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  3. Screen Media and Political Aesthetics

Screen Media and Political Aesthetics (SCRN40009)

HonoursPoints: 12.5Not available in 2025

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Overview

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We live in a world mediated by screen technologies, and our lives are marked by radical transitions and advances in media To what extent have they altered reality and our perception and experience of it? This subject analyses the nature of current screen media, including film, computer game, television, internet and mobile technologies and it explores their genealogies and material and environmental impact.

Following an interdisciplinary approach, this subject will study the history of various screen media, asking how they mediate human and non-human experience of the world. It will examine their relationship with their audiences and their links with science and commerce on the one hand and art, entertainment and illusion on the other. This subject will investigate the concepts of embodied technology and the technologised body in the context of public, private, technological and environmental mediation.

Intended learning outcomes

On completion of this subject, students should be able to:

  • Assess the impact that screen media have in defining and mediating our interaction with the world around us
  • Evaluate screen media such as television, film, the internet, and mobile media in their historical context
  • Examine the impact that screen media have had and may have on the social sphere
  • Investigate interpretative and theoretical models that have emerged in response to screen media and their histories
  • Discuss the following in relation to screen media: truth, beauty, public and private good, and the participation of technologies and ecologies in media aesthetics.

Generic skills

On completion of this subject, students should be able to:

  • Demonstrate a high level of written and oral communication skills, including conformity to academic protocols of presentation and research
  • Demonstrate a high level of competence in reading, synthesizing, and presenting to others the relevant historical and theoretical material
  • Present original research that includes reflection on their own learning.

 

Last updated: 4 March 2025