Prof Nicholas Couldry TW2.7.01G and Dr Wallis Motta TW2.6.01E

This course is compulsory on the MSc in Media and Communications. This course is available on the MPhil/PhD in Data, Networks and Society, MPhil/PhD in Media and Communications, MSc in Gender, Media and Culture, MSc in Media and Communications (Data and Society), MSc in Media and Communications (Media and Communications Governance) and MSc in Media and Communications (Research). This course is not available as an outside option.

In order to accommodate academic staff leave, and in order to maintain smaller group sizes, this course is capped, meaning there is a limit to the number of students who can be accepted.

This course examines key concepts and critical perspectives on the processes of communication that underpin social, economic and cultural relations across diverse spheres of modern life. It takes an interdisciplinary and theoretical perspective, comparing the claims and contribution of selected key theories of communication in order to understand and critique the symbolic and material power of communication media. With a substantive focus on the shifts from mass to networked media and from national to globalised communication processes, the course offers a selective introduction to key theories in communication. It examines a series of critical perspectives, drawing on current research debates in the field of media and communications and beyond. The course is team taught by active researchers in the field of media and communications and aims to enable students to develop their critical understanding of the communication processes central to the contemporary media and communications environment.

10 hours of lectures and 10 hours of seminars in the LT.

All students are expected to complete advance reading, prepare seminar presentations, and submit an essay of 1,500 words. In addition, there will be a one-hour theories and concept mapping exercise in class in last week of term.

Castells, M. (2009) Communication Power, Oxford University Press; Chadwick, A. (2013) The Hybrid Media System, Oxford University Press; Couldry, N. (2012) Media, Society, World. Cambridge: Polity; Curran, J. and Park, M.J. (ed) (2000) De-Westernizing Media Studies (Communication and Society), London: Routledge; Dutton, W.H. (2013) The Oxford Hhandbook of Internet Studies. Oxford University Press; Georgiou, M. (2013) Media and the City, Polity Press; Hall, S. (ed.). (1999) Representation: Cultural representations and signifying practices, Sage; Mansell, R. (2012) Imagining the Internet: communication, innovation, and governance, Oxford University Press; McLuhan, M. (2001[1964]); Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man, Routledge; Meyrowitz, J. (1985) No Sense of Place, Oxford University Press; Silverstone, R. (2007) Media and Morality, Polity Press; van Dijck, J. (2013) The Culture of Connectivity, Oxford University Press; van Dijk, J.A.G.M. (2006) The Network Society: Social Aspects of New Media, Sage.

Essay (100%, 3000 words) in the ST.

This course offers a critical understanding of processes of communication and the ways they shape political, cultural and economic life.

A stimulating and challenging entry point to theories and concepts associated with processes of communication, this course provides students with tools to understand the formation and consequences of communication for social, political and cultural life.

Students' comments

"Theories are useful for dissertation/other classes on the course."