Film & Media Studies

This course provides a study of the audiovisual storytelling: construction, narrative devices, and the history and theory of film narrative.

This course examines advertising in the changing media environment. It covers the rise of consumerism and materialism, the current advertising industry, advertising and consumer wellbeing, and persuasion through covert and data-driven advertising. It will also address the implications of advertising practices on critical groups such as children and youth and discuss ethics and regulations. This course does not focus on how to create advertisements or develop communications campaigns. Instead, it concentrates on how advertising is placed in a larger economic, regulatory, and social context, with an aim to provide an important foundation for practice.

This course provides an introduction to the practice of film criticism. Topics include the social and cultural function of criticism; film theory and approaches; critical and comparative analysis of reviews.

The course focuses on the differing approaches and styles used by global media. Students investigate press and journalism business models, issues of globalization, and examine cross-national differences in terms of ethics, media content, and access to creative industries. It also considers theories around social change and globalization.

This course is to help students evaluate, both politically and aesthetically, the way Nordic films convey their social and cultural values and commitments. Given the belief in film's historical and social significance, it is the particular purpose of this course to look at Nordic films from 1945 to the present and analyze how they perceived and conjured up the social and cultural landscape. In addition, we will also look at some of the major political events and social and cultural trends that dominated a decade and left a mark on its films. In order to achieve these goals, we will examine three different areas more closely: a) state control and support of film production; b) film cultural characteristics, both those which seem to point in the direction of a unity in Nordic contexts and those that define each country respectively; c) Nordic cinema in transition in times of transnationalism and globalization.

This course provides a study of the techniques and methodologies for the development of multimedia content, in particular journalistic concepts applied to the internet (sources, newsmaking, and journalistic writing). It looks at the transformation of the media on the internet, new platforms and media projects, as well as the latest trends including data and brand journalism.

This course explores the many ways in which theater and film are distinct but closely inter-related mediums. The bulk of the course focuses on close analysis of texts that have been adapted from the stage to the screen, examining performativity within those texts and how the essential properties that define the stage and the screen contribute to and facilitate particular ways for performing such texts. Notions of theatricality and the cinema are interrogated, especially in relation to how cinema can be 'theatrical' and the theatre 'cinematic'. 

The course analyzes the conflict between Palestinians and Israelis in the Middle East as presented in films, the point of view of the press, NGOs, international relations experts, and international law academics . Topics covered include the origin of the conflict, occupation of Palestinian territory, and Israeli national security.

This course examines the history and current state of the film and television industry. It focuses on and how information is produced, distributed, and consumed on a global level. Topics of study include: cinema and film as a cultural industry; cultural exception and national media policy; regulation and deregulation of the television industry; public service and financing in the European television realm; the Hollywood hegemony in film and television; the Big 5 networks; HBO and pay TV networks; the digital revolution and piracy; and the advent of IPTV.