Teaching Mass Communication in the Time of COVID-19

A doctor’s plague mask from the time of the plague during Luther’s youth. Unfortunately for doctors, this mask was ineffective as plague was spread by fleas and not through the air.

It’s been  a difficult time for all of us the last few weeks with the COVID-19 pandemic, the need for social distancing, self-isolation, self-quarantine, working remotely, dealing with shortages of medical equipment and hospital beds…

For faculty and students, it likely means that classes that weren’t planned on being taught online are being rapidly moved online.

One of my first responses two weeks ago was to put together an online curriculum package for the class, based on my Sage text Mass Communication: Living in a Media World. (This package has now been available to faculty who need it for about a week.)

While the materials are keyed to the organization and material from my book, I’ll share the packet with anyone teaching at the college-level whether you use my book or not. I’ve been teaching online for at least 20 years and understand how daunting making a sudden shift like this can be.

And here are some interesting current issues for discussion in class:

Should broadcast/streaming media carry the president’s press conferences live when he makes multiple false statements in them? (I’m not talking about whether you like/dislike the president or his policies, just the fact that he often states things as fact that are not.) Jay Rosen is one of the leading American press critics.

Why do we watch horror movies? And what do we gain from watching them? Do they open us up to talking about tabu topics?

And finally – What if you had been isolated from the news for the last few weeks and suddenly re-emerged into our world.  How would you make sense of this news? And how have entertainment programs handled it?