Professor Lilie Chouliaraki (S102).

For Research Students. The course is compulsory for students in the first and second years of the Doctoral Programmes in Media and Communications and in New Media, Innovation and Literacy. All Research Students in the Department are welcome and encouraged to attend.

The aim of the course is to raise awareness of theoretical, conceptual and methodological issues in the interdisciplinary field of media and communications research and to develop students skills with respect to theory building, research design and implementation.

The course focuses, in particular, on the key conceptual issues and analytical strategies required in media and communication research, with special reference to the study of the changing environment of media production, dissemination and consumption, under conditions of globalization and digitization of information

Seminar (MC500) (two hours) x 10 MT and x 10 LT. Compulsory for first and second year students and open to others. There may be additional seminars or workshops in ST.

Manuel Castells, Communication Power, OUP, 2009; Lilie Chouliaraki, The Spectatorship of Suffering, Sage, 2006; Peter Dahlgren, Media and civic engagement: citizens, political communication, and democracy Cambridge 2008; Klaus B. Jensen (ed), A Handbook of Media and Communication Research, Routledge, 2002; Leah A Lievrow and Sonia Livingstone (eds.) The Handbook of New Media (updated edition), Sage, 2006; Robin Mansell, Chrisanthi Avgerou, Danny Quah and Roger Silverstone (eds.), Oxford Handbook of Information and Communication Technologies, Oxford, 2007; Roger Silverstone, Media and Morality: The Rise of the Mediapolis, Polity, 2006; John B Thompson, Media and Modernity, Polity, 1995.
Other reading will be given as appropriate during the course.

This course is based predominantly on student presentations on their work in progress. Students are expected to use MC500 seminars as a key resource towards their Upgrade document at the end of their 1st year of study and towards the submission of their formative assessment document at the end of their 2nd year of study.