Module: MCO5000-20 Global Media

Level: 5

Credit Value: 20

Module Tutor: Matthew Freeman

Module Tutor Contact Details: m.freeman@bathspa.ac.uk

1. Brief description and aims of module:

This module challenges you to explore global media cultures and practices through both scholarly and practice-based research. Engaging with contemporary debates in media research as well as cross-disciplinary perspectives on globalization from business, film and television and cultural studies, you will be asked to analyse both the makings and the impacts of globalized media, interrogating the creativity of global media texts, the cultural challenges that emerge from global trends, and the industrial configurations that allow media to spread around the world. This module will ask you to creatively examine such questions through a range of media-making practices, with the module stressing dialogues between the academic study of media and the wider social relevance of these concepts. You will draw on approaches and perspectives from industry to ensure that their knowledge, research and media-making skills have an applied dimension.

2. Outline syllabus:

Part One: Industrial Practices of Global Media

• What is Global Media?

• International Communication: The Past and Future of Media Industries

• Media Conglomeration: Transmedia and Transcultural Entertainment

• Global Television Formats and Glocalization

• Digitization: Netflix and Digital Television Cultures

• Commercialization: Celebrities and Social Media

Part Two: Developing the Transmedia Presentation

• Introducing the Transmedia Presentation

• Filming and Editing Technical Demonstrations

• Approaches to the Documentary

• Making Creative Use of Extension Platforms

• Curating and Organizing the Transmedia Presentation

• Transmedia Presentation Student Showcase

3. Teaching and learning activities:

In the first half of the module we examine the ways via which the globalization of media has occurred – international communication, media conglomeration, commercialization, and digitization. We explore the formations, practices and implications of these approaches, and you will complete weekly tasks for a Research Blog (50%), researching the impact of the globalization of media on critical questions such as storytelling, consumerism, social identity, careers, etc. You will also use the blog to develop ideas for a collaborative research project.

In the second half of the module you will produce a Transmedia Presentation (50%), working collaboratively based on their shared project ideas. The Transmedia Presentation makes use of creative media practice to showcase research findings and critical arguments. Lectures, group tutorials, Pecha Kucha pitches and technical demonstrations are devoted to the production, editing and curation of a range of practice-based media materials for a presentation showcase.

The Minerva site for Global Media will act as a research centre and will contain both weekly support materials (lecture slides, essential and further reading) and broader research materials.

Assessment Item 1:

• Assessment Type: Course Work

• Description: Research Blog (2500 words equivalent)

• % Weighting: 50%

Assessment Item 2:

• Assessment Type: Course Work

• Description: Transmedia Presentation (documentary plus extension platforms) (2500 words equivalent)

• % Weighting: 50%