Spring 2027

Mass Communication and Society

Mass Communication and Society examines relationships between mass communications and society, analyzing media performance and suggestions for change.

offering recorded4 credits
Recorded instructors · Spring 2027 Lindsay Palmer4.3/5

Summary

1 / 6

Past student reviews · Lewis Friedland

The course required around 100 pages of reading per week, which students found manageable if interested in the material.

What you’ll be able to do

  • Critique how communication and society shape each other by examining social structure - how society works - and how it fits with the general structures of communication and media.

  • Characterize what social and communication structures make the democratic way of life sustainable and ask whether they are still strong enough in a networked society.

  • Evaluate how communication and community do and do not work together.

  • Explain what community means, how it is changing, whether communication is necessary for community, and whether community is necessary for a democratic society.

  • Appraise the networked society and ask how it transforms all these previous themes - society, democracy, and community.

  • Critically evaluate ideas from different sources, integrating (or contrasting) different theories, deriving new testable hypotheses, or develop variations on theoretical models.

Source: UW Guide

Grade history

↗
average GPA
letter grades
A
AB
B
BC
C
D
F

All recorded terms · compare terms & instructors

Prerequisites

Course map

Junior standing; not open to special students

    • Junior standing
    • not open to special students
    take all
JOURN 561

This is a best-effort interpretation; check the catalog requirements above.

Prerequisite text tree
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    • not open to special students

Professors

Spring 2027

Lindsay Palmer

Adjusted rating
RMP difficulty
captured reviews
About this rating

Raw average: 4.49/5 from 87 quality ratings. The adjusted rating blends this with the UW review average (3.66/5), weighted as 20 additional ratings. Smaller samples stay closer to that average. Each captured review is counted once in the prior; this does not correct who chooses to leave a review.

RMP profile ↗ · All captured review dates; profile matched by name.

No course-specific feedback yet.

Historical instructors & teaching patterns

LEWIS FRIEDLAND is recorded teaching in Spring 2008, Fall 2008, Fall 2009, Spring 2010, Spring 2011, Spring 2012, Spring 2013, Spring 2018, Fall 2018. Recorded history may be incomplete and does not establish a future schedule.

Recorded history may be incomplete and does not establish a future schedule.

Calendar & sections

Spring 2027

Schedule loads here as you scroll.

SectionModeEnrolled / capacityWaitlist
LEC 001Classroom Instruction0 / 1000
DIS 301Classroom Instruction0 / 250
DIS 302Classroom Instruction0 / 250
DIS 303Classroom Instruction0 / 250
DIS 304Classroom Instruction0 / 250

Times are Central. Select a meeting for details; export includes recorded dates for the selected sections. Enrollment reflects scan time.

Meeting source records
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Student experience

the class

Past student reviews · Lewis Friedland

Students described the historical instructor as passionate and knowledgeable, noting he related academic concepts to everyday modern life.

Recent recorded grades — Fall 2022: 3.54 GPA, 78.8% A/AB (n=52 letter grades); Fall 2023: 3.81 GPA, 92.6% A/AB (n=95 letter grades); Spring 2025: 3.59 GPA, 83.6% A/AB (n=55 letter grades).

difficulty & workload

Past student reviews · Lewis Friedland

The course required around 100 pages of reading per week, which students found manageable if interested in the material.

Past student reviews · Lewis Friedland

One student found the class boring and criticized the instructor for letting political opinions enter the classroom too much.

Topics

  • Relationships between mass communications and society
  • Analysis and evaluation of media performance and suggestions for change
  • Social and communication structures supporting democracy in a networked society
  • The meaning, changes, and necessity of community for communication and democratic society
  • The networked society and its transformation of society, democracy, and community

Skills

  • Analyze and evaluate media performance and suggestions for change.
  • Critically evaluate ideas, integrate theories, derive testable hypotheses, and develop theoretical model variations.
  • Examine social structure and its fit with communication and media structures.

Grades

Historical instructor

Spring 2027 · Projected

Before grades are released

– average GPA

Approximate 80% prediction interval

About this estimate

The course’s semester-average GPA, not an individual student’s grade. The center uses 4 recent terms, weighted toward recent results.

The range uses the finite-sample 80th-percentile rank of absolute errors from earlier same-season forecasts. Each forecast uses only records from earlier terms. At least four forecasts are required; bounds are rounded outward and limited to 0–4. This is an empirical estimate: changing instructors or grading policies can reduce its coverage.

8 earlier forecasts · 0.10 GPA average error.

Grades over time

Through Spring 2027

More grade details Grade mix, volume & source data

Where this course fits relative to

Latest available grades · Spring 2025 · all course levels

GPA

Higher than % of other courses in this group.

Course GPAs · red marks this course’s range

letter grades

More recorded grades than % of other courses in this group.

Typical course in this group: letter grades.

About this comparison

1286 courses over the same term, each with at least 30 recorded letter grades. Cross-listed courses count once. GPA is not a measure of difficulty or teaching quality. The typical course is the median by recorded grade count; tied values are not counted as lower. Grade counts describe course scale, not unique students or typical section size.

Descriptions compare GPA with this group’s average: at least 0.20 higher or lower; otherwise close to average. Section size uses median recorded enrollment: small up to 30, mid-sized 31–99, large 100+. Lectures and discussion/lab sections are described separately.

Sources & history

UW–Madison

Catalog & offerings

Descriptions, prerequisites, and recorded course offerings.

Catalog observation history

Observations at scan time; dates do not imply when a catalog change took effect.

Download part 1
Selected offering source records
JOURN 561 · Spring 2027

Mass Communication and Society

Recorded 2026-10-14
Raw records 
[
  {
    "run_id": "20261014T203208-0851c9a1",
    "semester": "1274",
    "observed_at": "2026-10-14 17:50:09.728220+00:00",
    "offering_id": "1274:512:010763",
    "course_id": "JOURN 561",
    "course_uid": "course_6b5f0206ed8def16b39c8cff",
    "term_id": "1274",
    "source_course_id": "010763",
    "source_subject_id": "512",
    "title": "Mass Communication and Society",
    "credits_min": 4,
    "credits_max": 4,
    "typically_offered": "Fall, Spring"
  }
]
Rate My Professors

Student reviews

Original comments behind the course and instructor summaries.

Read original reviews
Download part 1
Madgrades

Grade history

Recorded grade distributions by term, section, and instructor.

Explore recorded grades
Dataset & model

Recorded 2026-10-14

View the dataset on Hugging Face
Model outputs & technical records
Qwen/Qwen3.8-27B
LLM outputs across runs
Download part 1
Full model traces

Recorded model configuration, reasoning, and tool conversations.

Download part 1
Model & dataset provenance 
{
  "model": "Qwen/Qwen3.8-27B",
  "model_revision": "1d4bf0f2ff6012fd82039f2fa52739d0dd7c60c0",
  "task_version": "17",
  "output_id": "34b720aef86ce00cc59712a3a47f3bababc4701a2cb7cf2bcb6060668ce0efeb",
  "requirements_status": "needs_review",
  "dataset_revision": "fc1811fa52e581ea57a35c0cf3343f8740a8ffbf",
  "observed_at": "2026-10-14 17:50:09.728220+00:00"
}