Fall 2008
5013 Vilas Hall
Wed 10am-12pm
meets with Geog 901
meets with LSC 880

This class is a reading seminar covering geographical theories, methods, and concepts which might productively be applied to mass communication research questions, and exploring existing mass communication research which has (explicitly or implicitly) drawn on geographic insights.

In the cases that we cover in class, we will pay close attention to how various "new" communication technologies were understood by users in their original context, how technologies of "virtual space" hide the place-bound material and labor components necessary for their functioning, and how different technologies work to "produce" and "compress" both time and space in a society characterized by uneven (and often arguably unjust) geographic development.

Grading

Attendance and participation are crucial.  Class will meet for one session each week.  Students are expected not only to attend class but also to participate in class discussion.  While a small number of class absences are inevitable, you can't get a top grade in this class if you don't attend and speak up regularly.

We do lots and lots of reading in this course.  Enough said.

We do lots of online writing in this course.  We summarize and critique every required and optional text that we read on our class weblog. Students take turns posting these summaries, but each week all students are expected to comment on the postings somehow.

Students are expected to discuss and present the readings.  Each week, two students will team up to lead a discussion on the required readings (first hour) and two students will each choose one of the optional readings to summarize and present for the class (second hour).  We'll have a break in the middle.

Grading breakdown.  Students will be graded on overall class participation including attendance, tardiness, and contribution to in-class discussion (25%); on their online and in-class leading of a discussion section regarding a required reading (25%); on their online and in-class presentation of optional readings over the course of the semester (25%); and on a final analytical review of some book dealing with communication and geography, including both an in-class presentation and a written 2,000-word paper (25%).

Texts to purchase

There are seven textbooks for this class, available at the University Bookstore.  Each week's reading is supplemented by optional articles which UW-Madison students may download as PDF files (you will need your standard UW NetID login and password).  The download area can be reached by clicking on these icons:

NB: These books and articles were not chosen to be “unbiased” texts. Rather, I have picked these readings with three goals in mind: they are readable and interesting while still scholarly; they are relevant to current events; and, often, they are polemical in that they argue for a particular interpretation of the world which you may choose to agree with or to disagree with.

Phil Hubbard, Rob Kitchin, and Gill Valentine, eds., Key Texts in Human Geography (Sage, 2008).  "[C]oncise but rigorous overviews of the key texts that have formed post-war human geography."

Dwayne R. Winseck and Robert M. Pike, Communication and Empire: Media, Markets, and Globalization, 1860-1930 (Duke Univ. Press, 2007).  "Filling in a key chapter in communications history, Dwayne R. Winseck and Robert M. Pike offer an in-depth examination of the rise of the “global media” between 1860 and 1930. They analyze the connections between the development of a global communication infrastructure, the creation of national telegraph and wireless systems, and news agencies and the content they provided. Conventional histories suggest that the growth of global communications correlated with imperial expansion: an increasing number of cables were laid as colonial powers competed for control of resources. Winseck and Pike argue that the role of the imperial contest, while significant, has been exaggerated. They emphasize how much of the global media system was in place before the high tide of imperialism in the early twentieth century, and they point to other factors that drove the proliferation of global media links, including economic booms and busts, initial steps toward multilateralism and international law, and the formation of corporate cartels."

James Wheeler et al. eds., Cities in the telecommunications age: The fracturing of geographies (Routledge, 1999).  "[B]rings together the latest research on how changes and innovations in the economic system are being fueled by networks of telecommunicators. The contributors provide illuminating case studies of how communications technologies have brought about the restructuring of cities, such as Atlanta, Phoenix, and Sunderland, England. Topics covered include: the geography of Internet real estate, the U.S. Telecommunications Act of 1996, commuting choices, and cellular telephone systems."

Manuel Castells, ed., The Network Society: A Cross-Cultural Perspective (Edward Elgar, 2005).  "Castells - one of the world’s pre-eminent social scientists - has drawn together a stellar group of contributors to explore the patterns and dynamics of the network society in its cultural and institutional diversity. The book analyzes the technological, cultural and institutional transformation of societies around the world in terms of the critical role of electronic communication networks in business, everyday life, public services, social interaction and politics. The contributors demonstrate that the network society is the new form of social organization in the Information age, replacing the Industrial society. The book analyzes processes of technological transformation in interaction with social culture in different cultural and institutional contexts: the United States of America, the United Kingdom, Finland, Russia, China, India, Canada, and Catalonia. The topics examined include business productivity, global financial markets, cultural identity, the uses of the Internet in education and health, the anti-globalization movement, political processes, media and identity, and public policies to guide technological development. Taken together these studies show that the network society adopts very different forms, depending on the cultural and institutional environments in which it evolves."

Juliana Mansvelt, Geographies of Consumption (Sage, 2005).  "Mansvelt provides readers with a detailed explanation of political-economic and social-cultural perspectives on consumption at different scales. She opens with overview chapters on the history and conceptualisation of consumption and moves on to thematic chapters on consumption spaces; the body and identity; commodity chains; globalization commercial cultures."

John Connell, Soundtracks: Popular Music, Identity and Place (Routledge, 2002).  "[T]races the relationships between music, space and identity-from inner city 'scenes' to the music of nations-to give a wide-ranging perspective on popular music. It examines the influence of cultures, economics, politics and technology on the changing structure and geographies of music at local and global levels. Taking music from its role as an expression of local culture in indigenous societies to its gradual evolution towards a global music industry, this work pays particular attention to the complex spread of world music from reggae to zouk and beyond. Containing an impressive and comprehensive range of global case studies Soundtracks takes an innovative approach to the complex and changing relationships between music and space to provide a genuine global assessment of the power and pleasure of popular music in its many forms.

Matthew Zook, The Geography of the Internet Industry: Venture Capital, Dot-coms, and Local Knowledge (2005).  "This groundbreaking book analyses the geography of the commercial Internet industry during the dot-com boom. It presents the first accurate map of Internet domains in the world, by country, by region, by city, and for the United States, by neighborhood. Contrary to the predictions of some futurologists, the book demonstrates the extraordinary spatial concentration of the industry and the continued relevance of geography to patterns of economic development in the twenty-first century.   Based on in-depth interviews and field work in two key areas – San Francisco Bay Area and New York City – Matthew Zook provides a lucid and theoretically-informed argument supported by appropriate evidence. His book will be of interest to all those concerned about inequalities arising or being perpetuated through unequal access to technology and the factors driving regional economic development."

Special needs

McBurney Center

Persons with disabilities are to be fully included in this course. Please let me know if you need any special accommodations to enable you to fully participate. I will try to maintain confidentiality of the information you share with me. To request academic accomodations, please register with the McBurney Disability Resource Center.

Academic honesty

Misconduct Guide

Academic honesty requires that the course work a student presents to an instructor honestly and accurately indicates the student's own academic efforts. If you are unsure about what qualifies as academic dishonesty, please consult the Academic Misconduct Guide for Students.  Two points in particular to keep in mind:

• copying or paraphrasing material from books, articles, or web pages without proper quotation and citation is plagiarism
  
  
• copying or paraphrasing material from fellow students is plagiarism

Please remember that any plagiarism may be sufficient grounds for failing a student in the entire course.

Classroom respect

The UW-Madison is committed to creating a dynamic, diverse and welcoming learning environment for all students and has a non-discrimination policy that reflects this philosophy. Disrespectful behaviors or comments addressed towards any group or individual, regardless of race/ethnicity, sexuality, gender, religion, ability, or any other difference is deemed unacceptable in this class, and will be addressed publicly by the professor.

Military call-ups

We recognize that those students serving in the armed forces may be called to active duty at any time.  The university has posted guidelines for students who are called to duty detailing options for withdrawing from, dropping, or completing courses.  In general, students called to military service may receive credit for this class if leaving after the midway point of the course, at the discretion of the instructor, based on the student's earned grade up to the time of departure.

About the instructor

Greg Downey <gdowney @ wisc.edu> is an associate professor with a 50 percent appointment in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication and a 50 percent appointment in the School of Library and Information Studies.  His teaching and research both center on the history and geography of information and communication technology and the often hidden human labor behind it.

Downey joined the UW faculty in 2001. He holds a B.S. and M.S. in computer science from the University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana, an M.A. In liberal studies from Northwestern University, and a joint Ph.D. in history of technology and human geography from the Johns Hopkins University. Before coming to Madison, Downey spent a year as a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Geography and the Humanities Institute at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities.

His industry experience as a computer analyst includes three years at the Leo Burnett advertising agency in Chicago, and three years at Roger Schank’s Institute for Learning Sciences at Northwestern University. He has held short-term volunteer positions with both the Center for Neighborhood Technology in Chicago and the Community Information Exchange in Washington D.C. And he used to draw a daily comic strip when he was an undergraduate, believe it or not.

Downey's first book, Telegraph Messenger Boys: Labor, Technology, and Geography, 1850-1950, was published by Routledge in 2002.  His second book, Closed captioning: Subtitling, stenography, and the digital convergence of text with television, was published by Johns Hopkins in 2008.  He is currently working on his third book, a history and geography of library labor and technology in the US over the 20th century.

Resources

Key journals

• Annals of the Association of American Geographers
• Economic Geography
• Environment and Planning D: Society and Space
• The Information Society
• The Professional Geographer
• Progress in Human Geography
• Urban Geography

Key books

• Manuel Castells, The Network Society.
• Daniel Dorling and David Fairbairn, Mapping: Ways of representing the world (Longman, 1997).
• Katherine Fry, Constructing the Heartland: Television News and Natural Disaster (2003).
• Stephen Graham and Simon Marvin, Telecommunications and the city: Electronic spaces, urban places (1996).
• Stephen Graham and Simon Marvin, Splintering urbanism (2001).
• David Harvey, The condition of posmodernity: An enquiry into the origins of cultural change (Blackwell, 1989).
• David Harvey, Spaces of Capital: Towards a Critical Geography (Routledge, 2001).
• Aharon Kellerman, The Internet on Earth: A Geography of Information (2002).
• Robert Kitchin and Nicholas J. Tate, Conducting research in human geography.
• Doreen Massey, Space, place, and gender (1994).
• David Morley and Kevin Robins, Spaces of Identity: Global Media, Electronic Landscapes and Cultural Boundaries (1995).
• David Morley, Media, Modernity, Technology: The Geography of the New (2006)
• Neil Smith, Uneven development: Nature, capital, and the production of space, 2nd ed. (Blackwell, 1991).

Key edited volumes

• J.A. Agnew and J.S. Duncan, eds., The power of place: Bringing together geographical and sociological imagination (Winchester, MA: Unwin Hyman, 1989).
• John Agnew, David N. Livingstone and Alisdair Rogers, eds., Human geography: An essential anthology (1996).
• Alison Blunt, Pyrs Gruffudd, Jon May, Miles Ogborn, and David Pinder, eds., Cultural geography in practice (London: Edward Arnold, 2003)
• Manuel Castells, ed., The Network Society: A Cross-Cultural Perspective (Edward Elgar, 2005).
• Noel Castree and Derek Gregory, eds., David Harvey: A Critical Reader (Blackwell, 2006).
• Stephen Daniels and Roger Lee, eds., Exploring human geography: A reader (London: Arnold, 1996).
• Michael Dear and Steven Flusty, eds., The spaces of postmodernity: Readings in human geography (Oxford: Blackwell, 2002).
• Stephen Graham, ed., The cybercities reader (2003).
• Derek Gregory and John Urry, eds., Social relations and spatial structures (London: Macmillan, 1985).
• Phil Hubbard, Rob Kitchin, and Gill Valentine, eds., Key Texts in Human Geography (Sage, 2008).
• Philip Kasinitz, ed., Metropolis: Center and symbol of our times (New York: New York University Press, 1995)
• Linda McDowell, ed., Undoing place? A geographical reader (London: Arnold, 1997).
• Richard Peet and Nigel Thrift, eds., New models in geography: The political-economy perspective, 2 vols. (London: Unwin Hyman, 1989).
• Ida Susser, ed., The Castells Reader on Cities and Social Theory (2002).
• James Wheeler et al. eds., Cities in the telecommunications age: The fracturing of geographies (Routledge, 1999).

"I can't make my mind up —
another pint or go home and surf the Internet?"

Well-deserved winter vacation

Thanks for a thoughtful semester of discussions, folks, and for your reflections on the borders between geography and mass communication. Your grades should be online by late Friday Dec. 26. Do keep in touch!

Calendar Fall 2008

September 03

WEEK 01

Why study human geography and mass communication? 

Classroom

• Introduction to the course; introduction of professor and students; schedule student-led discussions of required reading and student presentations of optional reading; discuss final book reviews; learn how to use weblog; discuss basic concepts linking geography and mass communication.

Online

• After class you will receive an invitation email to register with our class weblog at j880.blogspot.com. Follow the instructions to sign up with Blogger.
• Introduce yourself on the weblog (preferably with a nice photo).
• Post a comment on someone else's introduction.

Required reading

• None.  Purchase the seven books for the course this week.

Optional reading

• Robert Kitchin and Nicholas J. Tate, “Thinking about research,” in Conducting research in human geography (Prentice-Hall, 2000), 127 (~30 pages).
• Hilary P.M. Winchester, “Qualitative research and its place in human geography,” in Iain Hay, ed., Qualitative research methods in human geography (Oxford University Press, 2000), 1-20 (~20 pages).
• Susan Cutter, Reg Golledge, and William Graf, "The big questions in geography," Professional Geographer (2002).
• Greg Downey, "Human geography and information studies," Annual Review of Information Science and Technology (2007).

September 10

WEEK 02

Key texts in human geography 

Classroom

• Student-led discussion of required readings: Brian, Chris
• Student presentation of optional readings: Nate, Dan

Online 

• If you are discussing the required reading this week, post a 250-word summary of this required reading to the class weblog before class meets this week.  (If you have divided the labor of this discussion with another student, just write on the portion you will be discussing.)
• If you are presenting an optional reading this week, post a 250-word summary of this optional reading to the class weblog before class meets this week.
• All other students need to make at least one substantive comment on one of these summary postings — a question, a critique, an insight, or anything else of use.  You may create this online comment before or after our class meeting.

Required reading

• Key texts in human geography (first half)

Optional reading

• Georg Simmel, “Die grossstadte und das geistesleben [The metropolis and mental life],” in T. Petermann, ed., Die grossstadt (Dresden, 1903); reprinted in David Levine, ed., George Simmel: On individuality and social forms (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1971); reprinted in Philip Kasinitz, ed., Metropolis: Center and symbol of our times (New York: New York University Press, 1995), 30-45 (~15 pages).
• Ernest W. Burgess, “The growth of the city: An introduction to a research project,” in Robert Park et al., The city (1925); reprinted in Richard T. LeGates and Frederic Stout, eds., The city reader, 2nd ed. (New York: Routledge, 2000), 153-161 (~10 pages).
• Louis Wirth, “Urbanism as a way of life,” American Journal of Sociology 44:1 (1938); reprinted in Philip Kasinitz, ed., Metropolis: Center and symbol of our times (New York: New York University Press, 1995), 58-84 (~30 pages).
• Herbert Gans, “Urbanism and suburbanism as ways of life: A reevaluation of definitions” (1961, updated 1991); reprinted in Philip Kasinitz, ed., Metropolis: Center and symbol of our times (New York: New York University Press, 1995), 170-195 (~25 pages).
  

September 17

WEEK 03

Key texts in human geography (continued)

Classroom

• Student-led discussion of required readings: Davita, Richard
• Student presentation of optional readings: Dale, Nate, Jeremy

Online 

• If you are discussing the required reading this week, post a 250-word summary of this required reading to the class weblog before class meets this week.
• If you are presenting an optional reading this week, post a 250-word summary of this optional reading to the class weblog before class meets this week.
• All other students need to make at least one substantive comment on one of these summary postings — a question, a critique, an insight, or anything else of use.  You may create this online comment before or after our class meeting.

Required reading

• Key texts in human geography (second half)

Optional reading

• Michael Dear and Steven Flusty, “Introduction: How to map a radical break,” in Michael Dear and Steven Flusty, eds., The spaces of postmodernity: Readings in human geography (Oxford: Blackwell, 2002), 1-12 (~10 pages).
• Neil Smith, "The production of space" (1984).
• David Harvey, "On the history and present condition of geography: An historical materialist manifesto," Professional Geographer (1984).
• J.B. Harley, “Deconstructing the map,” Cartographica 26 (1989); reprinted in John Agnew, David N. Livingstone and Alisdair Rogers, eds., Human geography: An essential anthology (1996), 422-443 (~20 pages).
  

September 24

WEEK 04

Global telecommunication

Classroom

• Student-led discussion of required readings: Dale
• Student presentation of optional readings: Chris, Sarah

Online 

• If you are discussing the required reading this week, post a 250-word summary of this required reading to the class weblog before class meets this week.
• If you are presenting an optional reading this week, post a 250-word summary of this optional reading to the class weblog before class meets this week.
• All other students need to make at least one substantive comment on one of these summary postings — a question, a critique, an insight, or anything else of use.  You may create this online comment before or after our class meeting.

Required reading

• Communication and Empire (first half)

Optional reading

• Richard R. John, “Recasting the information infrastructure for the industrial age,” in Alfred D. Chandler jr. and James W. Cortada, eds., A Nation Transformed by Information: How information has shaped the United States from colonial times to the present (Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 2000), 55-106 (~50 pages).
• Richard DuBoff, "The telegraph in nineteenth century America: Technology and monopoly," (1984).
• James Beniger, "Industrial revolution and the crisis of control," in The control revolution (1986).
• Greg Downey, "Telegraph messenger boys: Crossing the borders between history of technology and human geography," Professional Geographer (2003).

October 01

WEEK 05

Global telecommunication (continued)

Classroom

• Student-led discussion of required readings: Dan, Chris
• Student presentation of optional readings: Davita, Brian

Online 

• If you are discussing the required reading this week, post a 250-word summary of this required reading to the class weblog before class meets this week.
• If you are presenting an optional reading this week, post a 250-word summary of this optional reading to the class weblog before class meets this week.
• All other students need to make at least one substantive comment on one of these summary postings — a question, a critique, an insight, or anything else of use.  You may create this online comment before or after our class meeting.

Required reading

• Communication and Empire (second half)

Optional reading

• Carolyn Marvin, "Annihilating space, time, and difference: Experiments in cultural homogenization," in When old technologies were new (1988).
• Claude Fischer, "Local attachment: 1890-1940," in America calling: A social history of the telephone to 1940 (1992).
• Dan Schiller, "The neoliberal networking drive originates in the United States," in Digital capitalism: Networking the global market system (1999).
• Greg Downey, "Virtual webs, physical technologies, and hidden workers: The spaces of labor in information internetworks," Technology and Culture (2001).
  

October 08

WEEK 06

The wired city

Classroom

• Student-led discussion of required readings: Nate
• Student presentation of optional readings: Chris, Richard

Online 

• If you are discussing the required reading this week, post a 250-word summary of this required reading to the class weblog before class meets this week.
• If you are presenting an optional reading this week, post a 250-word summary of this optional reading to the class weblog before class meets this week.
• All other students need to make at least one substantive comment on one of these summary postings — a question, a critique, an insight, or anything else of use.  You may create this online comment before or after our class meeting.

Required reading

• Cities in the telecommunications age (first half)

Optional reading

• William H. Dutton, Jay G. Blumler, and Kenneth L. Kraemer, “Continuity and change in conceptions of the wired city,” in Wired cities: Shaping the future of communications (Boston: G.K. Hall & Co., 1987), 3-26 (~25 pages).
• Stephen Graham and Simon Marvin, “Approaching telecommunications and the city,” in Telecommunications and the city: Electronic spaces, urban places (New York: Routledge, 1996), 78-122 (~45 pages). 
• Stephen Graham, "Bridging urban digital divides?  Urban polarisation and information and communication technologies," Urban Studies (2002).
• William J. Mitchell, “The city of bits hypothesis,” in Donald A. Schön, Bish Sayal, and William J. Mitchell, eds., High technology and low-income communities: Prospects for the positive use of advanced information technology (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1999), 105-130 (~25 pages).

October 15

WEEK 07

The wired city (continued)

Classroom

• Student-led discussion of required readings: Jim, Davita
• Student presentation of optional readings: Brenton, Jeremy

Online 

• If you are discussing the required reading this week, post a 250-word summary of this required reading to the class weblog before class meets this week.
• If you are presenting an optional reading this week, post a 250-word summary of this optional reading to the class weblog before class meets this week.
• All other students need to make at least one substantive comment on one of these summary postings — a question, a critique, an insight, or anything else of use.  You may create this online comment before or after our class meeting.

Required reading

• Cities in the telecommunications age (second half)

Optional reading

• Jefferson Cowie, “Introduction” and “The distances in between,” in Capital moves: RCA’s seventy-year quest for cheap labor (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1999), 1-11, 180-202 (~35 pages).
• Jennifer Light, "Cable as a cold war technology," in From warfare to welfare (2003).
• Jennifer Light, "The wired city," in From warfare to welfare (2003).
• Joel Tarr, "The city and technology" (2005).

October 22

WEEK 08

The network society

Classroom

• Student-led discussion of required readings: Richard, Jeremy
• Student presentation of optional readings: (nobody right now)

Online 

• If you are discussing the required reading this week, post a 250-word summary of this required reading to the class weblog before class meets this week.
• If you are presenting an optional reading this week, post a 250-word summary of this optional reading to the class weblog before class meets this week.
• All other students need to make at least one substantive comment on one of these summary postings — a question, a critique, an insight, or anything else of use.  You may create this online comment before or after our class meeting.

Required reading

• The Network Society: A Cross-Cultural Perspective (first half)

Optional reading

• Manuel Castells, “The reconstruction of social meaning in the space of flows,” from Manuel Castells, The informational city: Information technology, economic restructuring, and the urban-regional process (New York: Blackwell, 1989), reprinted in Richard T. LeGates and Frederic Stout, eds., The city reader, 1st ed. (New York: Routledge, 1996), 493-497 (5 pages).
• Manuel Castells, “Grassrooting the space of flows,” in James O. Wheeler, Yuko Aoyama and Barney Warf, eds., Cities in the telecommunications age: The fracturing of geographies (New York: Routledge, 2000), 18-27 (~10 pages).
• David Ellis, Rachel Oldridge, and Ana Vasconcelos, “Community and virtual community,” ARIST 38 (2004), 145-186 (~40 pages).
• Barry Wellman,“Physical place and cyberplace: The rise of personalized networking,” International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 25:2 (2001) (~25 pages).

October 29

WEEK 09

The network society (continued)

Classroom

• Student-led discussion of required readings: Brian, Dale
• Student presentation of optional readings: Jim

Online 

• If you are discussing the required reading this week, post a 250-word summary of this required reading to the class weblog before class meets this week.
• If you are presenting an optional reading this week, post a 250-word summary of this optional reading to the class weblog before class meets this week.
• All other students need to make at least one substantive comment on one of these summary postings — a question, a critique, an insight, or anything else of use.  You may create this online comment before or after our class meeting.

Required reading

• The Network Society: A Cross-Cultural Perspective (second half)

Optional reading

• Mark Granovetter, “The strength of weak ties: A network theory revisited,” Sociological Theory 1 (1983), 201-233 (~30 pages).
• M. Emirbayer and J. Goodwin, “Network analysis, culture, and the problem of agency,” American Journal of Sociology 99 (1994), 141154 (~40 pages).
• Greg Downey, "Nodes, links, and phase transitions: Popularlizing network science," Technology and Culture (2004).
• Tara McPherson, “I’ll take my stand in Dixie-net: White guys, the South, and cyberspace,” in Beth E. Kolko, Lisa Nakamura, and Gilbert B. Rodman, eds., Race in Cyberspace (New York: Routledge, 2000), 117-132 (~15 pages).

November 05

WEEK 10

The geography of marketing

Classroom

• Student-led discussion of required readings: Brenton
• Student presentation of optional readings: Dan, Sarah, Brian

Online 

• If you are discussing the required reading this week, post a 250-word summary of this required reading to the class weblog before class meets this week.
• If you are presenting an optional reading this week, post a 250-word summary of this optional reading to the class weblog before class meets this week.
• All other students need to make at least one substantive comment on one of these summary postings — a question, a critique, an insight, or anything else of use.  You may create this online comment before or after our class meeting.

Required reading

• Geographies of consumption (whole book)

Optional reading

• Jon Goss, “The ‘magic of the mall’: An analysis of form, function, and meaning in the contemporary retail built environment” Annals of the AAG 83 (1993), 18-47; selection excerpted in Linda McDowell, ed., Undoing place? A geographical reader (London: Arnold, 1997), 265-283 (~20 pages).
• Jon Goss, “‘We know who you are and we know where you live’: The instrumental rationality of geodemographic systems,” Economic Geography (1995), 171-198 (~25 pages).
• D. Leslie, “Global scan: The globalisation of advertising agencies, concepts and campaigns,” Economic Geography 71:4 (1995), 402-26 (~25 pages).
• Mona Domosh, “Selling America: Advertising, national identity and economic empire in the late nineteenth century,” in Alison Blunt, Pyrs Gruffudd, Jon May, Miles Ogborn, and David Pinder, eds., Cultural geography in practice (London: Edward Arnold, 2003), 141-150 (~10 pages).
  

November 12

WEEK 11

The geography of entertainment

Classroom

• Student-led discussion of required readings: Nate, Sarah
• Student presentation of optional readings: Dale, Davita

Online 

• If you are discussing the required reading this week, post a 250-word summary of this required reading to the class weblog before class meets this week.
• If you are presenting an optional reading this week, post a 250-word summary of this optional reading to the class weblog before class meets this week.
• All other students need to make at least one substantive comment on one of these summary postings — a question, a critique, an insight, or anything else of use.  You may create this online comment before or after our class meeting.

Required reading

• Soundtracks: Popular Music, Identity and Place (whole book)

Optional reading

• Susan Douglas, "The turn within: The irony of technology in a globalized world" American Quarterly (2006).
• Maria Helena B.V. da Costa, “Cinematic cities: Researching films as geographical texts,” in Alison Blunt, Pyrs Gruffudd, Jon May, Miles Ogborn, and David Pinder, eds., Cultural geography in practice (London: Edward Arnold, 2003), 191-201 (~10 pages).
• James Kneale, “Secondary novels: Reading novels as geographical research,” in Alison Blunt, Pyrs Gruffudd, Jon May, Miles Ogborn, and David Pinder, eds., Cultural geography in practice (London: Edward Arnold, 2003), 39-51 (~15 pages).
• Sara Cohen, “Sounding out the city: Music and the sensuous production of place,” in A. Leyshon, D. Matless, and G. Revil, eds., The place of music (New York: Guilford Press, 1998); reprinted in Michael Dear and Steven Flusty, eds., The spaces of postmodernity: Readings in human geography (Oxford: Blackwell, 2002), 262-276 (~15 pages).
  

November 19

WEEK 12

The geography of the Internet

Classroom

• Student-led discussion of required readings: Dan, Jeremy
• Student presentation of optional readings: Jim, Brenton

Online 

• If you are discussing the required reading this week, post a 250-word summary of this required reading to the class weblog before class meets this week.
• If you are presenting an optional reading this week, post a 250-word summary of this optional reading to the class weblog before class meets this week.
• All other students need to make at least one substantive comment on one of these summary postings — a question, a critique, an insight, or anything else of use.  You may create this online comment before or after our class meeting.

Required reading

• The Geography of the Internet Industry (whole book)

Optional reading

• Matthew Zook, “Underground globalization: Mapping the space of flows of the Internet adult industry,” Environment & planning A 35:7 (2003), 1261 (~25 pages).
• Andy C. Pratt, “New media, the new economy and new spaces,” Geoforum 31 (2000), 425-436 (~10 pages).
• Hester Parr, “Researching bodies in virtual space,” in Alison Blunt, Pyrs Gruffudd, Jon May, Miles Ogborn, and David Pinder, eds., Cultural geography in practice (London: Edward Arnold, 2003), 55-68 (~15 pages).
• David Bell, “Researching cybercultures,” in An introduction to cybercultures (New York: Routledge, 2001), 186-204 (~20 pages).

November 26 • THANKSGIVING

WEEK 13

CLASS CANCELLED FOR THANKSGIVING BREAK.

December 03

WEEK 14

Student book reviews

Classroom

• Student presentation of book reviews (10-12 minutes each): Richard, Brian, Dale, Dan, Jim

Online

• Please post a 250-word description of the book you are reading for your final review, and some initial thoughts on the book
• If you have previously read any of the books that other students are reviewing, please comment on their post concerning this book.
  

December 10 • LAST CLASS

WEEK 15

Student book reviews (continued)

Classroom

• Student presentation of book reviews (10-12 minutes each): Chris, Brenton, Davita, Jeremy, Sarah, Nate

Online

• Please reply to this question: What good is geography to the study of mass communication?
• Please respond to at least one other student's reply to this question.

PLEASE TURN IN YOUR FINAL 2,000 WORD BOOK REVIEW
BY THE LAST FRIDAY OF FINALS WEEK