52, 60 Ch 7,18, 59, 63, 64 Black Board Readings