30/9 Week 1: Introduction – Studying the Media

Overview of course aims and objectives.

7/10 Week 2:  Histories of the Press I – Picture Post and the Post War Settlement, Journalism and the 60s

The rise of the picture magazine and its relationship to society and politics. Countercultures and journalism, new ways of seeing the world and reporting Technological determinist vs Cultural studies perspectives. Media vs Media & Cultural studies perspectives

14/10 Week 3: Semiotics, Representation and Social Constructivism

Texts as symbolic signifiers, culture as symbolic system, language as relational structures and the impossibility of truth. How media texts ‘mean’, the act of interpretation, the problem of relativism and the defence of intersubjectivity.

21/10 Week 4: Power, Control and Ideology (Classical Marxism, Benjamin and Althusser)

Instrumental power through ownership and coercion versus ‘soft’ power through authority and influence. Disciplinary power structures versus constitutive discourses of power. The power/knowledge connection and culture as political weapon.

28/10 Week 5: Guest Lecture

4/11 Week 6: Essay tutorials

11/11 Week 7: Power and the press 

Two competing ways of thinking about 'power'. Is power something exercised from 'above' and used to repress, or is it something that produces 'truth' and subject positions. The session looks at the work of Michel Foucault and his concept of Truth/Power and discourse.

18/11 Week 8: The postmodern moment

Some critics have pointed towards a new cultural era where truth is relative and we live in a world of 3-min attention spans and media squared. Are celebrity magazines an example of a 'postmodern' moment?

25/11 Week 9: Guest lecture 

2/12 Week 10: The Journalism Industry

What is a journalist? This can be defined according to professional practice – accreditation – but also disposition and social context. The importance of everyday practice and common sense, and relations with sources, colleagues, editors and audience.

9/12 Week 11: Broadsheets

‘Papers of record’: The Times, Daily Telegraph, Guardian and Independent. Defining what counts as an authoritative account of events. The contingency of authority and the dilemma of elitism. Standards of objectivity and the ‘right’ to editorialise. 

End of first term

            5/01 Monday group - Week 12: Introduction

6/01 Week 12: Tabloids

‘Papers for the common man’: The Sun, Daily Mirror, Daily Star. News as entertainment, tabloids as national institutions and the questions of class and gender. Sensationalism and cynicism versus tabloids’ distinct journalistic skills and public functions.  

            12/01 Monday group - Week 13: Newspapers, Brands and ideology

13/01 Week 13: Mid-Range Newspapers

‘Papers of Middle England’: The Daily Mail and Daily Express. The claim of moral authority versus the spreading of moral panic. The journalism of righteous outrage and decency, or simply antiquated xenophobia?

19 and 20/01 Week 14: Sundays and Supplements

The distinct features of weekend journalism: slow-burn articles, investigative journalism and the proliferation of supplements. Elite cultural consecration, celebrity columnists – and the social context of regular lifestyle sectons.

26 and 27/01 Week 15: Consumer magazines

A macro look at the Consumer magazine industry, focusing on BBC Worldwide magazines and a micro look at the re-presentation of gender and childhood thorugh some of its products.

2 and 3/02 Week 16: You: .B2B magazines

A macro look at business-to-business magazines, targeting markets and the economics of controlled circulation and a micro look at the branding of a new magazine.

16 and 17/02 and 23 and 24/02 Weeks 17 & Week 18: Citizen Media ** ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY DUE **

The rise of user-generated content (UGC) is argued to have supposedly revolutionized news-making, blurring the distinction between consumer and producer, disrupting traditional authority structures and – potentially – democratizing the media and society more broadly.

02 and 03/03 Week 19: Advertising and new business models

The financial bottom line of putting together a newspaper. Responsibility to sponsors, responsibility to readers. Case study: advertisements for budget flights in the Guardian. Deconstructing advertising as signifiers of gender, class and ethnicity – and the broader question of the manufacture of desire.

9 and 10 & 16 and 17/03  and 23/03 Weeks 20, 21 & 22: Launching a magazine simulation