Seminar / Hauptseminar: Media Studies in the USA, the UK, Australia,
and Canada /
Medienwissenschaft in den USA, United Kingdom, Australien und Kanada
The objective of the seminar is to explore the fields of media studies as an academic discipline and area of research in the English-speaking world. Media studies is understood here as a field within culture studies and thus the material discussed includes the history of culture studies in both theoretical and practical aspects. Discussions in class are based on material presented and on group research projects assigned by the instructor. Das Seminar beinhaltet die Teilbereiche Theorie, Analyse und Praxis. Für einen Teilnahmeschein ist erforderlich: aktive Teilnahme im Seminar und ein schriftlicher Beitrag von 2000 Wörtern. Für einen Leistungsschein is erforderlich: aktive Teilnahme im Seminar und eine Hausarbeit von 8000 Wörtern im Stil des MLA: Modern Language Association of America. Themen für Hausarbeiten müssen mit dem Seminarleiter persönlich besprochen werden.
Background material used for the seminars include: Bell, Allan, and Peter Garrett, eds. Approaches to Media Discourse. Malden: Blacwell, 1998; Corner, John, Philip Schlesinger, and Roger Silverstone, eds. International Media Studies: A Critical Survey. London: Routledge, 1997; Lull, James. Media, Communication, Culture: A Global Approach. New York: Columbia UP, 1995; Munns, Jessica, and Gita Rajan, with Roger Bromley, ed. A Cultural Studies Reader: History, Theory, Practice. London: Longman, 1995; Rushkoff, Douglas. Media Virus!: Hidden Agendas in Popular Culture. New York: Ballantine Books, 1996; Schirato, Tony, and Susan Yell. Communication and Culture: An Introduction. London: Sage, 2000; Schultze, Quentin J., Roy M. Anker, James D. Bratt, William D. Romanowski, John W. Worst, and Lambert Zuidervaart. Dancing in the Dark: Youth, Popular Culture and the Electronic Media. Grand Rapids: 1991; Weber, Samuel. Mass Mediauras: Form, Technics, Media. Stanford: Stanford UP, 1996.
Essay topics are Towards a History of Cultural Studies (describe the origins and current situation of cultural), Kulturwissenschaft and Cultural Studies (describe and compare the two fields), Cultural Studies and Media Studies (describe the interrelation of the two fields), Media Studies Online (evaluate what is available in the field on the world wide web), Foundational Texts of Media Studies in English (describe seminal texts published in English), Research Methods in Media Studies (describe English-language media studies methods). Please write the paper in the length of 2000 words in the MLA style of paranethetical sources and a works cited (for a style guide link to <http://clcwebjournal.lib.purdue.edu/proced2.html>). The essays are to be send in an e-mail to the instructor at <totosy@medienkomm.uni-halle.de> (no attachments, please).
Reading material: Norma Schulman, "Conditions of their Own Making: An Intellectual History of the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies at the University of Birmingham," CJC: Canadian Journal of Communication 18.1 (1993): <http://www.wlu.ca/~wwwpress/jrls/cjc/BackIssues/18.1/schulman.html>.