https://courseoutline.auckland.ac.nz/dco/course/COMMS/702/1203

COMMS 702 : Communication Excess and Avoidance

Arts

2020 Semester One (1203) (30 POINTS)

Course Prescription

Silences and absences make communication possible. Each medium, whether spoken or printed, projected or computed, has peculiar silences ranging from elegant to tragic, comic to painful, fleeting to eternal. Superabundant digital media raise acute questions about communicative excess and possible needs to disconnect. Such questions will be addressed alongside the cultural and technological history of communication excess and absence.

Course Overview

A monk, a physicist, and a University of Auckland lecturer walk into a bar without saying anything. The bartender asks them to explain the silence. The monk says, “Silence is the fundament from which all language and life springs.” The physicist says, “Silence is the absence of vibration.” The lecturer pulls her phone out of her pocket, switches it to mute, and stares back at the others without saying a thing. The other two nod in agreement. The bartender asks the lecturer, “Is this even supposed to be funny, or is it just a course description?” The lecturer replies, “I plead the fifth.”

Music, visual art, cinema, text, and digital media of all kinds have their own peculiar silences and other forms of absence determined in part by the distinctive ways each medium opens and closes. These silences...are...sometimes...stilted or awkward. They can also be elegant or tragic, comic or painful, fleeting or eternal. People have silenced female majorities, ethnic minorities, dissenting individuals, and themselves, not to mention animals and machines. Superabundant digital media raise big questions about disconnection and management of communication, and in this course we analyze digital absences as part of a deep cultural and technological history of communication avoidance.

Often we'll consider more than one disciplinary perspective on a particular aspect of the topic. So we might read Borges's short story about a man cursed with a perfect memory alongside communication scholarship about digital deletion. Or we might read an assessment of sound pollution alongside an STS scholar's critical history of noise-canceling headphones. Along the way we'll also meet a semiotician who relates the mathematical zero to the vanishing point of artistic perspective and a range of people thinking about surveillance's impact on privacy and propaganda's impact on knowledge and ignorance.

Beyond the conventional texts-and-conversation format of graduate seminars, we will also (1) Take time every week to experience silences of different kinds, which will sometimes mean holding class in unusual locations. (2) Have the option for students to include a creative practice component as part of the final project.

Course Requirements

Restriction: MEDIA 745

Capabilities Developed in this Course

Capability 1: Disciplinary Knowledge and Practice
Capability 2: Critical Thinking
Capability 3: Solution Seeking
Capability 4: Communication and Engagement
Capability 5: Independence and Integrity
Capability 6: Social and Environmental Responsibilities
Graduate Profile: Bachelor of Arts (Honours)

Learning Outcomes

By the end of this course, students will be able to:
  1. Analyse communication's outermost limits (Capability 1.1, 1.2, 1.3, 2.1, 2.2, 2.3, 6.1, 6.2 and 6.3)
  2. Develop original research projects (Capability 3.1, 3.2, 4.1, 4.2, 4.3, 5.1 and 5.2)

Assessments

Assessment Type Percentage Classification
Coursework 100% Individual Coursework
100%

Workload Expectations

The university's standard expectations for a 30-pt., 700-level course are 20+ hours per week of graduate-level work, which is to say 3 hours of active participation in seminar plus 17 hours of work in the library, at home, etc. As befits a graduate seminar, some readings will be challenging even to sophisticated readers, and the standards for quality of research and writing are high, too. It is however a very supportive environment, and if you put in the required 20+ hours per week of work, you will learn a lot! 

Digital Resources

Course materials are made available in a learning and collaboration tool called Canvas which also includes reading lists and lecture recordings (where available).

Please remember that the recording of any class on a personal device requires the permission of the instructor.

Academic Integrity

The University of Auckland will not tolerate cheating, or assisting others to cheat, and views cheating in coursework as a serious academic offence. The work that a student submits for grading must be the student's own work, reflecting their learning. Where work from other sources is used, it must be properly acknowledged and referenced. This requirement also applies to sources on the internet. A student's assessed work may be reviewed against online source material using computerised detection mechanisms.

Inclusive Learning

All students are asked to discuss any impairment related requirements privately, face to face and/or in written form with the course coordinator, lecturer or tutor.

Student Disability Services also provides support for students with a wide range of impairments, both visible and invisible, to succeed and excel at the University. For more information and contact details, please visit the Student Disability Services’ website at http://disability.auckland.ac.nz

Well-being always comes first
We all go through tough times during the semester, or see our friends struggling. There is lots of help out there - for more information, look at this Canvas page (https://canvas.auckland.ac.nz/courses/33894), which has links to various support services in the University and the wider community.

Special Circumstances

If your ability to complete assessed coursework is affected by illness or other personal circumstances outside of your control, contact a member of teaching staff as soon as possible before the assessment is due.

If your personal circumstances significantly affect your performance, or preparation, for an exam or eligible written test, refer to the University’s aegrotat or compassionate consideration page: https://www.auckland.ac.nz/en/students/academic-information/exams-and-final-results/during-exams/aegrotat-and-compassionate-consideration.html.

This should be done as soon as possible and no later than seven days after the affected test or exam date.

Student Feedback

At the end of every semester students will be invited to give feedback on the course and teaching through a tool called SET or Qualtrics. The lecturers and course co-ordinators will consider all feedback and respond with summaries and actions.

Your feedback helps teachers to improve the course and its delivery for future students.

Class Representatives in each class can take feedback to the department and faculty staff-student consultative committees.

Student Charter and Responsibilities

The Student Charter assumes and acknowledges that students are active participants in the learning process and that they have responsibilities to the institution and the international community of scholars. The University expects that students will act at all times in a way that demonstrates respect for the rights of other students and staff so that the learning environment is both safe and productive. For further information visit Student Charter (https://www.auckland.ac.nz/en/students/forms-policies-and-guidelines/student-policies-and-guidelines/student-charter.html).

Disclaimer

Elements of this outline may be subject to change. The latest information about the course will be available for enrolled students in Canvas.

In this course you may be asked to submit your coursework assessments digitally. The University reserves the right to conduct scheduled tests and examinations for this course online or through the use of computers or other electronic devices. Where tests or examinations are conducted online remote invigilation arrangements may be used. The final decision on the completion mode for a test or examination, and remote invigilation arrangements where applicable, will be advised to students at least 10 days prior to the scheduled date of the assessment, or in the case of an examination when the examination timetable is published.

Published on 20/12/2019 05:47 p.m.