Spring 2027

Media and the Consumer

Media and the Consumer examines advertising and mass media from the consumer's viewpoint, covering information needs, media evaluation, and the implications of the consumer movement.

no offering record for this termCredits unavailable
Recorded instructors · Spring 2027 No instructors listed

Summary

1 / 8

Past student reviews · Douglas McLeod

The course required significant effort, including multiple weekly readings, five exams, and a semester-long group project separate from lecture.

What you’ll be able to do

  • Critique market theory principles as applied to the evaluation of advertising forms and practices.

  • Describe the basic issues and research conclusions pertaining to the economics of advertising.

  • Recognize the historical evolution of advertising and strategic communication practices.

  • Evaluate the fundamental psychological and social effects raised by advertising’s critics.

  • Investigate the pros and cons of various mechanisms that protect consumers from harmful effects.

  • Incorporate various research techniques used to study advertising content and consumer behavior.

  • 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

  • Junior standing
JOURN 564

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

Prerequisite text tree
  • Junior standing

Professors

Spring 2027

No instructors recorded for this selection.

Historical instructors & teaching patterns

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

Calendar & sections

Spring 2027

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SectionModeEnrolled / capacityWaitlist

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

Meeting source records
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Student experience

the class

Past student reviews · Douglas McLeod

Past students described Douglas McLeod as a favorite professor who connected lectures to the real world and made content easy to understand.

Recent recorded grades — Spring 2024: 3.60 GPA, 76.4% A/AB (n=72 letter grades); Spring 2025: 3.96 GPA, 100.0% A/AB (n=97 letter grades); Fall 2025: 3.75 GPA, 80.4% A/AB (n=97 letter grades).

difficulty & workload

Past student reviews · Douglas McLeod

The course required significant effort, including multiple weekly readings, five exams, and a semester-long group project separate from lecture.

Past student reviews · Douglas McLeod

Exams were considered tougher than other journalism classes with limited room for error, though extra credit provided a way to compensate for lower scores.

Topics

  • Advertising and other mass media content from the consumer's viewpoint
  • Consumer's need and opportunities for information, and use of opportunities
  • Consumer evaluation of media performance, guidelines for effective use
  • Alternative means for obtaining information
  • Implications of consumer movement

Skills

  • Critique market theory principles as applied to the evaluation of advertising forms and practices.
  • Describe the basic issues and research conclusions pertaining to the economics of advertising.
  • Recognize the historical evolution of advertising and strategic communication practices.
  • Evaluate the fundamental psychological and social effects raised by advertising’s critics.
  • Investigate the pros and cons of various mechanisms that protect consumers from harmful effects.
  • Incorporate various research techniques used to study advertising content and consumer behavior.
  • Critically evaluate ideas from different sources, integrating (or contrasting) different theories, deriving new testable hypotheses, or develop variations on theoretical models.

Grades

Latest available · Fall 2025— not enough history to project Spring 2027.

average GPA
A / AB grades
letter grades
Instructor

Grade distribution · % of letter grades

A
AB
B
BC
C
D
F

Grades over time

Through Fall 2025

More grade details Grade mix, volume & source data

Where this course fits relative to

Latest available grades · Fall 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

1316 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.

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Selected offering source records

No offering records for the selected term.

Raw records 
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Rate My Professors

Student reviews

Original comments behind the course and instructor summaries.

Read original reviews
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Madgrades

Grade history

Recorded grade distributions by term, section, and instructor.

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Dataset & model

Recorded 2026-10-14

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

Recorded model configuration, reasoning, and tool conversations.

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Model & dataset provenance 
{
  "model": "Qwen/Qwen3.8-27B",
  "model_revision": "1d4bf0f2ff6012fd82039f2fa52739d0dd7c60c0",
  "task_version": "17",
  "output_id": "47e6b73b1a59999bbb083442fd6302e6bd9a6a1fd333983a2a6fd72b12ff9178",
  "requirements_status": "valid",
  "dataset_revision": "fc1811fa52e581ea57a35c0cf3343f8740a8ffbf",
  "observed_at": "2026-10-14 17:50:09.728220+00:00"
}