Week 1. Course Overview and introduction: What is media? What is culture?
Reading:
From the textbook: “Introduction”, pp. 1-6
Mills B., and Barlow D. M. (2009) ‘What is Theory’, Chapter 2, Reading Media Theory: Thinkers, Approaches and Contexts, London: Routledge; pp. 7-21.
Watching: selected clips from YouTube
Week 2. Media Technologies
Readings:
From the textbook: Introduction pp.7-12
Chapter II “Media Technologies” pp. 19-31
Recommended readings:
McLuhan, Marshall, “Media Hot and Cold”, “The Gadget Lover: Narcissus as Narcosis”, in Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1964), 24-35; 45-52.
Watching:selected clips from “Annie Hall” (1977) Woody Allen; “Videodrome” (1983)
Week 3. Media Industries
Reading:
From the textbook: Chapter III “Media Industry”.
Holt, Jennifer & Perren, Alisa (eds), “Introduction”, in Media Industries: History, Theory, and Method (Malden, MA: Wiley Blackwell, 2009), 1-16.
Week 4: Political Economy of Communication part one
Readings:
Selected readings from
Mosco, Vincent The Political Economy of Communication (London: Sage, 2009).
Classroom case study: the political economy of a TV network
Week 5. Political Economy of Communication part two
* first short paper due
Readings:
Michael Curtin "Thinking Globally: from Media Imperialism to Media Capital"
David Hesmondhalgh "Politics, Theory , and Method in Media Industries Research"
in Holt, Jennifer & Perren, Alisa (eds), Media Industries: History, Theory, and Method (Malden, MA: Wiley Blackwell, 2009), 95-107, 108-119, 245-255.
Classroom case study: the political economy of a global media company
Week 6. Ideology Critique & Frankfurt School
*second short paper due
Reading:
From the textbook: Chapter VI “Media as Manipulation?Marxism and Ideology”.
Exercise: how to apply ideology critique to media texts
Week 7
Midterm exam
Watching: “The Stuart Hall Project” (2013)
Week 8. Introducing Cultural Studies part one
Readings:
From the textbook: Chapter V “Media Users”, pp 92-99.
Longhurst, Brian, et al. Introducing Cultural Studies (London: Routledge, 2017): Chapter I, pp. 3-22, 31-33.
Week 9. Introducing Cultural Studies part two
Readings:
Longhurst, Brian, et al. Introducing Cultural Studies (London: Routledge, 2017), pp 76-83; 323-359.
Hall, Stuart (1974) “The television discourse; encoding and decoding”, in (2002), McQuail's Reader in Mass Communication Theory (London: SAGE), pp. 303-308.
Week 10 Semiotics, Ethnography & Reception Studies
Readings:
From the textbook: Chapter IV “Media Content”; Chapter V “Media Users”, pp 82-92.
Longhurst, Brian, et al. Introducing Cultural Studies (London: Routledge, 2017), pp 73-76, 164-187
Week 11 Globalization, Orientalism and Postcolonialism
Readings:
From the textbook: Chapter X “Media, Ethnicity and Diaspora”.
Longhurst, Brian, et al. Introducing Cultural Studies (London: Routledge, 2017), pp 191-231
Week 12 Habermas and the public sphere
Readings:
From the textbook: Chapter IX.
Shirky, Clay, “The Political Power of Social Media: Technology, the Public Sphere, and Political Change”, Foreign Affairs, (2011 January/February 2011).
Week 13 Wrap up and review of main concepts
*Final paper due
Week 14
*Oral presentations
Final exam: classroom test