Module Catalogue 2024/25

Pre Requisite Comment

N/A

Co Requisite Comment

N/A

Aims

This module trains students in the principles and methods of the scholarly study of media, communication and culture. It dispels widespread popular misconceptions about both the study of humans and the study of these specific fields, and it demonstrates the many ways that scholarly rigour and precision can be used to produce knowledge in these fields.

The module introduces students to relevant taxonomies of objects, processes and organisations, and to orthodox and unorthodox methods of gathering and analysing a variety of types of both quantitative and qualitative evidence from all of these phenomena. These phenomena include contemporary and historical media companies, markets and audiences as well as the ‘works themselves’.

The module also explores the forms of enquiry that scholars in the field conduct, and in so doing illuminates the significant variety of scholarly disciplines and methods that bear on the study of media and culture. The module places particular emphasis on mastering a spectrum of skills, from the minutely practical – e.g. producing a detailed description of a components of a given work, such as a scene in a film – to the loftily conceptual – e.g. identifying the position that any given work’s most buried subtext takes on the political compass.

Outline Of Syllabus

The module is divided into two phases:
1. The principles of scholarly integrity, with teaching materials designed to equip students to work in the study of media and culture at university level. Topics include the methods of scholarly enquiry, formal logic and critical engagement with published scholarship.
2. Theories and methods suited for the analysis of phenomena in media, communication and culture, with teaching materials designed to equip students to identify patterns, politics and ideologies in these phenomena.

Weekly required reading, required viewing and lectures explore relevant models and ideas, or provide material for analysis. In seminars, students will delve further into those models and ideas, and practice applying them.

Intended Knowledge Outcomes

A student successfully completing the module will possess knowledge of:
- the scholarly principles applicable to university-level study in the Humanities in general, and the study of media, communication and culture in particular.
- how to maintain scholarly integrity in research and writing during the entirety of their programme.
- taxonomies of works and textual elements in the fields of both fiction and non-fiction.
- ways that works of media and culture make claims about the world and take political stances, and methods of identifying these claims and stances.
- the place of analyses of media, communication and culture in the wider landscape of scholarly disciplines and methods.

Intended Skill Outcomes

A student successfully completing the module will be able to:
- gather evidence from a range of phenomena in the field of media, communication and cultural studies.
- identify patterns in the form and content of various works.
- apply relevant distinctions across a variety of textual and cross-textual phenomena, such as the distinctions between the stances of characters, the stances of narrators and the implicit stances of works.
- identify, at a rudimentary level, how items media and culture are shaped by their historical environments.
- identify, at a rudimentary level, the influence of political positions and ideologies on items of media and culture.
- access and sift relevant scholarly resources both in hard copy and online.
- communicate a basic argument in clear scholarly prose.

Teaching Rationale And Relationship

The module is delivered in just the first semester of stage 1 to provide students with an intensive grounding in knowledge and skills that will be fundamental across the rest of their degree programme, whatever that degree programme is. Lectures provide students with accounts and rationales of the principles and methods of good scholarly practice. In seminars students will develop their understanding of, and skills in applying, these methods. The library briefing complements this grounding in academic integrity by outlining an array of methods for finding primary and secondary resources.

Assessment Rationale And Relationship

Full marks for the participation and engagement component are awarded to all students who engage with seminar discussions and tasks, or otherwise engage with the seminar/module leader if the student is unable to do the former. Assessment 1 (the Works Cited list and debunking paragraph) requires students to employ the skills and knowledge of skeptical enquiry and skills in identifying and properly attributing good academic sources practised during phase 1 of the module. Questions for Assessment 2 (the 2,000-word essay) require students to select from the various skills and knowledge in the analysis of media and cultural works learned in phase 2 of the module and apply them to specific objects of study.

General Notes

N/A