11-12 options from media and comms

8/2/2019 11-12 Options From Media and Comms

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Department of Media

and Communications

Option Choices

2011-2012


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DEPARTMENT OF MEDIA AND COMMUNICATIONS

MA OPTIONS FOR 2011-2012

PLEASE NOTE THAT DAY/TIMES MAY CHANGE SUBJECT TO ROOM ALLOCATIONS

Disclaimer

The information in this handbook was correct in August 2011. Whilst it is as far as possible accurate at the date ofpublication, and the College will attempt to inform students of any substantial changes in the information contained in itthe College does not intend by publication of the handbook to create any contractual or other legal relation withapplicants, accepted students, their advisers or any other person. The College is unable to accept liability for thecancellation of proposed programmes of study prior to their scheduled start; in the event of such cancellation, and wherepossible, the College will take reasonable steps to transfer students affected by the cancellation to similar or relatedprogrammes of study. Please see the Terms and Conditions in the relevant prospectus.

The College will not be responsible or liable for the accuracy or reliability of any of the information in third partypublications or websites referred to in this booklet.

Issued

August 2011

ALL OPTIONS ARE SUBJECT TO SPACE AVAILABILITY and numbers for seminars will be capped

You must be registered with the department to take any options.

Please contact

Brenda Ludlow ([email protected]) to register your choice of options

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mailto:[email protected]:[email protected]


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Media & Communications Department Option Choices 2009/2010

Course Code: Title Page

MC71001A Issues in Media & Culture - AUTUMN 4

MC71015A Political Economy of the Media - SPRING 4

MC71032B The Structure of Contemporary Political Communications - AUTUMN 5

MC71034B Media Audiences and Media Geography SPRING 6

MC71039A Media Ethnicity & The Nation - AUTUMN 6

MC71050A Music as Communication and Creative Practice AUTUMN 7

MC71051A Embodiment & Experience SPRING TERM 7

MC71058B Media Law and Ethics. AUTUMN 8

MC71061A Journalism in Context - AUTUMN 10

MC71065B Strategies in World Cinema - AUTUMN 10

MC71076A Narrative in Practice SPRING 11

MC71078A Cinema & Society - SPRING 11

MC71088A Media, Ritual and Contemporary Public Cultures - SPRING 12

MC71089A Screen Cultures - SPRING TERM 13

MC71092A Campaign Skills: Theory and Practice SPRING 13

MC71100A Media Landscapes -SPRING 14

MC71113A After New Media - AUTUMN 14

MC71116A Asking the Right Questions AUTUMN 15

MC71127A Representing Reality AUTUMN 15

MC71128A Promotional Culture - SPRING 16

PLEASE NOTE:

Lectures and Seminars in the Department of Media & Communications unless stated are 1 hour duration eac

Attendance at Seminars is COMPULSORY in all DEPARTMENTS - failure to attend could result inassessments being marked as zero

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MC71001A Issues in Media & Culture - AUTUMN

30 CATS Room Day Time Duration Lecturer Seminar Leaders

Lecture: NAB LG01Screen Room

Wednesday 2.00pm 2 hours Rachel Moore

Assessment: One essay (5000-6000 words) to be handed in on Fri 06/01/12

Theory, philosophy, and artistic practice all share in the business of asking us to pay attention to somethingwe might otherwise not consider, might not see nor hear, and to think about it. Philosophy searches formeaning unfettered by habitual understandings and beliefs. By making something and placing it before usthe practitioner too makes demands on our otherwise quotidian understanding of the world. Theory paysattention to the relationship between meaning and the things we encounter in the world, be they actions,customs, artworks, or media events. It tries to reveal, clarify, or deepen that relationship. In all cases, it iswith great care that we cut something out of the continuum of life and frame it, be it by the covers of a bookthe focus of a lens, the devices of a story, or the punctuations of dialogue. This course aims to aid insharpening that care by investigating aesthetic, historic, and social theories about the relationship of creativendeavour to contemporary culture.

Some of the topics covered will be: Stillness and Motion; Affect; The Optical and Auditory Unconscious;The Sacred in Everyday Life; Montage; Gesture; The Digital; Experience; Immaterial Labour. The writers

will Include: Walter Benjamin, Giorgio Agamben, Jaques Ranciere, Roland Barthes, Georges Didi-Huberman, Sigmund Freud, Karl Marx, Vivian Sobchack, Dziga Vertov, Laura Mulvey. The assignmentsfor this course will range from academic to creative writing, along with 3 short feedbacks on assignedreadings due over the 10 week period.

MC71015A Political Economy of the Media - SPRING

30 CATS Room Day Time Duration Lecturer Seminar Leader


Tuesday 10am 1 hour James CurranJonathan Hardy

Seminars NAB 1:18

NAB 1:18

Tuesday

Tuesday

11am

12pm

1 hour

1 hour

James Curran/

Jonathan Hardy


The course is organised around the following questions. What part do the media play in the democraticprocesses of society? What influences the media? How do different societies organise their media systemTo what extent do new media change things? And (briefly) what influence do the media have?

This is a course about the transformations of the media and media systems. From changes in the mass mof broadcasting and print, to multimedia and the Internet, we look at different ways of making sense of thestransformations and consider a range of questions concerning media power and influence. This is also acourse about the political and economic organisation of the media. We explore a central claim of politicaleconomists that there are important relationships between the content and output of media and the way inwhich media production is organised in a particular economy and social system. Political economy isconcerned with questions about the relationship between media and society, with questions of mediainfluence, and questions about how media power connects with other forms of power in society. It isconcerned with questions about how media industries and cultural work is organised, and why this mattersthe range and quality of what is produced by journalists, media professional and creative workers. It considsuch issues as the influence of policy and regulation, market forces and commercial dynamics. In doing sothe course compares culturalist interpretations with studies emphasising the role of the state, mediaownership, advertising and market structures as forms of media control. Topics include: media globalisatioand national media; political economy of the Internet; media commercialism; media and advertising; new

journalism and entertainment media; media convergence and policy; democracy and the media; comparingmedia and political systems across the globe.

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MC71032B The Structure of Contemporary Political Communications - AUTUMN


Lecture: MRBScreen 1

Monday 10am 1 hour Aeron Davis

Seminars MRB 13

MRB 13

Monday

Monday

11am

12pm

1 hour

1 hour

Paolo Gerbaudo

Paolo GerbaudoAssessment:One essay (6,000 words for 30 CATs,) to be handed in on Fri 06/01/12

This course examines the actors and communication processes involved in contemporary politicalcommunication. It combines theoretical insights and empirical information from the fields of media studies,

journalism, sociology and political science. It mainly focuses on democracies, particularly in the US andUK, but literature and examples are also drawn from other types of political system and country.

Weekly topics combine standard political communication topics and contemporary examples, withdiscussions of related theory and concepts. The following topics are covered: The crisis of politics and medin established democracies; Comparative political and media systems; Mass media and the news productioprocess; Political parties, citizen relations and political marketing; Government media management, war an

propaganda; Symbolic and cultural political communication and political cultures; Forms of publicparticipation and public opinion; Media effects and audiences; Digital media and online politics; Globalisatioand international political communication. Theories and concepts drawn upon include: Theories ofdemocracy (from weak, representative to direct, deliberative); public sphere theory (national, parliamentarylocal, global, online, counter); Political economy and related critiques of capitalist democracy; Work,organisation, professionalization and bureaucracy; Media logic, mediation and mediatisation; Primarydefinition, media consecration, and celebrity; Field theory and forms of capital; Social networks and socialcapital; New technologies, technological determinism and social shaping; Globalisation, transnationalism,cosmopolitanism and global civil society.

Much of the material for this course is highly contemporary, so students are encouraged to maintain anawareness of current developments in political communication in the UK and elsewhere, throughnewspapers, television, radio and the internet. Students are very much encouraged to bring contemporary

examples into the seminar discussions and their essays30 CATs option students attend 10 weeks of one hour lecture and one hour seminar.

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MC71034B Media Audiences and Media Geography SPRING

30 CATS Room Day Time Duration Lecturer Seminar Leader Lecture: NABLG01

Screen RoomThursday 2pm 1 hour David

MorleySeminars NAB 116

NAB 116ThursdayThursday

4pm5pm

1 hour1 hour

David MorleyDavid Morley

NOTE : Syllabus subject to substantial revision'.Assessment: One essay (5000-6000 words) to be handed in on Fri 27/04/12

This course will review a range of interdisciplinary perspectives on the study of media audiences and onthe role of the media in constructing the post-modern geography of the contemporary world. The firstsection of the course will offer a review of both classical and contemporary models and approaches to thestudy of media audiences, media effects, media powers and patterns of cultural consumption,

The second section of the course addresses questions concerning the specificity of different media andtheir micro-contexts and conditions of consumption, focussing on the domestic context of consumption ofbroadcasting (with particular reference to television) and on the significance of micro-studies of specificinstances of the uses of new communications and information technologies in the home.

The third section of the course then moves back from micro to macro considerations, to examine the role ocommunications media in constructing the geography of our post-modern electronic landscapes. Thissection will address a range of issues focusing on processes of identity and boundary construction (atdifferent geographical scales) and the associated issues of mobility and hybridity, within the broadercontext of processes of globalisation. Here we will also address the role of the media in articulating theprivate and public spheres, in the construction of both national and transnational identities and senses ofhome and belonging in an era of time-space compression.

MC71039A Media Ethnicity & The Nation - AUTUMN


Lecture: MRB

Screen 1

Monday 2pm 1 hour Sara Ahmed

Seminars NAB 302NAB 302

MondayMonday

3pm4pm

1 hour1 hour

Sara AhmedSara Ahmed

Assessment: One essay (5-6000 word) to be handed in on Fri 06/01/12

This course will examine how ethnicities and nations are constructed within the media. Our aim will bethree-fold:1) to analyse how the media constructs ethnicity and nations over time 2) to reflect on the roleof the media in shaping nations and ethnicities 3) to explore the ways in formations of ethnicity andnationhood affect practices. We will not only examine a range of contemporary media forms, but we wialso situate these forms in relation to longer histories of Western imperialism, from the mid-nineteenthcentury onwards. Our task in mapping this history as a history of the present is to explore howcontemporary racial and national formations (ideas about Britishness, whiteness, and so on) exist in a

complex and intimate relationship to much longer histories of empire. The course will introduce you to keyconcepts in Black Cultural Studies and Postcolonial Studies, including: colonial discourse, colonial fantasyothering, hybridity and diaspora. We will also pay attention to the intersection between race, ethnicity andother social relations, including gender, sexuality and class.

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MC71050A Music as Communication and Creative Practice AUTUMN

30 CATS Room Day Time Duration Lecturer Seminar Leader Lecture: NAB LG02

Lecture TheatreFriday 9am 1 hour Julian

HenriquesSeminars NAB 3:02

NAB 3:02NAB 3:02

FridayFridayFriday

10am11am12pm

1 hour1 hour1 hour

Julian HenriquesJulian HenriquesJulian Henriques


The course asks for your critical engagement with debates about music, sound and noise. It uses music asa way to understanding cultural values, personal identities and technological issues. It also investigateshow music differs from other forms of communication, such as discourse, text and image. With specificexamples, the course explores how lyrics, voices and performance techniques convey meaning and value

but outside representation. It considers the kinds of the social, political and historical conditions thatshape music and its appreciation in a range of musical traditions in different parts of the world. It alsoinvestigates the practices and mediations of music making and listening as embodied, social, political,technological and cultural sets of activities that are invariably classed, racialised and gendered. Thisincludes techniques for creating, producing, recording, distributing, consuming and marketing music.

MC71051A Embodiment & Experience SPRING TERM


Lecture: MRB Screen 1# Tuesday 1pm 1 hour Lisa Blackman

Seminars MRB 13MRB 13

TuesdayTuesday

2pm3pm

1 hour1 hour

Lisa BlackmanLisa Blackman

Assessment: One Project based examined essay (5000 words) and a submitted journal for assessment(1000 words max) to be handed in on Fri 27/04/12

In recent years across the humanities work on the body and embodiment (including sensation, perception,emotion, affect, feeling, memory and so forth) has become increasingly central to discussions oftechnologies, film, media practices, communication, performance, art, architecture, labour, dance, affect anlife. This work breaks down the distinction between human and other life forms and moves discussion of

embodiment beyond a distinctly human body. The body we will engage on this course is open, relational,human and non-human, material, indeterminate, multiple, sensient and processual. The arguments we willexplore suggest that there is a need to rethink the questions we might ask about bodies and relatedconcepts, such as subjectivity, agency, power, technology, the human, the social and matter. If our bodiesare not singularly bounded entities, how does a move to bodies-as-processes reconfigure how weunderstand mediated communications? The course will engage with the trans-disciplinary area known asbody-studies which draws from psychology, sociology, anthropology, science and technology studies andcultural studies to consider how a re-thinking of the materiality and immateriality of bodies changes how wemight think about perception, the senses, memory, attention, affect and emotion. As well as an academicengagement with a number of key concepts to emerge from these debates - including the concepts ofsomatic feeling, affective transmission, enactment, practice, mediation and performativity -, the course isalso an invitation to the student to reflect differently on aspects of their own embodied experience (this is

reflected in the assessment for the course which combines an academic essay with a journal). During thelectures the student will be invited to begin this reflection by grounding conceptual discussion in differentcase-studies which may challenge our inherited wisdoms on how to understand media and communicationsThe case-studies may include animal/human communication, digital technology and movement vision, filmand abjection, emotions and non-verbal communication, the senses and bodily integrity, medicine, bodyimage, communication at a distance, and transgendered bodies, for example. The course will providestudents with some timely and novel ways of thinking about the place of experience within contemporarygovernance and communication processes.

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MC71058B Media Law and Ethics. AUTUMN


Screen RoomTuesday 4pm 2 hour Tim Crook

MRB 12MRB 12

WednesdayWednesday

4pm5pm

1 hour1 hour

Tim CrookTim Crook

Assessment: One 5,000 6,000 word essay to be handed in on Fri 06/01/12

Introduction to area of study - The course investigates critically to an advanced extent the nature of media law andethical regulation for media practitioners in the UK, but with comparison with the situation in the USA and references tothe experiences of media communicators in other countries. The students are directed towards an advanced analysis ofmedia law, as it exists, the ethical debates concerning what the law ought to be, and the historical development of legaland regulatory controls of communication. The theoretical underpinning involves a course of advanced learning of thesubject of media jurisprudence- the study of the philosophy of media law, and media ethicology- the study of theknowledge of ethics in media communication. The course evaluates media law and regulation in terms of its social andcultural context. It is taught in one and a half hour lectures and one hour seminars that involve the discussion of multi-media examples of media communication considered legally and/or morally problematical.

Course Reader and textbooks - The Course Reader provides some key elements of reading to enable you toappreciate the course curriculum and develop your research for the essay. There is a range of articles included to backup many of the topics on the course. The resources for the course at learn.gold.ac.uk back up the content of the lecture

programme and also contain other useful digital texts to support your learning.There is one essential core course textbook, Comparative Media Law and Ethics, by Tim Crook, (2009) London andNew York: Routledge. There are ten copies in the college library. The book is stocked at Blackwells in Goldsmiths andcan be obtained online with some discount from Amazon.co.uk and other online services. The textbook is supported bya companion website at:

http://www.ma-radio.gold.ac.uk/cmle

The course is also supported by a comprehensive resource on the colleges virtual learning environment athttps://learn.gold.ac.uk/course/view.php?id=493

The enrolment key is Aristotle

Learning Methods. - The course consists of 10 one and a half hour lectures during the Autumn term from 4 p.m. to 5.30p.m. on Tuesday evenings in the main Screen Room of the NAB followed by 10 one hour seminars held between 4 and5 p.m. on Wednesday afternoons in Room 12 of the Media Research Building. The seminars involve your participation inmini-trial or moot court discussions where the students divide into rival media law firms and represent fictional trial

issues central to contemporary media law and ethics scenarios. A panel of three judges drawn from each side in rotationweek by week are engaged to adjudicate the trials and give their rulings. In the process the students are activelyinvolved in preparing their cases in teams, rotate and share the role of presenting through advocacy in five and tenminute submissions and give reasons rulings in the role playing of judicial panels. The students are expected to supporttheir learning through weekly readings and analysis of contemporary media so that they can develop a criticalunderstanding of the methods of legal and regulatory control of media communication. Attendance and participation inthe seminars is essential. The lectures are shared with MA Practice students and 3rd year undergraduate students. MATheory students have an essay as an Assessment outcome and they are obliged to attend the seminars during theautumn term.

Core Topics

Lecture One. Tim Crook. The Historical Development of Media Law. Religious and Philosophical roots of controllingthe dissemination of information. Social and political development of customs and laws relating to communication. Plato,

Aristotle, Epicureanism, Stoicism, Cynicism, Judeo-Christian ethics, Utilitarianism, Baruch Spinoza, Emanuel Kant,Jeremy Bentham, John Stuart Mill, Karl Marx, Subjectivism and Objectivism. Understanding Natural Law, Positivist Law,Rights Law, Critical and Racial Legal Studies, and the significance of feminist theory in relation to media jurisprudence.

Lecture Two. Tim Crook. Introduction to Defamation law and Contempt Issues. Definitions. Explanations. Case Law.Defences in defamation. Contempt for journalists and their defences. Recent developments in statutory concepts andprecedents such as Innocent Dissemination (1996) and the House of Lords ruling in Turkington(2000). Analysing thedevelopment of the UK Reynolds defence and its comparison with the US Supreme Court case of Sullivan v New YorkTimes. Libel and politics as illustrated by the death of Dr David Kelly and the Hutton Enquiry and the case of GeorgeGalloway MP v Daily Telegraph. Comparing UK Libel Law with US Libel Law. The campaign for English libel law reformand the debate over a new defamation bill promised by the Liberal Democrat Conservative coalition.

Lecture Three. Angela Phillips. Ethical Judgements and Professional Codes for Media Practitioners. BBC Producer'sGuidelines. UK Ofcom code regulating television and radio content. Taste and decency in broadcasting and print.

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http://www.ma-radio.gold.ac.uk/cmlehttps://learn.gold.ac.uk/course/view.php?id=493http://www.ma-radio.gold.ac.uk/cmlehttps://learn.gold.ac.uk/course/view.php?id=493


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Regulating privacy for print and broadcast journalists. The operation of the Press Complaints Commission and its codeof ethics.

Lecture Four. Tim Crook. Media Ethics debates. Media Ethicology and Media Jurisprudence and Journalistic beliefsystems. The tension between idealism and materialism. The relevance of moral consequentialism and the role of the

journalist as courtier. The course will also evaluate three significant case histories exploring legal, cultural and ethicalissues relevant to journalistic conduct: The case and trial of black anti-Slavery activist Robert Wedderburn- accused ofblasphemy and seditious libel. The case and trial of campaigning editor W. T. Stead of the Pall Mall Gazette. The caseand trial of Emile Zola and Jaccuse- resisting the forces of Anti-Semitism.

Lecture Five. Tim Crook. State Security and Secrecy. Confidence and injunctions. Information as property andcommodification. Confidentiality and the administration of justice. Confidentiality and criminal investigations.Confidentiality and National Security. Analysing key Official Secrets Act prosecutions: Jonathan Aitken, the ABC trial,Sarah Tisdall, Clive Ponting, David Shayler, Katherine Gunn, Derek Pasquil, David Keogh and Leo OConnor. Theinfluence of the intelligence agencies and espionage on notions of media freedom. Censorship in the global war onterrorism.

Lecture Six. Tim Crook Privacy. Comparison between USA and UK. Historical development of the legal concept.Analysis of case histories: Naomi Campbell v Daily Mirror Group. Impact of European Court of Human Rightsjurisprudence. The development of UK privacy through primary and secondary law. The role of moral panics ingalvanizing the ideology of privacy. Equivocating the trump card in civil and constitutional rights.

Lecture Seven. Tim Crook. The Media Law of Japan, India, and France. Distinctions and comparisons between thedefamation, contempt and privacy laws. The cultural and social contexts. Modern developments in libel, contempt andstatutory media law controls.

Lecture Eight. Tim Crook The Legal Problematizing of Journalism. Justice and fairness in media law. Otherrestrictions in the media field: Children and Young Persons. The complainants of Sexual Offences. The socialimplications of applying secrecy to Family court proceedings. The efficacy of providing media protection to witnessesand other participants in the legal process. Justifying and questioning anonymity. The implications of In Camerahearings and secret judicial processes. Legal pressures applied to publications in terms of broadcasting, bookpublication and Internet output. The televising and broadcasting of legal proceedings.

Lecture Nine. Tim Crook. Human Rights and International Law for Journalists. Debates over the implications of the1998 UK Human Rights Act. Journalism and the Geneva Convention. The construction of rights and duties for

journalists. The ethics and laws of journalism in war. Defining, evaluating and prosecuting the notions of InformationTerrorism and Hate Journalism. The ethics of propaganda for journalists. Prosecuting the use of media forcommunicating racial and religious hatred.

Lecture Ten. Tim Crook. International Comparisons. Global issues in Media Law and Ethics. Issues of Freedom ofExpression. Human Rights and (In)Human Wrongs. Contrasting values over communication that interferes with the

administration of justice. Trial by Media. Is The Roman- Dutch model for defamation and contempt an alternative option?Case histories: Michael Fagan, Bruno Hauptmann, Dr Dick Shepherd, Louise Woodward, Michael Jackson, OscarSlater, Ruth Ellis, and O.J. Simpson. Liminal events in the prejudicing of criminal trials: The Leo Frank case USA 1913,Hawley Harvey Crippen UK 1912.

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MC71061A Journalism in Context - AUTUMN

30 Room Day Time Duration Lecturer

Lecture/workshop MRB Screen 1# Monday 10am 3 hours Peter Lee Wright

Assessment: 5000-6000 word essay to be handed in on Fri 6/01/12

Introduction to Area of Study

You will be introduced to the major theoretical debates in the study of journalism. We will cover: the curren

crisis in journalism, questions of political power and the public sphere; ownership forms and how they arechanging; the role of audience: as well as regulation and representation. We will also look at journalism asa narrative form. All these debates will be situated firmly in a current and practical context and you will beencouraged to make connections between formal lecturers, seminar presentations and practicadiscussions of the days events and how they are reported. Sessions will usually be 1 hour followed by aseminar of 1 hour but may be extended if there are special events or speakers. This course will provide yowith a theoretical underpinning for your work, which you will develop via personal study later in the year.

Learning Outcomes

After completing this course you should be able to:

Apply conceptual knowledge in order to research and write about the field of journalism.

Understand the relationship of journalism to the media industry and how it can be conceptualised

theoretically. Understand and evaluate issues concerned with audience and with political and commercial power.

Understand how journalism techniques are used to represent and reflect society.

Understand the various ways in which journalism is funded.

Assessment, You are required to submit a 5000 word essay related to issues of journalism

MC71065B Strategies in World Cinema - AUTUMN



Friday 1pm 3 hours Kay Dickinson

Seminars NAB 117NAB 117

FridayFriday

4pm5pm

1 hour1 hour

Kay DickinsonKay Dickinson

Assessment: One essay (5-6000 word) to be handed in on Fri 06/01/12

This course examines a selection of films generally understood as examples of world cinema. It analysesthe critical and conceptual approaches which have come to define the academic study of national andinternational film cultures, specifically ideas of third and third world cinema, and theories of regional andtransnational cultures of production and reception. Divided into three sections, the course will address abody of movies from Africa, Latin America and Asia that have been released over the last forty yearsaccording to three guiding themes: global(ised) economies, activism and populism. We will be investingthese films formal strategies and thematic concerns; their social and cultural specificity or universalism

(alongside the politics of that distinction); their industrial and institutional contexts; and their national andinternational status (for example, in their home countries and in the festival circuit). How different forms ofcolonisation are absorbed and interrogated will be a question that threads through the entire course.

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MC71076A Narrative in Practice SPRING

30 CATS Room Day Time Duration Lecturer

Lecture: MRB Screen 1 FRiday 10pm 2 hours Judy Holland

Seminars MRB 33MRB 33

FridayFriday

12pm1pm

1 hour1 hour

Judy Holland

Judy Holland

Assessment This course is assessed by 6,000 word essay, which may include up to 2,000 words ofscene analysis to be handed in on Fri 27/04/12

This course is for both screen practitioners whose creative work involves narrative and for screen studiesstudents interested in theoretical issues arising from the narrative process. We look at broad issues - whatnarratives are, how they differ from non-narratives, what forms they may take (fiction and non-fiction), andwhat functions they serve in our own and one or more other societies. We look at elements of narrativecreation: character, conflict, structure, plot. And we look at the ways in which different aspects of screenproductions, particularly editing and sound design, contribute to narrative impact. The speakers are a mix opractitioners who work in the screen industries and theorists who study narrative in traditional, alternative,cross-cultural and new media forms. Examples are drawn from a range of fiction and non-fictionsources,,depending on the speakers own interests, and include short films, documentary and feature films,tv drama and news, games and online media.

MC71078A Cinema & Society - SPRING


Lecture: NAB LG01 Friday 9am 3 hours Rachel MooreSeminars NAB 302

NAB 302NAB 302

FridayFridayFriday

1pm2pm3pm

1 hour1 hour1 hour

Rachel MooreRachel MooreTBA


This is basically a course in film theory and film history. It has three major aims. One is to give anaccount of the various technologies deployed to render and transmit moving images. By no

means comprehensive, we will, however look at the attributes of such elements as sound, colour,editing, photography, camera movement, and cinema venues as they change, and continue tochange. The second aim is to give an intellectual account of the cinema. For it is largely toleading intellectuals of that time when cinema was recognised a cultural force to be reckoned with,the 1920s, that we will turn to understand not what a certain film means, but what cinema as anaesthetic and cultural force was. Theorists such as Bela Balazs, Jean Epstein, Sergei, Eisensteinand Walter Benjamin were interested less in understanding a films content than they were inunderstanding what cinema does. What it does to your senses, to your body, to your sense ofyourself as a perceiving being, to your sense of yourself as a person in the world. These theoristsgain new relevance as we once again scramble to understand the place of new technologies inour world today, thus they are once again the focus of much scholarly interest. The third, but by

far most important aim of the course, is to expose you to cinema that you would not otherwisesee, and thus to give you some idea of the many things that cinema can be, and is. You will seeearly cinema, documentaries, sound cinema, colour cinema, abstract cinema, pictorial cinema,classical narrative cinema, with a mind to broaden and encourage the cinephile in you. Thiscourse requires a final paper that uses original theoretical sources, rather than contemporaryinterpretations, and actual film viewing, rather than scholars assessments of films, to crossilluminate a body of theory and a film or set of films. In addition, over the ten weeks you will turnin three written responses to the set readings.

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The course meets for three hours, a one hour lecture, a film screening, brief discussion and then aone hour seminar.

MC71088A Media, Ritual and Contemporary Public Cultures - SPRING



Thursday 10am 1 hour Nick Couldry(tbc)

Seminars NAB 3:02NAB 3:02NAB 3:02

ThursdayThursdayThursday

11am12pm1pm

1 hour1 hour1 hour

Veronica BVeronica BVeronica B

Assessment: One essay (5-6,000 words) to be handed in on Fri 27/04/12

1. The aim of this course is to explore how the media operate as a focus of ritual action, symbolichierarchies, and symbolic conflict, introducing a range of relevant theoretical perspectives and applyingthem to specific themes from media and public life. The course begins with a general introduction todebates on the media's social impacts (integrative or otherwise). Key theoretical concepts are thenoutlined: sacred and profane, symbolic power, ritual, boundary, and liminality (two lectures).

Specific themes relating to the media's contribution to public life and public space are then explored

celebrity and ordinariness; fandom and media pilgrimages; media events and public ritual; mediatedself-disclosure (from talk shows to the Webcam); 'reality' television and everyday surveillance; and themedia and symbolic protest (total six lectures). The course concludes with a review of ethical questionarising from the media's role in public life and public space.

2. This course explores various approaches, theoretical and empirical, to understand what might broadlybe called the ritual dimensions of contemporary media. Among the questions the course addresses arethe following:

What, in disciplinary terms, can anthropological theories of culture, ritual and powecontribute to the understanding of contemporary media?

What might we mean by the terms ritual and ritualisation in relation to media?

How do we analyse those times when media production and usage depart from the ordinary

and everyday, and take on larger social resonances, for example the national broadcasting of majopublic events?

How is the growth of celebrity culture connected to questions of social power?

How should we interpret the medias claims to represent reality, for example in theproliferating genre of reality TV?

Why do non-media people want to appear in or on the media, and with what consequencesdo they do so?

How is medias power connected with the practices of state and corporate power and withthe latters use of media (including for surveillance)?

Are medias ritual dimensions played out differently in different media cultures?

How do media rituals affect contemporary public cultures, and with what ethicaconsequences?

Lectures move from introductory material and theoretical concepts (in the early weeks) to specific aspectsof contemporary media production (in the last two-thirds of the term). Students will be encouraged inseminar discussion and in their written work to apply the theoretical concepts introduced in the course tothe analysis of specific examples.

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MC71089A Screen Cultures - SPRING TERM

30 CATS Room Day Time Duration Lecturer Seminar Leader Lecture: MRB Screen 1 Monday 1pm 1 hour Pasi Valiaho

Seminars MRB 12MRB 12MRB 12

MondayMondayMonday

2pm3pm4pm

1 hour1 hour1 hour

Pasi ValiahoPasi ValiahoPasi Valiaho

Assessment:Assessment is by 2 critical assignments of 3000 words the first due in week 7 and thesecond on the 27/04/12. The assignments will offer the opportunity of combining creative writing with ananalytical approach.

Screens are now a dominant presence and interface in culture in a number of suggestive ways. First,screens are no longer defined by their institutional location (the cinema, the living room, the office) but areubiquitous. Public space is characterised by screens of information, advertising and surveillance that affectthe ways in which we perceive, use and move through spaces. Second, the spectacular scale of thecinematic screen is giving way to micro screens, the attributes of a personalised and mobile life-style ofatomistic subjects. Third, the discrete identity of media objects is increasingly lost to a convergence offorms within the computer terminal. This course explores our relationship to these transformations, theways in which our bodies are re-positioned by screens, our modes of expression and communication areaffected, and our experience of time and space is reworked. In the first part of the course, we will examine

screens in relation to shifting configurations of power, dealing with questions concerning attention,subjectification and new cerebral paradigms regarding how contemporary time-based media operate inthe society in which they are embedded. In the second part, we will direct our attention to morephenomenologically oriented theorizations of bodily experience and screens. We will discuss issues suchas memory, time, tactility and movement especially in the context of screen-based arts, and alsoinvestigate the relation between aesthetics and politics. These issues are examined through a range ofthinkers including the work of Jonathan Crary, Anne Friedberg, Mark Hansen, Jacques Ranciere andMichel Foucault. The course will be of interest to students concerned with film and screen theory, mediaand power, philosophies of mediation and embodiment, and critical thought.

MC71092A Campaign Skills: Theory and Practice SPRING

15 CATS ONLY Room Day Time Duration Lecturer

Lecture/workshop MRB Screen 1# Tuesday(weeks 1-6)

6pm 2 hours Mike Kaye(Aeron Davis)

CampaignPresentations

MRB Screen 2# Friday(week 11)

5pm 2 hours Mike Kaye(Aeron Davis)

Assessment: The course is assessed by work on a campaign chosen by students. This involves studentsundertaking a short, group-based practical project, which is assessed by a mixture of group

presentation (40%) and personal log/detailed campaign outline (60%). to be handed in on27/04/12

This course is about practical campaigning issues and is primarily taught by a campaign expert. It can only

be taken in conjunction with the course Structures of Contemporary Political Communications (15 or 30CATs version). The course is convened by Aeron Davis, but mostly taught by Mike Kaye, an externacampaign expert with 20 years experience, and who has taught the course for the last four years. Thecourse curriculum covers: Essentials in advocacy, Working with decision makers and parliamentarylobbying, Campaigning for change mobilising public opinion, International pressure using the UnitedNations, Formulating and implementing a campaign.

Please note that places on this module are strictly limited and MA Political Communicationsstudents will have first priority, followed by MA Brand Development students. (Please choose aback up option in case course is full)

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14/16

MC71100A Media Landscapes -SPRING


Lecture/workshop MRB Screen 1# Tuesday 10am 2 hours Robert SmithMark Dunford


A re-imagining of media practices. This programme aims to draw from the knowledge gained from thecourse dealing with the structures and process of contemporary communications. Building upon the corecourse on entrepreneurial modelling, this programme will also compliment the other options on the mediapathway addressing the political economy of the media and the consideration of other explanations ofthe functioning of the mass media. The course engages with critical debates on media practice and linksthese directly to entrepreneurship and development of business models.

The premise for the programme is that the only way to predict the future is to invent it. Students will beasked to critically engage with ways that future media practices and outputs can be used for businessand to determine their own role in those processes.

The programme opens up different ways of thinking about the media landscape and students areencouraged to develop their own ideas for projects or businesses. Bespoke sessions look at the mediaas a shop, and different entrepreneurial business models,. Guest lecturers from industry introducesessions engaging with the ways that the media is changing,. including workshop sessions onIntellectual Property (IP), marketing and, media audiences, These engage with futuring the mediaproduction processes, presenting new business models for selling media product, planning for growthusing business school methodologies to refine the plans and capturing value. The final session drawstogether the media pathway in preparation for the next major project module.

MC71113A After New Media - AUTUMN



Thursday 10am 1 hour Sarah Kember

Seminars NAB 1.18NAB 1.18

ThursdayThursday

12pm1pm

1 hour1 hour

Sarah KemberSarah Kember

Assessment: One essay (5-6,000 words) to be handed in on Fri 06/01/12

This course builds on, and challenges, existing approaches to media by tracing the transition from debateson new media to debates on mediation. Mediation takes us from a more spatial, black-boxed approach toseparate media, and separate aspects of the media (production, content, reception) towards a moretemporal approach which is often invoked but rarely developed.

The course will ask what it means to study the media as a complex process which is simultaneouslyeconomic, social, cultural, psychological and technical. It will trace the origins of this question in debates onremediation that are critical of new media teleology (and its links to capital), and it will trace the evolution ofthis question through a range of philosophical and contextual approaches which will frame the concept of

mediation in relation to creativity, conservatism, change and continuity.In the context of specific media events such as the LHC project at CERN (Big Crunch?), the current globalfinancial crisis (Credit Crunch), the worlds first face transplant, the ongoing quest for life on Mars and theemergence of intelligent media, the course will investigate the relation between the event and its mediationWould it be more accurate to say that rather than being represented by the media, these events areperformed through mediation? If events are performative, then how should we respond to them in ourcritiques?

The assessment for this course is an essay which addresses a specific event and reflects on all aspects ofmediation as performativity including its own.

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15/16

MC71116A Asking the Right Questions AUTUMN


Lecture: MRB Screen 1 Wednesday 11am 2 hours Peter Lee-Wright


This course aims to equip students with the critical, analytical and practical skills to research and construct

stories for public consumption. This involves three elements: the procedural asking the right questions ofwhom, when and where; the political knowing the organisational context in which the story has emerged,the constructs in which it will be seen, and the ways in which it will be perceived; and the personalknowing what you can or cannot bring to the story, and managing the human factors that will enhance orobscure your story.The lectures in the first half of term concentrate on the British system, governmental and local, and inparticular on the many different opportunities now available to online researchers. The second half of termconcentrates on specialist territories that require particular understanding and research skills, frominvestigative journalism and statistics to politics and the law. In week 1 you will be assigned a subject brie

a beat a research report on which must be undertaken,

MC71127A Representing Reality AUTUMN

30 CATS Room Day Time Duration Lecturer Seminar Leaders


Wednesday 9am 1 hour Mao MollonaRachel MooreChris BerryPeter Lee-Wright

Seminars NAB 1.02 Wednesday 4pm 2 hours Mao MollonaRachel MooreChris BerryPeter Lee-Wright

MRB Screen 1 TuesdayWks 2-5 &7-11

4PM 2 hours


This course will explore the documentary form from the combined perspectives of Screen Studiesand Visual Anthropology. It will consider documentary production in its various social andhistorical contexts and across different distribution platforms (from the cinema to the art gallery),and deal with current debates about documentary ethics and aesthetics. Taught by a range ofLecturers from the Media & Communications and Anthropology Departments, it will encompassboth Anglophone and international (including Chinese) documentary traditions, and historicalexamples from the early Soviet avant-garde to contemporary reality TV.

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16/16

MC71128A Promotional Culture - SPRING


Screen RoomMonday 10am 1 hour Aeron Davis

Seminars NAB 1.17NAB 1.17

MondayMonday

11am12pm

1 hour1 hour

Aeron DavisAeron Davis

Assessment: One essay (6,000 words for 30 CATs, 3,000 words for 15 CATs ) to be on Fri 27/04/12This course looks at the rise of promotional culture (public relations, advertising, marketing and branding)and promotional intermediaries and their impact on society. The first part of the course will discuss thehistory of promotional culture and will offer some conflicting theoretical approaches with which to view itsdevelopment. These include: professional/industrial, economic, political economy, post-Fordist, audience,consumer society, risk society, and postmodern perspectives. The second part will look at specific caseareas of promotional culture. These are in: commodities and services (fashion, cars); popular media andculture (news, music, TV and film); celebrities and public figures (film, literature, business and celetoids);politics, politicians and parties (mediation, marketing, spin); civil society and promotional conflict (unions,interest groups, corporations); virtual and abstract markets (financial products, company shares, modernart). In each of these areas questions will be asked about the influence of promotional practices on theproduction, communication and consumption of ideas and products as well as larger discourses,

fashions/genres and socio-economic trends. Each week will also interogate core social concepts and theirrelationship to promotional culture. These include value, identity, symbolic power, autonomy, andpluralism.

30 CATs option students attend 10 weeks of one hour lecture and one hour seminar.

16

11-12 options from media and comms

Documents