Media and film studies

Media, Memory, History

Module code: P3072
Level 5
15 credits in autumn semester
Teaching method: Seminar, Lecture
Assessment modes: Coursework

This module examines the relationship between history, memory and media.

Its starting points are:

the media are historical artifacts, forged and developed in historical contexts that they also influence
access to history is mediated through various technical and cultural systems e.g. television, print, and networked and mobile media
media systems capture, store, and re-disseminate material that may be returned to us as collective or individual memories for instance through family photographs, or through the annual collective commemoration of official memorial days. The relationship between history and memory is thus bound up with how media systems become embedded cultures
new media produce new kinds of artificial memory and thus may intervene in new ways in the making of history.

The module will address some of the questions arising around media, history and memory through sessions including:

explorations of prosthetic memory
war memories and memorials
the history of the invention of the media
memory damage and the politics of omission
family histories and migration patterns as photographic record
race and mediated memory
questions of the convergence of the archive and the network which mean media records of events are simultaneously stored and represented.

Critical understanding of the role of the media in the making of social and individual memories
Critical understanding of the relationship of the media to the processes through which history is made
Ability to apply underlying concepts and critically apply them to explore varying situations where memory, history and the media intersect
Understanding the limits of various critical approaches to analysing media systems, particularly in relation to questions of scale and access