HFMA03072U FM, Modul 4, Media, Violence, Audiences

This course provides students with insights into key theories about audience effects and usage in relation to various media, as well as an understanding of research methodologies relevant to the study of the relations between media and audiences. The course will address how questions related to media audiences and users can be investigated empirically and targets epistemological challenges raised when conducting empirical research on media users and audiences, and will present key theoretical perspectives and research traditions into media audiences and users. Two different research seminars will be offered, and students will select which seminar to follow, according to their research interests and preferences. In relation to the research seminars students will plan and conduct an empirical study from a media audience or user perspective. Both seminars will include a focus on both qualitative and quantitative research methods, and students are free to select which methodological approach to follow for their empirical study. Interested students will furthermore be offered workshops on TV rating analysis and web traffic analysis. Students pursuing an internship may opt to use materials from the internship when conducting their empirical study.

Research seminar: Media, Violence, Audiences

Media violence has for long for been a central topic within media studies, where questions regarding how to define and understand media violence and its effects on audiences have led to much theoretical and methodological controversy. This seminar will look into these debates and invite students to investigate the relations between various media and their audiences and users, and the question of how these relations can be studied empirically. Theoretically, the seminar will introduce students to perspectives on media violence and audience effects, how media violence operates, and how audiences respond to and make sense of media violence. The seminar will furthermore explore how such epistemological and theoretical perspectives are interlinked with methodological considerations regarding operationalizations of (media) violence and quantitative and qualitative research designs for empirical studies of media violence. Throughout the seminar, media violence will be used as a focal point to explore how diverging theoretical understandings and methodological approaches have implications for the conclusions and results that can be produced within audience and user studies. Students will prepare, undertake, and present a small-scale empirical study on media violence from an audience or user perspective.