This course will provide a broad understanding of various theoretical approaches within media studies. It will introduce critical and historical perspectives for understanding the evolution and working of mass media institutions, political economy of media and programming in a global economy, with a focus on media and power. The profit maximization motive of a market-driven economy has changed the structure, content and organisation of the media, resulting in concentration through integration, mergers and conglomerisations. The assumption of global industrial character by the media has significant ramifications for socio-political, economic and cultural spaces at global and local levels. It will also examine the different ways in which media audiences have been conceptualised.
MC 2: CULTURAL STUDIES: AN INTRODUCTION
This course will introduce students to basic concepts and theoretical developments within Cultural Studies, with the aim of imparting critical perspectives, which would help them look critically at their own cultural landscapes.
MC 3: WAYS OF KNOWING
Module A: Quantitative Research
As an introduction to the Quantitative paradigm of research methodology, this course is intended to familiarise the student with the conceptual map of social science research. It explains the basic concepts and categories used in research, and delineate their linkages. Apart from the traditional schema, recent developments in methodology will be introduced. The aim is to equip the learner with a thorough understanding of the conceptual base of the Quantitative paradigm.
- To familiarise with the terminology of Quantitative research methodology.
- To examine the schema underlying procedures/techniques of Quantitative research.
- To expose students to the emerging trends in quantitative paradigms.
Module B: Ethnographic Research (16 Hrs),
This course explores the use of qualitative research methodologies, with a particular emphasis on ethnography and ethnographic research. Students will learn to critically evaluate both our sources of information as well as the means we employ to generate such information as ‘data’. Some of the key themes covered in this course will relate to the problem of representation – how do we represent the ‘other’ both textually and visually? How does the researcher reflexively position herself within the research process, and what is the role of subjective aspects such as experience or standpoint in the nature of research undertaken? This course also attempts to familiarize students with the nature of archival research even as it seeks to address the question of what is an archive and how one is generated.
MC 4: IMAGE MAKING I
This module critically explores visual images and media narratives, to understand how they are constructed in and through relationships of power and resistance. The course would also try to sensitize the students to appreciate the many complex layers and codes involved in image making and representation. The course also facilitates a critical engagement with contemporary Indian visual culture.
MC 5: WORKING WITH VIDEO I
Familiarises students with conceptualising, visualising and creative writing for the production of a public service spot. This course will combine the technical and aesthetic aspects of production.
LC1: MEDIA LAB I: VIDEO PRODUCTION
Familiarises the students with all technical aspects of video production, equipment, materials and processes, with hands-on exercises and demonstration by professionals. The course content includes: Handling the Camera, Sound Acquisition, Lighting, Shooting a Sequence and Interviewing Skills
LC 2: WRITING AND PRESENTATION SKILLS
Reporting the results, findings, and conclusions marks the culmination of a research study. Be it in the form of a document for the sponsors’ of the project, a monograph, a journal article, or an executive summary, reporting research requires writing skills.
Conventional programmes on research methodology, however, do not give adequate attention to academic writing skills. Apart from a command over the language and fluency in its use, writing skills involve an understanding of the structure of social science reporting, effective communication, paying attention to the technical details of writing (like grammar, usage, and punctuation), referencing and documentation, editing and proof-reading texts, and ethics of scholarly transactions, etc. This auxiliary course is conceived as a workshop where the students will acquire by practice the skills necessary for scholarly writing.
MR: MEDIA RESEARCH PROJECT
This individual guided project will take the student through the entire research project and will culminate in the production of a term paper, involving literature review, formulation of research questions, data collection and analysis. The student would be evaluated by his/her faculty supervisor and a second examiner.
FC 3 & 4: FOUNDATION COURSES:
Common curriculum for all Masters Programmes
MC 6: IMAGE MAKING II
This course introduces key issues, debates and movements in documentary film, illustrated with screenings of selected documentary classics. It also imparts familiarity with the formal elements of documentary film.
MC 7: MEDIA RESEARCH
The course gears students towards developing a critical, analytical and systematic approach required to conduct a research in media and cultural studies. This module offers a critical overview of the intellectual frameworks that inform the research and provides a structural analysis of the established practices in media and cultural studies. The training provided is multi-disciplinary, covering social sciences and humanities approaches. This course equips the students to develop their own approach to researching media institutions, texts, audiences and cultural studies.
MC 8: COMMUNICATION AND DEVELOPMENT
This course presents critical perspectives on communication and development. The course will sensitize the students to the relationship between dominant knowledge and the exercise of social power. It also equips them to critically look at the power of dominant knowledge systems in their own social and cultural spaces. Through this interrogation, it seeks to enable an exploration of alternative ways of understanding development and communication.
MC 9: WORKING WITH VIDEO II
Familiarises students with research techniques, conceptualising, visualising and creative writing for documentary film. The expected outcome is the production of a short documentary.
MC 10: READING FILM
This course attempts to familiarise students with basic concepts within Film Studies, with a focus on Indian cinema and selected significant international film texts and movements.
MC 11: SEMINAR I
This seminar course will involve individual presentations by students on the topic of their research project and will include a survey of literature, objectives and methodology. Evaluation will be based on both the oral presentation and defence (30%) and the written proposal (70%).
LC 3: MEDIA LAB III: VIDEO POST-PRODUCTION
Familiarises the students with all technical aspects of post- production, equipment, software and processes, with hands-on exercises and demonstration by professionals.
- Editing Skills: Introduction to video editing and compositing software and hardware.
- Music and Sound Design: Use of sound effects, music, filters, mixing and layering
MC 12: CYBERCULTURE – AN INTRODUCTION
The course will serve as an introductory study of various social phenomena associated with Internet and other new forms of network communication. Students will study phenomena such as online communities, online multi-player gaming, issues of online identity, the sociology and the ethnography of email usage, cell phone usage in various communities; the issues of gender and ethnicity in Internet usage etc. The course will try and understand culture of today and yesterday, including printing, comics, television, and digital media, focusing on the social construction of technology, how people build a sense of identity and social reality. The emphasis will be on human interactions within the context of new media objects.
Nelson, Tu and Hines, 2000, Technicolor: Race, Technology and Everyday Life, New York : NYU Press
Nicholas Negroponte, 1995: Being Digital, New York: Knopf
Rosemary J. Coombe, 1998 The Cultural Life of Intellectual Property, Duke University Press
Scott Mccloud, ,1994,Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art, Harper Paperbacks
Siva Vaidhyanathan, 2005, The Anarchist in the Library, Basic Books; New Ed edition
Urry, J., 1999, Mobile Culture, in http://www.comp.lancs.ac.uk/sociology/papers/Urry-Mobile-Cultures.pdf
William Gibson, 2000, Neuromancer, United States
MC 13: MEDIA AND THE NATIONAL IMAGINARY
This course will examine the role of media in the consolidation of national identities. Within this we will focus on the contested expressions of nation, region, religion, gender, postcolonial and diasporic identities in the modern age; how does contemporary media both reflect and shape these expressions? While most of the unit will look at the Indian case, we will also briefly look at a couple of other contexts (e.g., Trinidad, Egypt). The ‘media’ we will look at in this unit covers films (of both the popular as well as the ‘alternative’ variety), soap operas, novels and advertisements. In addition to the above texts, we will read a selection of social science and non-fiction works and review essays as well.
MC 14: GENDER AND MEDIATED CULTURES
This course, which is divided into two sections, will focus on concerns of gender and culture raising questions of representation, power, sexuality, class, caste, space and the media, to name only some. The first section will engage various cultural texts that might be broadly seen as belong to the realm of ‘tradition’ as well as various cultural texts during colonialism. The second section responds to the overarching challenges posed by globalization in relation to media cultures. The course uses a feminist lens to interrogate the construction of gender, femininity, and masculinity – in popular cultural texts with a focus on how social, political, and historical forces function in tandem with each other and with other identities such as class.
The course also interrogates the response of women’s studies to various cultural and media concerns. Taking off from the mandate of women’s studies which problematises the idea of culture, this course looks at the interactions of individuals, collectives and institutions and also the various transformative roles that they might find themselves in. The goal in this course will be to complicate our understanding of how gender engages the question of culture and raises issues of representation.
MC 16: SEMINAR II
This seminar course will involve group presentations by students related to their documentary film project. It will involve proposal presentation and defence, including the objectives, content and treatment. Assessment will be based on both the written and oral presentations of the groups.
LC 4: MEDIA LAB IV: VISUAL DESIGN
The rapid growth and development of new technologies has extended and transformed the visual discrimination, skill and conceptual base of communication practitioners. This course aims to provide the student with the knowledge, skill and understanding of visualization through theory and practice. This will be enabled through a series of four modules in Visual Communication, Typography, Colour and Visual representation. The methodology will include lectures, practical assignments, class presentation and discussions. Photography, Drawing and Image manipulation on the computer will be integrated in all modules.
LC 5: MEDIA LAB V: COMMUNITY RADIO
This workshop will acquaint participants with the processes of community radio production, as well as present significant case studies of community radio projects. It will involve both hands on production as well as an analysis of issues related to community radio in India.
MP: MCS MEDIA PROJECT
This would be a documentary film of approximately 30 minutes duration, undertaken by groups of 3 students, who will handle all aspects of production. Each group will have a faculty supervisor. In addition to the film, and graded presentations, the students would be assessed on an individual viva voce examination. The evaluation of the diploma film will be done by a panel of three examiners, a CMCS faculty and a representative from another school or centre within TISS and an external examiner.