UNDERGRADUATE
Sidewalks and Screens [UMass Amherst]
This course introduces you to the ways media technologies shape, and are shaped by, the built environment. Central themes will include the historical entanglement of various technologies, media industries, communicative practices, and the modern city. Our approach will cover a wide historical and geographical span, thereby acquainting you with a variety of meanings and practices associated with urban life and the media. What role did newspapers play in the formation of cities in the late nineteenth to the early twentieth centuries? How do we explain the co-evolution of the rise of television and suburban living in the 1950s? In what ways do media bring urban dwellers together as they are surrounded by big public screens to which they rarely pay attention, and immersed in their own smart devices? The course draws on academic texts and journalistic coverage to explore media as it appears in everyday urban spaces and routines. [Syllabus]
Social Life of Algorithms [UMass Amherst]
Algorithmic systems are at the center of today’s digital world, and mediate communication processes in areas as diverse as social media, journalism, healthcare, cities, and even governments. How do algorithmic systems capture, represent, and transmit information about everyday interactions? How do they shape, and are shaped by, social, cultural, and political life? What kind of new issues and concerns arise from their ubiquitous use? This course provides a critical introduction to algorithmic systems, and how they relate to issues of communication, power, and inequalities in society. In addition to reading responses and a midterm essay, students will complete a research project on an algorithmic system of their choice to unpack how they are constructed and used in everyday life. [Syllabus]
Global Media [Bilgi University]
How does the production of news and media differ around the world? And to the extent that it does, why? This course introduces students to the variety of professional values and traditions, forms of ownership, government regulations, organizational dynamics, and the social expectations of media owners, workers, and audiences around the world. By comparatively reviewing the factors that shape media and news production, students gain a better understanding of the similarities and differences in global media as they vary by genre, audience, and world region. [Syllabus]
Politics and Journalism in the Digital Age [Barnard College]
Digital media are challenging and changing established journalistic and political institutions on a number of fronts, from the increasing use of data in journalism to the movements such as “Occupy” and the “Arab Spring” to the recent Snowden leaks. What constitutes journalism in an era when anyone with a phone camera and Internet connection can engage in those acts? What level of political knowledge and participation should we expect of citizens, and how do digital media facilitate those levels? This course explores the digital transformations in politics and journalism along with the consequences of the widespread use of the internet.[Syllabus]
GRADUATE
Media Research [Bilgi University]
One of the requirements of the MA in Media and Communication Systems program, this course aims to provide students with a broad introduction to the methodological foundations and tools of inquiry in studying media and communications. Much of the semester focuses on the fundamentals of quantitative and qualitative research methods, including ethics, theory construction, and the logic of discovery. Students scrutinize the relationship between theory and method, analysis and interpretation, research design and practice. They are exposed to the broad range of designs used in media and communication research, including surveys, content analysis, archival research, computational methods, interviewing, and ethnography. [Syllabus]