Film & Media Studies

This course examines documentary photography at home and abroad as a visual style, and the creative laws of documentary photography.

This course examines current events and the way they are covered in a variety of media outlets around the world, looking at framing, bias, stereotypes, context, story structure, and placement. Through lectures, discussions, a field trip, and class presentations, students analyze why news is reported as it is around the world and in the process become discerning media consumers better able to filter the noise and make decisions for themselves. The first half of the course is spent with lectures and discussions that examine the way news is covered around the world and why variations exist. The final half is devoted to student presentations on current event coverage. The presentations employ a "town hall" approach in which groups of students lead discussions on the issues and their coverage to classroom peers, being graded not just on content but audience engagement and participation. Topics of Discussion: Fake News, The Four Theories of the Press; News Values; News and Feature Story Structure; Media Effects and Communication Theory; Journalists and Media Organizations; Media Gatekeepers; Sources; Culture, Bias and Stereotypes; Language, Framing and Context; Legal Issues; Power and Economic Issues. Presentation Topics: Ongoing and breaking stories in the news.

This course introduces the background of China’s political institution and culture and provides overview of the relationship between China’s media and politics in a global context. It provides a broad perspective of China’s political communication and a familiarity with China’s media system and its political consequences. Four general topics are explored: China's media system; China's international communication system; Chinese nationalism in international conflicts; China's public diplomacy and international relations. 

This course is a study of the history of Israel as seen through films. The course examines various angles of the socio-political reality displayed in both fiction and documentary films. From the early twentieth century in Palestine and onwards in Israel, mainly through Israeli cinema, a flourishing industry nowadays, as well as through foreign cinema, the course covers the main events that shaped and continue to shape the reality of this young state: the historical events that led to its foundation, the wars which drew its borders, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and its multi-cultural identity.

This course provides an in-depth analysis of films while examining contemporary film aesthetics, and provides a study of the ideological, social, and cultural connotations of films. This course involves the analysis of the narrative viewpoint and narrative structure of films. Through representative directors, such as Wong Kar-wai, Hitchcock, Kubrick, etc., the course analyzes the psychological mechanism of film viewing, strategy of suspense, and thinking on modernity. In addition, representative film works are used to discuss various real-life issues with philosophical significance. New developments and characteristics of contemporary film aesthetics are also explored.

This course is part of the Laurea Magistrale program. Enrollment is by consent of the instructor. The course is intended for students who have a strong background in media studies and communication. The course focuses on mass media products using the specific tools of semiotic analysis. The course offers an introduction to the notion of the semiotic gaze applied to the media and the role of this gaze as a cultural phenomenon. The course includes a description of the main elements of contemporary media textuality and the increasing, yet ambivalent, process of media convergence, integration and transformation of media contents and forms. Attention is placed on the semiotic mechanisms able to generate links and connections between media objects and environments (games and videogames, TV series, fandom), and to activate a semiotic crossover that expresses itself in narrative, discursive and interactive dimensions. The course concentrates on concrete examples of audiovisual media texts and practices that are analyzed with different semiotic tools and concepts (from the specific dimensions of media textuality to the notions of media genre and format). The ultimate aim is the development of a semiotic gaze on both media-specific elements (the construction of the visible, the audible, rhythms and the syncretism of languages), as well as the relation between media textuality and experience. A special section of the course is devoted to the ways in which contemporary media texts and genres construct gender identities and the intersectionality with elements of race, color, class, age, and disabilities. Required readings include: SEMIOTICA DEI MEDIA. LE FORME DELL'ESPERIENZA MEDIALE and LA CONDIZIONE POSTMEDIALE. MEDIA, LINGUAGGI E NARRAZIONI by R. Eugeni, I MEDIA: STRUMENTI DI ANALISI SEMIOTICA by P. Peverini, MULTI TV. L'ESPERIENZA TELEVISIVA NELL'ETÀ CONTEMPORANEA by M. Scaglioni and A. Sfardini. After the first introductory week, students are invited to prepare class presentations based either on theoretical/methodological questions (related to the required readings), or on the application of different semiotic tools to specific case-studies. Assessment in the course is based on an oral exam and a paper on one of the topics discussed in class (i.e. forms of textuality and media practices, format and genres relating to gender and intersectional identities).

This course is designed to familiarize students with the topic of English translation of Korean films through a selection of movies of the world-renowned Korean director and Yonsei alum Bong Joon-ho. Note that the course is based mainly on movie viewing, individual research, and class discussions in addition to the instructor's lectures. Thus, active participation on the students' part is crucial. This course allows enrolled students to think about the difficulties and sophisticated nature of Korean-English translation for movie subtitles through the examples of Korean films by Director Bong Joon-ho. The course helps observe various problems regarding translation from Korean into English and vice versa through Bong’s films such as 'A Higher Animal (2000)', 'The Host (2006)’, ‘Snowpiercer (2013)’, ‘Okja (2017)’, and ‘Parasite (2019)’. Students are also expected to understand the complicated nature of numerous variables in play when it comes to crossing from one language to another in the world of cinema such as one’s understanding of context, culture, history, and tradition on top of the basic linguistic competency. Through this course, students gain not only confidence in bridging different languages based on a solid control of languages and cultures but also a cosmopolitan outlook as world citizens incorporating diversity, flexibility, and open-mindedness which are indispensable in modern society.