Department of Human & Community Development, University of Illinois

                                                                                                           
                    

Undergraduate Programs

Course Information

| back to course list |
| back to course description |

AGCM 110 intro to ag & env comm

3 hours (lecture-discussion)
Fall Semesters

Course Objective

This is an introductory course with several purposes. Foremost, it aims to equip you with a basic vocabulary and understanding of key communication processes and effects that will help you make the most of your subsequent communication or education courses (yes, communication plays a big role in education). Second, by tracing the development of communication technologies and the American land-grant education system, it aims to help you understand the various ways people and societies have attempted to solve the “problem” of communication, the ways the problem of communication may manifest itself in the future, and perhaps to be better able to answer the question, “Why agricultural communication or education?” It also will introduce the notion of audience-centered communication planning that underlies successful applied communication and education efforts. We’ll also spend some time talking about our own use of communication and communication media, in part to encourage greater understanding of how communication audiences behave. Stated more formally, your objectives for this course should be:

  • to be able to conceive of communication as a problem, and to view applied communication from an audience-centered, problem-solving perspective
  • to develop a communication vocabulary for describing, understanding and applying key concepts related to communication processes and effects
  • to understand the development of communication technologies in general, and agricultural communication and education in particular, as responses to historically situated communication problems
  • to think critically about some current and persistent issues in agricultural communication and education
  • to become more aware of and better understand your own communication behavior, and in particular your use of mass media

Topics

  • The problem of communication
  • Models and modes of communication
  • Usef and functions of mass communication
  • Context and content of mass communication
  • Audiences
  • History of communication technology
  • History of agricultural communications
  • Attitude change and persuasion
  • Social learning
  • Agenda-setting, community conflict, cultivation and the spiral of silence
  • Communication and social change
  • Communication and current issues: communicating about sustainable agriculture, food, and environmental risk

Assigned Text and Other Readings

AGCM 110 readings packet

Graded Activities

Critical essays (4)
Media diary and analysis
In-class minithemes (4)

| back to course list |
| back to course description |