About

This is the class blog for Dr. Brown’s Mass Communication Theory Course at the University of Memphis. 

“There is nothing so practical as a good theory.”— social psychologist Kurt Lewin

We live in an era in which the processes of news production and the patterns of media consumption are changing rapidly with the advent of new digital technologies.  Even the most seasoned professionals are struggling to determine what the media landscape of the future will look like and what business models can be used to support it.  It is in times like these when the theories of mass communication are particularly valuable.  The broadly explanatory concepts of theory help us understand some of the underlying ways in which humans respond to and share different types of information, and as thus can help us to make some informed predictions about what the future may hold.

This class will provide you with an overview of some of the important theories in our field, and will encourage you to think about how these apply to the real world and how they will inform your future work as a media professional.