Film & Media Studies

This course provides a study of the elements, systems and construction processes of mise-en-scéne in film and television. Topics covered include: models, styles and movements; art design (lighting, framing, camera movements, artistic direction); dramaturgy and direction of actors; film editing resources; staging and sound space.

This course focuses on directors and producers of the French New Wave. It explores the aesthetic, historical, social, and economic context of films from Africa, Germany, Hollywood, England, Italy, Spain, and Japan beginning in 1959.

This course introduces theoretical, analytical, and critical-reflexive approaches to cultural and creative industries (CCI) in an international perspective, emphasizing the field’s global implications on cultural, commercial, and media-specific transformations. The course covers various manifestations of CCIs from across the world, how they are structured and function within particular (trans)national contexts, and the production and circulation of cultural artifacts at varying geographic scales. The course examines the characteristics and components of several ‘models’ of CCI practices and interrogates topical issues in CCI research, such as structural challenges in the international division of cultural labor, and national and transnational CCI strategies. This course includes an excursion to a (European) metropolis with visits to relevant CCI organizations as well as related academic and research institutions to gain insights on how CCI practice and research are conducted in a different cultural and socio-political setting.

This course contextualizes digital data to understand its benefits and limitations, particularly with generalizability. Students learn how inequality, institutions, and ideology may influence the transformation of the media, as well as Big Data (and small). The inequality segment examines class, gender, and race intersectionalities in digital data production and impact, such as online harassment. Corporate and civic institutions also influence digital data, so the course unpacks institutional effects, from Facebook to the State. Finally, political ideology shapes how data is created and seen, so political campaigns and movements are analyzed to understand how they produce and distribute digital data. The course interrogates the broader role of technology in society and ties current cases with long-standing sociological debates, methods, and theories.

This course provides an introduction to communication and media studies. Topics include: media studies; digital culture, social media, and AI; mediascapes; the path of cinema and communication theories; building media industries-- cinema, radio, and television; media heritage and archaeology.