Dr Sadie Wearing, B507

This course is a half unit, which is available to all suitably qualified students. It is especially recommended to those students on MSc Gender, MSc Gender and Social Policy, MSc Organisational and Social Psychology, MSc Media and Communications, MSc Media and Communications (Research) and MSc Media, Communication and Development. It is a compulsory course for students on MSc Gender, Media and Culture.

This course aims to enable students: to apply a range of theoretical and methodological approaches to the study of the media; to think critically about representations of gender in a range of different media; to examine changing representations of gender in the context of wider social changes and to explore questions concerning the interpretation and use of different media and their products. The course focuses on examples largely drawn from Anglo-American media and should include ‘postfeminist’ media; news; and contemporary cinema and gender, and consider themes such as the nature of celebrity and questions of media reception.

One hour lecture and one hour seminar plus screenings of material to be discussed in class.  Students are expected to carry out directed readings, and to maintain familiarity with contemporary UK media.

R Gill, Gender and the Media Polity, Press (2007); L Van Zoonen, Feminist Media Studies, Sage (1994); M MacDonald, Representing Women: Myths of Femininity in Popular Media, Edward Arnold (1995); S Cohan & I R Hark (Eds), Screening the Male: Exploring Masculinities in Hollywood Cinema, (chapters by Neale, Wiegman, Fuchs) Routledge (1993); J Stacey, Star Gazing: Hollywood Cinema and Female Spectatorship, Routledge (1994); M Meyers, Mediated Women. Representations in Popular Culture Hampton Press, NJ (1999); A Hall, Delights, Desires and Dilemmas: Essays on Women and the Media, Praeger, London (1998). Y.Tasker and D.Negra (eds) Interrogating Postfeminism: Gender and the Politics of Popular Culture (Console-ing Passions: Duke (2007); S. Hall Representation: Cultural Representations and Signifying Practice) Sage (1997) ; R.Dyer, The Matter of Images: Essays on Representation, Routledge (2002); R.Dyer, Culture of Queers, Routledge (2001)

One 4,000 word essay to be submitted at the beginning of the LT (80%), and one visual media analysis to be conducted in class in week 9 of MT (20%).