How can we think productively about the media – the industries that produce it, the audiences that receive it, the representations circulated by it, and the social, cultural, and political impact mass media have on the contemporary social order? This course provides students with conceptual and analytical tools for understanding how and why “media matters.” Using a broadly historical lens, we will explore the dominant “schools” of media and mass communication thought as they have developed over the 20th and 21st century, looking at how these different schools dialogue with each other as well as how they provide different ways to think about the phenomenon of mass media. In seminar-style, we will discuss the relative strengths and weaknesses of these schools of thought, grounding our discussions as much as possible on examples of media culture brought to class by both students and instructor.