An amazing class. Here's the grade breakdown:
22.5% 1st midterm
22.5% 2nd midterm
35% final
20% memos

People here are talking about how much reading there is for this class, but this quarter Rossman decided to stop assigning one of the books he typically would assign and instead replace those originally assigned book chapters with super relevant and, in my opinion, really fun articles. Your mileage may vary in terms of the difficulty of the readings, but they were never egregiously long. Each one is close to 15- 20 pages, which is more than fair for a sociology course. We were reading about sex work, the k-pop industry, country artists, and even stand-up comedy careers. All of it was genuinely incredible and were massive eye-openers in how our cultures are produced by our society and not a reflection of it.

This is far more subjective, but I never found the course to be incredibly challenging. It was the right amount of difficulty, and Rossman really explains things with a lot of clarity and with plenty of examples. His exams were very focused on conceptual knowledge; a standard question would be him asking you the parts of this concept he talked about in class, and apply it to different media industries (and he would provide those examples in lecture, but you could very much bring up an example not from lecture long as its correct). As someone who prefers to be tested through conceptual knowledge, this was perfect for me. A lot of people here are complaining about his memos, but they aren't looking for anything crazy; just write about the readings and provide some interesting commentary about them. Long as you have a mix of good analysis and summary, you're getting a perfect score. It doesn't have to be fancy, and even Rossman emphasizes that.

I found that what no one really talks about is how Rossman perfected the Async format. This dude doesn't record an hour and 15-minute lectures; he instead records things into bite-sized lectures that range from 5 minutes to max 20 minutes. I found this to be the perfect format as I never felt overwhelmed with information. And if you were confused, the flipped classroom is there for you to ask any questions you have.

I HIGHLY recommend taking this class if everything I mentioned is appealing to you. A seriously fun class that every Sociology or Communications major should take (assuming he hopefully keeps the same readings lol).

TAKE THIS CLASS. I took this class my first quarter as a transfer student. This is also coming from someone fresh out of community college who had a super light workload. This is the most interesting and relatable class I’ve ever taken. Professor Rossman is the best lecturer. He connects concepts and theories to examples we can relate to (clips from the Godfather, bottle service, entertainment industry examples etc). The work isn’t hard, just keep on top of memos, take good notes, and ATTEND LECTURES. I failed the midterm after not attending the optional lectures, then began attending and aced the final. Don’t be me, but yes, take this class because you’ll actually leave with useful concepts that overlap with most other sociology classes.

Prof. Rossman is an excellent lecturer who really understands the concepts of this course... it is obvious that he is one of the leading researchers in his field. He lays forth these concepts very clearly in lecture and the structure of the class is fairly simple, having to complete 5 1k word memos by the end of the quarter. The exams are somewhat tricky because it is almost completely dependent on how well you understand the lectures, but as long as you pay attention to what he emphasizes for each lecture, it should be easy to study for exams. My only issue was that the multiple choice questions for the readings were somewhat random and shouldn't be included.

very rude professor. his demeanor sucks and he is SO sassy. he's more concerned about students cheating than being fair and considerate. I would never take this professor again and I do not recommend. also, there is like no correlation to his lectures. he just sits and connects everything to religion. very weird and rude guy.

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There was so much content to read each week for this class. There is no extra credit and anything late is docked points. The textbooks are old and not relevant. My GPA dropped dramatically because of this class and I regret taking it with this professor. Some of the negative reviews for professors are somehow being removed because I know of other students that were unhappy with the class content and their grades. I had to drop my other class due to this class so be careful! If you can take a different class or with a different professor I highly recommend doing so. Good luck!

This class was one of the most interesting course I have taken for Mass communication. Dr. Rossman is highly knowledgeable and helpful so as long as you do what he assigns, you will get a good grade. This also means try no to slack off as much as possible. I took it asynchronous witch made it tempting to procrastinate but if you watch the lectures on schedule and go to his flip-classroom, you already prepared yourself for the exams. There were 4 memos (4pgs each) for the weekly readings and you can pick which four to write out of ten weekly readings. Definitely do them early, it helps you to determine your proximate grade and gets it out of the way before finals starts approaching. As for the exams, there are relatively short with 50 min for the midterms 1 & 2 (composed of 2 short answers and 3 mcq) and 2 hrs for the final (composed of 4 short-answers and several mcq). The questions and gradings is reasonable. If you watch the lectures, at least skim the readings, and review a couple days prior to the exam, you will do more than fine. Take this class!!! Professor is great. The workload is not little but absolutely manageable. Content is interesting and Dr. Rossman does a great job explaining them in detail with multiple examples.

I've heard this is the easiest way to fulfill the mass communication requirement for the Communication major, and after completing it, I can definitely see that. I had Yeritsian, who wasn't listed on the options of professors, and I feel like the class was overall good. The content can be boring and seem self-explanatory, but it's essential to go to every lecture and take decent notes to study from. The grade was entirely based off of 3 exams, spaced evenly throughout the quarter. The exams were 30 multiple choice questions and 2 essay questions (chosen from 3 options). The questions weren't too hard and he curves the grades because the class tends to not get the highest grades overall. Everything considered, it was a pretty easy way to fulfill a requirement because the only time I ever spent outside of class was a short study session before each exam.

Took Prof. Rossman this previous fall quarter and he was my favorite course for that term. If you do the readings, you will do well on the pop quizzes. If you attend lecture (or at least listen closely to the podcasts) and take good notes, you will do well on the midterm and final as well.

He was an amazing professor and attending his lectures were worth it because he made the content quite entertaining and easy to follow. I learned so much from taking his Mass Communications course and would recommend friends to take him in the Fall or Spring. I not only ended up getting an A in his class but also grew to love the functions of the creative industry and the art culture.