FRS 001V - Sec. 001 - (2 units) - CRN 83067 - T 12:10-2:00 PM - 3 Wellman
Picturing Social Life: Photos and Film - Facts and Fabrication

Instructor: Jon Wagner, School of Education

Description: This seminar explores how photographs, video and film are used to “picture” social life in social research, journalism, entertainment, advertising and propaganda. Discussion topics include: making and faking visual documents of social life; linking texts and images to create or reduce ambiguity; marketing visual “documents” in the digital age; the science and craft of representing social reality; and visual rhetorics of fantasy and fiction.

Format: The seminar meets for two hours each week for 9 weeks. Seminars will combine mini-lectures and presentations with in-class discussions of readings, photographs, video taoesm student presentations and short writing assignments. No standard text is required, but students read a selection of articles chosen from diverse sources, including: visual anthropology, visual sociology, documentary film-making, documentary photography, media studies and the arts. Students also will review "found" video and film documents and construct visual documents of their own (in pairs and teams) by working on four short assignments: (a) creating facts and fabrications: (b) interpreting "reality" in television programming: (c) using fact and fabrications as complements: and (d) using text to interpret visual facts and fabrications. Sudents will present their work on these assignments to the class as teams, pairs or individually. Each student will also write a brief commentary (500-750 words) comparing assignments presented in class with one or more of the course readings. Each student will also prepare a short written statement (300-500 words) that tries to distinguish "fact" from "fabrication" in a media product of their choice. These statements will be presented a the last class session in a mini-conference format. Grading: Grades will be based on the following: 20% for each of the four assignments and commentaries; 20% on classroom participation.

About the Instructor: Professor Wagner is a faculty member in the School of Education. His reasearch interests include school organization and reform, children's material culture, and image-based research. Current projects include a study of how children and adults view the material culture of children in the home and in school and studies of two alternative high schools the emphasize "problem-based learning." Professor Wagner is currently President of the International Visual Sociology Association and the Image Editor for Contexts magazine.