DC+CMI

The course is an overview of basic theories that fall into the field of critical media theory, with an emphasis on the analysis of media as cultural texts, as technologies with political and social implications, and as everyday practices. The main theoretical approaches considered include references to important scholars of media theories, such as the Frankfurt School (Benjamin, Adorno), the Canadian School (McLuhan), Postmodernism (Baudrillard, Virilio, Guattari), and Material-Technological (Flusser, Kittler). The course deals with discussions about mass culture and the political economy of the media, with references to Marxist and neo-Marxist approaches, to concepts of ideology and hegemony, to semiotics and to psychoanalysis. Finally, emphasis is placed on the formation of modernity as the absolute age of the Media in the fields of politics, history, art and, above all, on the formation of collective and subjective life forms. Students will develop their knowledge of theoretical approaches, with an emphasis on a critical review of the literature and the formulation of research questions.

Syllabus