Media and film studies

Revolutionary Media

Module code: P5040
Level 6
30 credits in spring semester
Teaching method: Seminar
Assessment modes: Coursework

On this module you will be studying the transformative effects of new media in historical context. We will explore moments when emergent media have fed into social and political change, and when broad social and political transformations have generated new media forms and new communicative practices. The module offers ways in to thinking about these relationships taking a long view of media history, within and across different national contexts.

The first part, ‘Revolutions in Media’, takes moments of radical change in communicative forms, to examine how prevailing discourses, particularly conceptualisations of political practice, inform and are informed by new media. The second part, ‘Media in Revolution’, builds on the first to examine claims made for the role of media in moments of political transition (e.g. promoting, preventing or distorting democratic practice) in a range of contemporary case studies.

Module learning outcomes

• Demonstrate a broad and systematic understanding of media history and medium theory
• Critically evaluate historical and contemporary discourses about emergent media
• Apply methods from the module to contextualise contemporary media debates within a broad historical framework
• Explain and apply theoretical approaches and concepts from media and cultural studies to interrogate, analyse and explain the relationship between technological and socio-political change.
• Frame, investigate and analyse an appropriate case study
• Communicate findings and analysis clearly and effectively in written form