Narrative, Communication and Advocacy in a Mass/Social Media World

Course description: Social Justice in a Digital World: Narrative, New Media, and Advocacy

Proposed bachelor’s level elective (could be open to MSWs)

Prepared by Suzanne England
January 31, 2010

This course focuses on language and narrative--written, oral, and graphic—and the ways that experience, life views, and power are communicated in order to control or change social relations. Communication shapes our perceptions of the world and of social problems and solutions. The tools of narrative inquiry can deepen our awareness of how language constructs our discourses about events, public policy, professional practices, and politics, and the particular ways that mass and social media shape our understanding and behavior. Using a collaborative learning model the course is designed for active reflexive participation. All participants, including the instructor, will be expected to develop a critical analysis of a public debate, examine the narratives and modes of communication of advocacy networks and movements, and critically reflect upon the narrative construction of normalcy and otherness.