Media Studies with Visual Cultures

Level One - Modules covered during first year!
Term 1: September - December
MSVC 101: Being Academic
The topics that were looked at in this module include:

• studentship
• mitigating circumstances
• defining academic study
• referencing using the harvard system
• plagiarism
• forms of assessment
• paraphrasing
• bibliography
• the learning centres

MSVC 102: Introduction To Theory
Topics include:

• the representation of women
• the representation of men
• the representation of race and/or ethnicity
• concepts relating to marxist theory and the frankfurt school
• postmodernism

MSVC 103: Constructing Meaning: An Introduction
Topics include:

• signification
• encoding and decoding
• myth
• ideology and hegemony
• case studies on hollywood cinema, continuity editing and the 180 degree rule

Term 2: January - May
MSVC 104: Genre
The topics that were looked at in this module were:

• the approaches to genre study
• analysing iconography, narrative and generic conventions
• deconstructing genre conventions - similarities and difference
• ideology and spectatorship
• representation
• historical, social and cultural perspectives
• constructing and stereotyping audiences through genre

MSVC 105: Stardom and Performance
Topics include:

• studying star personas
• representation and ideology
• socio-cultural approaches to stardom
• star persona from screen to subsidiary media texts
• constructing authenticity in performance and photography
• the quest for the 'real' in a glamorous industry
• stars as commodities: brands, lifestyles and identities
• fashion: industry and audience perspectives
• contemporary stardom: summarising concepts and debates

MSVC 106: Institutions
Topics include:

• culture, society and the media
• ideology and control
• case study on the BBC
• critical theory and culture industry
• institutions, power and the media