Admission requirements
No special admission requirements. Similar to Admission requirements of the BA Art History.
Description
This course provides an introduction to different ways in which media is imagined, conceptualized, and theorized today. Different mediatic and artistic forms like literature, painting, photography, cinema, video-art, games, and the Internet, usher in new understandings of what media is, how it changes, and which vocabulary is used to analyze its operation in contemporary society.
In this course we will discuss the changing landscape of media, art, and theory through the overarching concepts of Infrastructure, Information, and Interface. The study of infrastructure describes the network through which information circulates, or is prevented from circulating. The study of information asks what happens when information, data, signal and noise become central metaphors for speaking about media. The study of interface wonders about the way in which information is accessed and becomes socially and culturally meaningful.
Considering these three concepts as central to our contemporary imagination of media, we ask how changes, continuities and convergences of media use, determine our understanding of culture, ethics, politics, and aesthetics.
Course objectives
Students become familiar with the major forms and technological underpinnings of media such as books, cinema, television, games and digital media.
Students become acquainted with and will be able to make use of the main introductory texts on the topic of the theory and function of media in society.
Students develop an understanding of what the main cross-media themes are in the study of media and acquire knowledge of how these themes can be contextualized.
Students learn to understand on a general level the social and cultural implications of the introduction and advance of (new) media.
Timetable
The timetables are available through My Timetable.
Mode of instruction
Lecture.
Assessment method
Assessment
- Final written exam with short open questions (100%)
Weighing
To pass the course, the final exam must be graded with a sufficient mark (rounded to 6.0, as no grades are awarded between 5.0 and 6.0 - see OER).
Resit
A resit can be done if the final exam is graded lower than 5.5.
Inspection and feedback
How and when an exam review will take place will be disclosed together with the publication of the exam results at the latest. If a student requests a review within 30 days after publication of the exam results, an exam review will have to be organized.
Reading list
The reading list will be made available through Brightspace.
Registration
Enrolment through MyStudyMap is mandatory.
General information about course and exam enrolment is available on the website.
Registration À la carte education, Contract teaching and Exchange
Information for those interested in taking this course in context of À la carte education (without taking examinations), eg. about costs, registration and conditions.
Information for those interested in taking this course in context of Contract teaching (with taking examinations), eg. about costs, registration and conditions.
For the registration of exchange students contact Humanities International Office.
Contact
For substantive questions, contact the lecturer listed in the right information bar.
For questions about enrolment, admission, etc, contact the Education Administration Office: Arsenaal
Remarks
This course has replaced the course Big Media (2023-2024).