week 1 intro

1. media
studies 1
#MAC201
robert.jewitt@sunderland.ac.uk

2. MODULE OVERVIEW
Module leader: Rob Jewitt
• robert.jewitt@sunderland.ac.uk
• @rob_jewitt
• 0191 515 3431
• MC205
• Office hour: Wednesday 3pm
• MAC201 assessment surgeries: Weeks 7 and 13 of term

3. CONTENT SYNOPSIS
Mainstream media act as the dominant means by which the
general public encounter and makes sense of the wider
social world.

4. CONTENT SYNOPSIS
International, national, regional and local media serve a
variety of different and often competing, interests as news
organisations and publishers disseminate messages across
a range of platforms in a bid for the public’s attention.

5. CONTENT SYNOPSIS
The module will consider factual output encompassing news,
current affairs, investigative reporting, documentaries and
discussion shows. It will also examine the interplay between
the media, its audiences and wider society.

6. CONTENT SYNOPSIS
A holistic approach to tackling the practices and policies that
inform the production and consumption of factual media
output will be central to this module.
The roles played by media institutions, from the press and
broadcasters through to media regulators, will be explored in
order to examine the relationship between the public, politics
and society.

7. 2 x lectures per week
1 x seminar per week
1 x weekly drop-in tutorial (my office hour: weds. 3pm)

8. NOTE-TAKING

9. WEEKLY SCHEDULE
Week 1: Critical pedagogy
1 - Module overview and assessment preparation
2 – News values, news frames and shifting debates
Week 2: News, governance and regulation
1 – Issues of objectivity, impartiality and balance
2 – Regulation vs self-regulation
Week 3: Debates and public opinion
1 – The public sphere, public opinion and plurality
2 – Constructing the public: platforms for public participation
Week 4: Online news and ‘engagement’
1 – ‘Comment is free’: public opinion and ‘below the line’ feedback
2 – Journalism ethics and the reactionary response #gamergate

10. WEEKLY SCHEDULE
Week 5: Factual output and personalization
1 – Representing the public: the celebrity journalist
2 – Are we being served? Dumbing down, infotainment and social media.
Week 6: Global media events
1 –Wikileaks: the age of transparency?
2 – Social media revolutions: the arab spring
Week 7: Critical media discourses
1 - The persistent case of ‘media effects’ research
2 - Querying contemporary moral panics and media panics
Week 8: Assessment 1: due Wednesday
1 - Querying media effects: discourses of blame (high school killings) [TBC]
2 - Critical approaches to documentary and investigative journalism

11. WEEKLY SCHEDULE
Week 9: Documenting facts?
1 – Representing race, religion and immigration across factual media
2 – Are You for Real? The politics of reality TV and infotainment
Week 10: Populist media
1 – When Will I be Famous? Cultures of Celebrity in reality TV
2 – Reality TV and the ideologies of capitalism: neoliberalism and The
Apprentice
Week 11: Entertainment or exploitation?
1 – The class-based politics of reality TV: reality or fiction in Benefits Street?
2 – ‘Poverty porn’, duty of care and media responsibility
Week 12: Gender, ideology and representation
1 – Lifestyle TV and social surveillance of classed and gendered bodies
2 – Because I’m worth it: making over masculinity

12. RECOMMENDED
BOOKS
• Allan, S. (2010) News Culture 3rd Edition, Buckingham: Open
University Press
• Albertazzi, D. and Cobley, P. eds (2009) The Media: An
Introduction 3rd Edition, Harlow, Pearson Education Limited.
• Burton, G (2004) Media & Society: Critical Perspectives,
Maidenhead: Open University Press
• Cushion, S (2012) Television Journalism, London: Sage
• Hodkinson, P (2011) Media, Culture and Society: an
introduction, London: Sage
• Lunt, P., & Livingstone, S. (2012) Media Regulation, London:
Sage
• McNair, B. (2009) News and Journalism in the UK 5th Edition,
London: Routledge

13. RECOMMENDED
JOURNALS
• Media, Culture & Society
• Journal of Media Practice
• Journalism Studies
• Journalism Practice
• Digital Journalism
• European Journal of Cultural Studies

14. RECOMMENDED
LISTENING

15. ASSESSMENT 1 – SUBMIT
ONLINE TIME CONSTRAINED
TEST
Deadline: Wednesday 22nd March
Venue: Sunspace
In week 8 of term students will be expected to complete an
online time-constrained test. This test will be worth 40% of
the total module grade. It aims to assess student knowledge
and comprehension of the material covered on the module to
date.

16. ASSESSMENT 1 – TIME
CONSTRAINED TEST
The format of the test will be as follows:
• Should take no more than 2 hours to complete the test paper
• students must answer 3 from a maximum of 10 questions
• the test will be a ‘seen’ paper
• the questions will be provided to students 1 week in advance of the test
• the questions will be published in Sunspace and an email will be issued
to all students registered on the module.
• students will be able to prepare responses offline and submit them
online
• responses should take the guise of extended answers (ie approx. 500
words in length)
• each question will be equally weighted (ie worth 33.3% of this
assessment grade)
• the grade will be calculated as an average of the individual response
grades

17. ASSESSMENT 1 – ONLINE
TIME CONSTRAINED TEST
Any students with SpLD should contact the module leader
directly and in private so that appropriate arrangements can
be made. Do this ASAP!
Students will need to ensure they have access to Sunspace
for the duration of the test. If this is not possible, contact the
module leader ASAP!

18. ASSESSMENT 2 -
ANALYSING FACTUAL
TEXTS
Wednesday 17th May 2017 by 3pm (physical and digital submission)
This assignment requires students to assess and critically analyse one
or two of the key issues, concepts, keywords or themes raised across
the module in some detail. The assignment must address the above by
paying specific reference to examples drawn from one of the following
formats listed below. Students must apply a concept to a textual
example:
- Broadcast news (eg The Channel 4 News, PM)
- Political discussion shows (eg Question Time, Any Questions)
- Current affairs (eg Newsnight, Today)
- The talk show (eg The Jeremy Kyle Show)
- Documentary (eg Dispatches, The Report)
- Reality television (eg The X-Factor)
- Lifestyle television (eg How to Look Good Naked)

19. NEXT…
Thursday 11am PR009 – News values lecture
Seminars will proceed as standard
Students could read:
Harcup, T. & O’Neill, D., 2001, ‘What is news? Galtung and
Ruge revisited’, in Journalism Studies 2: 261-280.
Link in module guide and on Sunspace under week 1
resources