University
of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
Urban
Studies Programs
Spring
2006
USP
984-Research Project in Urban Institutions: The Media and the City
Prof.
Joe Rodriguez
Office
hrs: TR3-4pm and by appt.
Office:
768Bol/x4751
This
seminar exposes students to the different organizational methods and discursive
strategies used by geographers, sociologists and historians in their scholarly
writing. The seminar focuses on the topic of the media’s representation of the
city and readings were chosen to allow students to compare how sociologists and
historians present their findings. Students are asked to read the materials
closely and analyze rhetorical strategies and methods of exposition.
Assignments allow students to discuss how geographers, historians, sociologists
utilize evidence to make arguments.
Through this approach we can become more conscious of our own methods
and strategies and assumptions that frame our work.
Seminar
Assignments:
Assignments
for the semester will include two 10-page papers due March 14 and May 16.
Paper
#1: Take a major media theorist and analyze their work on the press. Or analyze
how a group of theorists have theorized the press (feminist, Marxist, etc.)—due March 14.
Paper #2: Choose a newspaper and an
issue and analyze how the press covered that issue. The issue should have a
historical component. This requires going back and looking at a press that is
archived in some fashion (i.e. microfiche).
This might include the urban booster press of the 19th
century. You might also consider the how the press covered an issue versus
other forms of representation. For example, how did the press analyze “sweatshops”
versus painter, or novelists? (Due May 14.)
Jan.
24: Introduction to the seminar.
P. Dreier. “How the Media Compound Urban Problems”
Journal of Urban Affairs 27:2 (June 2005) pp. 193-201.
http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/links/doi/10.1111/j.0735-2166.2005.00232.x/abs/
Jan.
31: History and Race and the Press
Kerner
Commission Report, ch. 15, pp. 362-389 (e-reserve)
J. Logan and Molotch, Urban Fortunes, ch.
3, pp. 50-98 (e-reserve)
Susan Herbst, Politics on the Margins (chs. 1 and 3, e-reserve)
Feb
7: Representing Nationalism
Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities, all
Feb.
14: Representing the Enclave
Kay Anderson, “The Idea of
Henry H. Brownstein, “The Media and the Construction
of Random Drug
Violence,” Social
Justice, 18:4. pp. 85-103
R. G. Lawrence, The
Politics of Force (U of California, 2000), chaps. 5-6 (electronic reserve)
K.K.
Wong and P. Jain, “Newspapers as Policy Actors in Urban School Systems: The
P. Parisi and B. Holcomb, “Symbolizing Place: Journalistic
Narratives of the City,” Urban Geography
15:4 (1994), 395-405.
D.
G. Martin, “Constructing Place: Cultural Hegemonies and Media: Images of an
Inner-City Neighborhood,” Urban Geography
21:5 (2000): 380-405.
R. Dilworth and K. Trevenen,
“When Cities Get Married: Constructing Urban Space Through
Gender, Sexuality, and Municipal Consolidation,” Urban Affairs Review 40:2 (Nov 2004), pp. 183-209.
Nurit Alfasi,
“The Meaning of Words in Urban Conflicts: Language, Argumentation Patterns and Local
Politics in
Feb.
28: The Evolution of the Urban Press I
Richard L. Kaplan, Politics and the American Press: The Rise of Objectivity, 1865-1920
(
March
7: The Evolution of the American Press
II
G. Barth, City People, ch.
3, pp. 58-109 (e-reserve)
Hepp, The Middle Class City, chaps 4-5, pp.
89-143 (e-reserve)
David Paul Nord, “The
Public Community: The Urbanization of Journalism in
March
14: Presentations
March
21: Spring Break
March
28: Press and Redevelopment
Timothy A. Gibson, “Covering the World-Class
Downtown:
Phyllis Kaniss, Making Local News (
R. S. Turner and Jose F. Marichal,
“Exploring Politics on the Sports Page: The Role of Local Media in Sports
Stadium Developments,” Policy Studies
Review, Spring 1998, 15:1, pp. 31-44
T.
McFarlane and I. Hay, “The
E. Schneider, Vampires,
Dragons and Egyptian Kings: Youth Gangs in Postwar
April
11: Press and Subject/Moral Panics
Judith R. Blau, “Group Enmity and Accord,” Social
Science History, 24:2 (Summer 2000) ; available at:
http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/social_science_history/v024/24.2blau.pdf
M. Welch, E. A. Price, N. Yankey,
“Moral Panic Over Youth Violence,” Youth
and Society 34:1 (Sept 2002), pp. 3-30.
http://yas.sagepub.com/cgi/reprint/34/1/3
Stanley Cohen, Folk Devils and Moral Panics 3rd
ed. (Routledge, 2002), vii-xliv (e-reserve)
April
18: Representing Urban Decline I
R. Beauregard, Voices of Decline--all
April
25: Representing Urban Decline II
David Wilson and Jared Wouters,
“Spatiality and Growth Discourse: The Restructuring of America’s Rustbelt
Cities,” Journal of Urban Affairs
David Wilson, “Growth Coalitions, metaphors, and
uneven development in a
David Wilson, Inventing
Black on Black Violence: Discourse, Space, and Representation (ch. 5, on e-reserve)
David Wilson, “Representing “Neighborhood”: Growth
Coalitions, Newspaper Reporting, and Gentrification in
May
2: Visualizing the Press
Ratner
and Teeter, jr. Fanatics
and Fire-eaters: Newspapers and the Coming of the Civil War
(University
of Illinois Press, 2003), all.
May
9: Presentations.