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In this course, we will focus on visual media (film, TV, music videos, visual art, digital media) to explore standard critical tools which can help us analyze how these produce the meanings that their viewers find pleasurable, interesting, convincing, repulsive, compelling, etc.
Our framework will be the ‘visual turn’, which since the late 20th century has signaled a shift in critical theories that sought to tackle a culture and media landscape that was becoming ever more visual: The omnipresence of visual images across a variety of media (from art to mass media to ‘new’ media) and the key position of visuality in increasingly global cultural settings suggests the importance of critical concepts that are rather specific to visual culture. We will therefore investigate critical work on the characteristics of specific types of visual media; on acts of ‘looking’ in and at the media; on social practices of looking; and on theories of spectators, gazers, observers, viewers, etc.
Against this theoretical background, the bulk of the coursework will consist of putting such concepts to practical use: Working on a topic of your choice in a team, you will be able to practice working with a specific set of critical tools, present an analysis of specific examples, and test your analyses in guided group discussions. Topics will include, for example:
- Visuality and ‘genre’ in film (e.g. road movies)
- Visuality vs. ‘narrative’ in film (e.g. classical vs. post-classical Hollywood films)
- Visual ‘language’ of film-making: framing, diegesis, shots, editing, etc.
- The (male?) ‘gaze’: From Hollywood film (e.g. Hitchcock) to casting shows (e.g. Germany’s Next Topmodel)
- Practices of looking: Similarities and differences across different media (film, advertising, digital visuality)
- Gazes and looks in the new media, esp. Web 2.0 / social media
Our emphasis will be on practicing practical analysis using appropriate and specific sets of tools, while raising awareness of and reflecting on how such tools and the respective analytical models are embedded in histories of visual culture and the academic, critical theoretical reflection thereof. At the end of the course, we will therefore discuss questions such as, what ‘happens to’ cultural practices when we look at them through the different lenses of these different approaches? What changes in our critical analysis and assessment, depending on the approach chosen? And equally important, in each case, what can we not say about the respective media image depending on our choice of approach, i.e. what is left out of the analysis, why, and which effects may this have?
Readings/materials: A selection of relevant essays and excerpts from books will be made available via Clix, and video samples will be provided online.
Course requirements: attendance, active participation, completion of reading assignments, group presentation, and an individual essay and/or test at the end of the course. |
