Prerequisits:

There are no specific prerequisites for participating in this course and completing its requirements. However, prior knowledge of basic theories of media, memory, and history is recommended, as it will facilitate understanding of the topics discussed and enable active participation in discussions and practical tasks. Students should be prepared to analyse complex texts and engage in research activities.

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:

• Peter Burke Asa Briggs, Social History of the Media, Polity Press, 2010.
• Henry Jenkins (ed.), Convergence Culture: where old and new media collide. New York University Press, 2006.
• Andrew Hoskins (ur.), Digital memory studies: media pasts in transition, Routledge, 2018.
• Martin Pogačar, Media archaeologies, micro-archives and storytelling: re-presencing the past, Palgrave MacMillan, 2016.
• Maruša Pušnik, Oto Luthar (ur.), The media of memory, Brill, 2020.
• Motti Neiger, Oren Meyers, Eyal Zandberg (ur.), On media memory : collective memory in a new media age, 2013.
• Ryan Lizzardi, Mediated nostalgia : individual memory and contemporary mass media, Lexington Books, 2015.
• Journal: Memory Studies
• Journal: Memory, Mind & Media

Objectives and competences:

The objective of this course is to explore issues of memory and history through technologies of mediating the past in media environments. The focus is on individual and everyday memory practices in the time of ubiquitous connectivity, with a particular emphasis on Southeastern Europe. The course offers a broader historical framework for the emergence, establishment, and dominance of various media technologies and their impact on the development and functioning of society and culture.

Students will learn basic paradigms of media studies, media archaeology, and the history of technology, and will acquire the knowledge and tools to identify and evaluate various sources in the interpretation of the past. Through the analysis of technological aspects and audiovisual and textual media content, the course provides an analytical framework for researching and understanding the broader historical, social, and cultural aspects of living in a media-mediated society.

Intended learning outcomes:

Students will use the knowledge acquired in the course to produce a scientific contribution that can serve as a draft of a dissertation chapter or a research article. In doing so, they will develop the ability to critically analyse and interpret media practices and enhance their academic writing skills, contributing to their scientific and professional development.

Learning and teaching methods:

Types of learning/teaching:

• Frontal teaching
• Independent students work
• e-learning

Teaching methods:

• Explanation
• Conversation/discussion/debate
• Work with texts
• Case studies

Assessment:

• Long written assignments 80 %
• Presentations 20 %

Lecturer’s references:

• (in press) »Weaponization of Memory, Viruses and Affective Resonance«, v: Qi Wang in Andrew Hoskins (ur.), The Remaking of Memory in the Age of the Internet and Social Media, Routledge, 2024.
• »A microphone in a chandelier: how a secret recording sparks mnemonic imagination and affect«. Memory studies. 2022, 1-16. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/17506980211073110.
• (co-authorship) FAKIN BAJEC, Jasna, STRAUS, Matevž. »Stories, objects, interfaces: digital technology and cultural heritage among the young«. Transactions on internet research. [Online ed.]. Jul. 2021, vol. 17, no. 2, str. 51-59. http://ipsitransactions.org/journals/papers/tir/2021jul/p8.php.
• »Sandcastles in sound: memory and popular music on the shores of oblivion«. Continental thought & theory: a journal of intellectual freedom. December 2021, vol. 3, iss. 3, str. 164-186. https://ir.canterbury.ac.nz/bitstream/handle/10092/103098/12%20Pogacar.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y.
• »Culture of the past: digital connectivity and dispotentiated futures. V: HOSKINS, Andrew (ur.). Digital memory studies: media pasts in transition. New York; London: Routledge, 2018. Str. 27-47.
• Media archaeologies, micro-archives and storytelling: re-presencing the past, Palgrave MacMillan, 2016.