HFMK03521U FM, Media Theory and Analysis: Digital Media,Network and Society

Volume 2023/2024
Education

Master in Film and Media Studies, 2019-curriculum

Content

Digital transformation, rising social inequalities and climate change. These are three of our biggest contemporary challenges and (digital) technologies are at the core of each of them. Yet the views on the roles of technologies are polarised: tech enthusiasts worship them as the ultimate solution, while others alert us to sustained problems, or even to the danger of human extinction by AI. Rather than reproducing this polarised debate, this course asks how we can see through the tech hype while at the same time avoiding mere doom and gloom. How can we assess the roles and impact that digital technologies actually have regarding social change, inequalities and climate change?

 

The course will be organised around those three themes. The seminars on digital transformation focus on issues such as datafication, technological determinism, AI revolution and hype. Next, we zoom in on inequalities: in what ways are technologies part of the problem or part of the solution for addressing racism, gender inequality or sexual discrimination? The third theme tackles climate change and ecology. Questions include: what are the hidden ecological costs of producing and using digital technologies? What are the downsides of technological solutionism?

 

Students will have the opportunity to gain academic knowledge to discuss and analyse pressing societal challenges, and how to apply this knowledge in their immediate and future lives as citizens, workers and decision makers. The reading material is interdisciplinary and mostly draws on media studies, sociology, critical theory and science and technology studies, both from the Global North and the South. We will approach digital technologies not in a technical way, but from a humanities and social science perspective. The course should also benefit students’ written and spoken communication skills, together with their media literacy as we will also focus on analysing media discourse around digital technologies.

Learning Outcome

At the exam, the student can demonstrate:

 

Knowledge of and understanding of

• the specific theoretical issues that have governed the conceptual development of film and media studies and its connection with technological, social and cultural changes

• the analytical implications of the use of different types of media studies concepts in relation to a wide variety of contexts, both historically and in the current media culture

• theories about digitisation and its influence on the conceptual development in media studies

• The connection between theory and method in relation to the analysis of film and media studies texts and communicative processes.

 

Skills to

• develop theoretical concepts and discuss these in both their historic specificity and in a number of contexts

• demonstrate the ability of theories, their possibilities and limitations, through exemplary analyses

• Understand the analytical problems in film and media studies that the digitization has raised

• critically evaluate conceptual use by means of comparative arguments.

 

Competences to

• explain theoretical concepts and demonstrate their analytical ability to explain different media and platforms

• Discuss theoretical schools in relation to each other and assess the analytical consequences associated with different theories

• apply the correct theory and methods it produces in relation to analytical intent, context and usage situation.

 

Required academic qualifications
Class teaching with discussion, individual presentations and group work.
Pass the active participation
  • Category
  • Hours
  • Class Instruction
  • 56
  • Preparation
  • 353,5
  • Total
  • 409,5
Written
Oral
Individual
Collective
Continuous feedback during the course of the semester
Feedback by final exam (In addition to the grade)
Peer feedback (Students give each other feedback)
Credit
15 ECTS
Type of assessment
Other
Exam registration requirements

Active class participation is defined as:

  • At least 75% attendance
  • Approval of 2-3 oral or written exercises set by the lecturer (10-15 minute presentation or 3-5 standard pages per submission).
Marking scale
7-point grading scale
Censorship form
No external censorship
Exam period

https://kunet.ku.dk/studie/film-og-medievidenskab-ka/Sider/Emne.aspx?topic=Find tid og sted&topicId=ef9bedf9-cd3b-41a7-ad09-fc3825b08664#ef9bedf9-cd3b-41a7-ad09-fc3825b08664

Re-exam

2019-Curriculum

https://hum.ku.dk/uddannelser/aktuelle_studieordninger/film_medievidenskab/

Criteria for exam assesment

Master in Film and Media Studies, 2019-curriculum:

https:/​/​hum.ku.dk/​uddannelser/​aktuelle_studieordninger/​film_medievidenskab/​

 

Exams are conducted in English