Objectives and competences:

The course covers topics of memory and history in through technologies of mediating the past in media environments. It focuses on individual and collective memory practices in the time of ubiquitous connectivity (with emphasis on South-eastern Europe). It offers a historical background to the emergence, development and domination of different media technologies and their influence on development of society and culture.

The course offers an introduction to media studies, media archaeology, history of technology and equips the student with skills and competences to detect and reflect upon different sources in the interpretation of the past. Through the analysis of technological aspects and audiovisual and textual content, the course presents an analytical framework for researching and understanding wider historical, social and cultural aspects of being in mediated society.

Prerequisites:

None.

Content (Syllabus outline)

1. Media and technology: from speech to pixel

• Speech, writing and print
• Media images
• Mass and electronic media
• Digital media and the third orality

2. Representation of the past in visual media in 20th and 21st centuries

• Print, photography and cinema
• Radio and television
• Internet and mobile devices

3. Newness of new media in historical perspective

• The “new” paradigm
• Liberating potential of the new
• Utopia and new media

4. Media archaeology: between material and code

• Media archaeology
• Digital archives
• Narratives and popcultural references

Readings:

• danah boyd, It’s Complicated, The Social Lives of Networked Teens, Yale University Press, 2014.
• Peter Burke Asa Briggs, Social History of the Media, Polity Press, 2010.
• Nick Couldry, Media, Society, World: Social Theory and Digital Media Practice, Polity Press, 2012.
• Jose van Dijck, Culture of Connectivity, A Critical History of Social Media, Oxford University Press, 2013.
• Jose van Dijck, Mediated Memories in the Digital Age, Stanford University Press, 2007.
• Wolfgang Ernst, Digital Memory and the Archive, University of Minnessota Press, 2012.
• Stig Hjarvard, The Mediatization of Culture and Society, Routledge, 2013.
• Paul Hodkinson, Media, Culture and Society, Sage Publications, 2001.
• Erkki Huhtamo in Jussi Parikka, Media Archaeology, Approaches, Applications and Implications, University of California Press, 2011. 
• Henry Jenkins (ed.), Convergence Culture: where old and new media collide. New York University Press, 2006.
• T.V. Reed, Digitized Lives: Culture, Power, and Social Change in the Internet Era, Sage Publications, 2014.
• Colin Sparks (with Anna Reading), Communism, Capitalism and the Mass Media, Sage, 1998. 

Assessment:

Active participation in discussion classes and a short written paper (3500 words) in which the student analyses a particular problem supported by relevant literature. The student must pass a written exam covering the entire course.

• Paper: the student demonstrates conversance with particular topic, competent selection of literature, skilful argument building and appropriate language skills.
• Written exam: to test competence acquired in classes and to demonstrate comprehension and articulation of study material.