Media and film studies

Theorising Media Practice

Module code: P4091
Level 6
30 credits in autumn semester
Teaching method: Seminar, Lecture
Assessment modes: Coursework

In this module, you will take part in three critical discourses in:

• representation and identity
• narrative and interactivity
• materiality and politics.

This is done with a view to help you refine your skills in presenting your own creative media projects to galleries, festivals, competitions and in shows, interviews and graduate applications. You will also develop a set of critical tools that will enhance the production of your current and future creative media projects.

You will study individual critically knowledgable artists working across various media taught in our department:

• photography
• audio
• screen drama/animation
• documentary
• interactive digital media.

You will analyse how they present themselves in relationship to histories of media, art and critical thinking, and how they enter relationships with their audiences.

Module learning outcomes

• Write fluently on the interdependence of critical theory and creative media practice, in both historical and contemporary contexts
• Understand and contribute to debates about the role of cultural/critical theory in media practice across fields
• Research and present on how specific contemporary creative media practitioners use critical and social theory to present their own work
• Contextualise students' own creative media project in terms of its relationship to aesthetic/semenatic/social theory
• Generate and refine an advanced, long-form piece of critical research