About This Course
Course Description
This course studies TV and digital media both as means of social, political and cultural representations and also as platforms of creating new public and private realities. On the one hand, it concentrates on the various ways television has culturally influenced the audiovisual culture of modern societies, the role that televisual codes play in the era of media convergence and the domination of social media (YouTube culture). In this framework, the terms of infotainment, tabloidization, glocalization, spectacle and surveillance culture are important to analyze. On the other hand, the course employs a sociological study of the basic dimensions of post-modern private and public sphere and the role the audiovisual media have played in their convergence. In this framework the terms of privatization, new communitarianism, individualization, democratization, are going to be discussed in the various ways they unfold in the chaotic digital world of information.
Course Objectives
- Understanding of the central concepts, approaches and debates concerning the convergence between tv culture, cinema and internet
- Critical assessment of TV studies and research approaches concerning the production the content and the audience of old and new tv culture
- Effective use of theories concerning TV studies and the convergence culture in the understanding and analysis of contemporary issues, problems, and changes of the audiovisual world
- Ability to contribute to debates regarding major dimensions and problems of the new audiovisual culture, such as globalization, glocalization, individualization, popular icons
Learning Outcomes
1. Define core concepts and approaches in the study of TV culture and convergence culture.
2. Compare and contrast the different outcomes of televisual and digital cultures.
3. Effectively apply them in genealogical research of the audiovisual phenomena
4. Becoming aware of the complex interrelationship and interaction between entertainment, information and interactive spectacle
Workload
| Type of work | Description | Hours |
| Lectures | Thirteen 3-hours lectures | 39 |
| Independent study | Study of class materials and readings | 50-60 |
| Readings in-class presentation | Presenting & leading a discussion on a given topic | 25-30 |
| Essay outline in-class presentation | Conference type presentation of essay outline | 25-30 |
| Research Essay | Essay (5000 words) | 100-110 |
| Total workload | 239-269 |
Assessment
| Type of assessment | Learning outcome | Impact on final grade | Date of assessment |
| Participation in in-class discussion | 1-4 | 10% | Regularly |
| In-class presentation of course readings | 1-4 | 10% | 2nd-12th week |
| In-class presentation of eassay outline | 2-4 | 10% | 13th week |
| Research Essay | 2-4 | 70% | 15th week |
Recommended Reading
• Amanda D. Lotz – We Now Disrupt This Broadcast. How Cable Transformed Television and the Internet Revolutionized It All,MIT Press 2018
• Ramon Lobato, Netflix Nations. The Geography of Digital Distribution-NYU Press,2019
• Jenkins, H. Convergence Culture, New York University Press, 2006
• Burgess J. and Green J. YouTube. Cambridge: Polity Press, 2009
• Langer, John. Tabloid Television: Popular Journalism and the “other News” London: Routledge, 1998.
• Kuipers, G. “Cultural Globalization as the Emergence of a Transnational Cultural Field: Transnational Television and National Media Landscapes in Four European Countries.” American Behavioral Scientist 55, no. 5 (2011): 541-57.