SESSION SIXTEEN: LAP Presentations

Congratulations! You have now (almost) completed Introduction to Communication. Tonight, your final audio projects (StoryCorps or other) are due. To receive full credit for your project, it must include all items on the checklist. Tonight is also the final day to complete any late work, such as online journals or research papers. During tonight's class, we will wrap up any loose ends, examining our audio projects and planning our final party. The LAP Presentation is now the only remaining requirement. This will take place on the final night of class: January 9th, 2008.

On January 9th (from 6-8pm), we will hold a public presentation of our work. Please invite your friends and family (and bring lots of goodies!) to this event. We will share our audio portraits as a group, but each of you will be asked to give a brief (1-2min) introduction to your work. You can bring any photos or written work you would like to share as well.

Yvette St. Hilaire and her daughter Shannel at their StoryCorps interview (Nov. 07).

SESSION FIFTEEN: Lions for Lambs

Lions for Lambs (2007), directed by Robert Redford, stars Meryl Streep and Tom Cruise. The film details the use of media (journalist Janine Roth, played by Streep) as a communication tool by government (Senator Jasper Irving, played by Cruise). In the film, Senator Irving invites Roth to report on a new war policy for Afghanistan, but Roth soon discovers she is not being asked to "investigate" a story as much as to "repeat" an already prepared statement.

The film's title is a derivation of Alexander the Great’s proclamation, "I am never afraid of an army of Lions led into battle by a Lamb. I fear more the army of Lambs who have a Lion to lead them" (Wikipedia). This idea is ever-present throughout the film, as young men are led (rather lambishly) into violence no one fully comprehends.

For next week... (12/19)
Project homework: Your final LAP is due next week.
Reading: Global Communications Media, pp. 495 – 527

SESSION FOURTEEN: The Conversation

The Conversation details the mental breakdown of a paranoid surveillance expert hired to spy on an adulterous couple. What happens when the spy believes he is the one being spied on? The Conversation was released in 1974 and was directed by Francis Ford Coppola. It stars Gene Hackman in a phenomenal performance as an "expert" with technology who begins to question his ethics. Is it enough to know how to use technology? Or, must we also know when (and when not) to employ its awesome power? Read more here.

For next week... (12/12)
Project homework: Work on LAP paper.
Reading: Media Ethics, pp. 465 – 492