Level: 100 level. Read more information on levels in our FAQs

Fees:  Please see Fees and payments

Lectures: 36 hours 

Classes: 18 hours

Assessment*: One examination and one essay

Typical credit**: 3-4 credits (US) 7.5 ECTS points (EU)

*Assessment is optional

**You will need to check with your home institution

For more information on exams and credit, read Teaching and assessment

None.

The course is organised into two thematic units.

1. An accessible introduction to key issues and tensions among prominent strands of communication research, focusing on media institutions, texts and audiences and texts in context. As well as introducing students to interesting theoretical and research perspectives, this section of the course will encourage an examination of the intersection of the themes of media, globalisation and citizenship. For instance, we will look at how media – such as films, advertisements and websites – represent issues such as poverty, migration, gender and nationalism. We will also ask questions about the ways in which different audiences respond to these representations.

2. A more focused examination of the ways in which organisations, civic groups, politicians and individuals based in cities or ‘imagined communities’ across the globe, utilise and participate in media to negotiate access to power and identity. We examine prominent elements of urban culture, such as technological, music and game cultures, which shape and mediate processes of identity formation at urban, national and transnational levels, while at the same time examining the use of old and new media in political campaigns.

Students will explore the role of media and communications in relation to identity, citizenship, culture and conflict.

LSE’s Department of Media and Communications is a world-leading centre for education and research in communication and media studies at the heart of LSE’s academic community in central London. The Department is ranked first in the UK and third globally in its field in the 2018 QS World University Rankings.

The Department of Media and Communications at LSE conducts critical, empirical and engaged research into the central role of media and communications within contemporary society. Its research has been ranked first in the most recent UK research evaluation, with 91% of research outputs ranked world-leading or internationally excellent.

On this three-week intensive programme, you will engage with and learn from full-time lecturers from the LSE’s media and communications faculty.

The course has no set text. Course materials will be distributed in the first lecture. For background reading, try: Banaji, S. and Buckingham, D. 2013. The Civic Web: Young People, the Internet and Civic Participation. London and New York: MIT Press.

*A more detailed reading list will be supplied prior to the start of the programme

**Course content, faculty and dates may be subject to change without prior notice