WGSS 325
Television, Social Media, and Black Women 'Unscripted'
Last Offered Fall 2017
Division II
Cross-listed WGSS 325 / AFR 325
This course is not offered in the current catalog or this is a previous listing for a current course.

Nene Leaks, Shonda Rhimes, Oprah Winfrey, Kerry Washington and now Lavern Cox and Melissa Harris-Perry have become common household names. Whether from the television shows they star in, the TV shows they have created, or the social media presence they have developed–these women continue to influence and shape popular culture. In this course we will situate Black women as creators and contributors to popular culture as a whole, but specifically through television (scripted and “unscripted”) and social media. We will begin by covering the history of Black women in television. This historical approach will then lead us to examine selected TV episodes, and investigate social media pages of Black actresses, television producers, and the fans of these shows. The aim of this course is to analyze the ways in which Black women continually shift the popular culture paradigm and how they serve as key players determining what is indeed popular.