When you walk through the back rows of a freshman lecture hall in late September, the trading card is the first thing you notice. Half-laminated and occasionally coffee-stained, it is tucked into a binder. A neat column of “five fun facts” appears on one side, while a black-and-white photo of a sociologist—typically McLuhan, occasionally Goffman, and occasionally Stuart Hall if the professor is feeling ambitious—appears on the other. There will be a long pause if you ask the student who made it what the theorist actually argued. They will respond right away if you ask them what year the theorist was born.
It’s an odd custom that has subtly emerged as one of the most common experiences in media studies education in the United States. In the last ten years, nearly every student who completes an introductory course in communications or sociology has made one. Students are asked to locate five fascinating facts about a sociologist and present them on cards in this assignment, which was initially taken from the open-source curriculum of Lumen Learning. Not too harmful. Even useful. However, it seems as though it has strayed from its original intent.
| Topic Snapshot | Details |
|---|---|
| Subject of Article | The sociology trading card classroom assignment |
| Origin | Lumen Learning’s Introduction to Sociology module |
| Common Setting | First-year university Media Studies and Sociology courses, U.S. |
| Format | Index card or digital card with photo, dates, five “fun facts” |
| Most-Cited Theorist | Marshall McLuhan, 1964 — “the medium is the message“ |
| Typical Length of Assignment | One page, five facts minimum |
| Cultural Reach | Used in hundreds of OER-based syllabi since the early 2010s |
| Companion Reading | Often paired with BC Open Textbooks’ Introduction to Sociology |
| Student Recall Rate | High for names and faces, low for actual theory |
| Assessment Weight | Usually 5 to 10 percent of course grade |
You’ll typically get a half-laugh if you bring it up in a faculty lounge. Because it serves as an icebreaker, professors adore it. Because it’s not a paper, students adore it. Because it looks great in photos for the program brochure, administrators adore it. The question of whether anyone is truly learning sociology from it seems to be one that most people are happy to ignore.
The genre’s patron saint is Marshall McLuhan. More student cards feature his face than any other—that specific 1960s photo, the too-wide jacket, and the somewhat amused expression. Students note that he first used the phrase “the medium is the message” in 1964. They hardly ever put what he meant in writing. Rarely does Pamela Shoemaker’s work on media gatekeeping make the cut, despite being cited thousands of times in scholarly works. She’s not as good at taking pictures.
This is a deeper story about the evolution of introductory courses. Instead of democratizing knowledge, open educational resources have standardized a few assignments that are now repeated on hundreds of campuses. Among them is the trading card. It moves smoothly between curricula. Administrative review is successful. It appears to be engagement.
As this develops over several semesters, it’s difficult to avoid wondering if the assignment imparts a subtle lesson that no one intended: that an idea’s surface, the face attached to it, and the date stamped next to it are sufficient. The real debate can be postponed until graduate school or never. Students are more than capable of doing more in-depth work. Simply put, the cards don’t request it.
There is no end in sight for the assignment. For the program newsletter, it is too practical, too shareable, and too visually appealing. Additionally, a generation of media studies majors who can recognize Erving Goffman from a thumbnail but are unable to sum up The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life when asked is almost endearing. Perhaps McLuhan was always making this point. In actuality, the message is the medium. The curriculum is now the card.
