Media and film studies

Questioning the Media

Course code: P4006
Level 1
24 credits in autumn
Teaching method: Lecture, Seminar
Assessment modes: Course report, Exercise, Essay

This module introduces the study of media forms, texts and systems and their contribution to social life. You will begin to explore the breadth of media studies through attention to the ways in which media matter. In what ways, and how significant are the media in the formation of individual identities and in the practices of everyday life? In the more public world, to what extent are media key to providing knowledge and enabling the debate necessary to the practices of democracy? The module enables you to build on your own experiences of media as a consumer and user. But it also encourages critical attention to how the field of media studies has historically been forged: through argument and contestation between different academic approaches and disciplines.

The module ranges across media and genres, engaging with both contemporary and historical material. Topics may include: audience pleasure and identity; representations and power; development of different broadcasting systems; the social impact of the rise of digital media.

Key terms may include: pleasure, identity, representation, semiotics, power, ideology, hegemony, discourse and subject, public service, public sphere, news values, networks, cultural and political citizenship.