FILM 46.09 Critical Approaches to Media Production
The course analyzes and discusses various production practices in U.S. media industries. Through readings, audiovisual materials, and guest speakers from a wide array of media positions, we will explore various phases of media production in film, television, live events, journalism, and more. In particular, we will focus on dynamics involving race, gender, and sexuality in the labor of media production, as well as in the media products themselves. Overall, the course considers the ways in which media production and representations simultaneously reflect and reinforce social stratification and inequalities. Students should emerge from this course with a strong understanding of hierarchies of labor in media production, a practical sense of everyday practices in a diverse array of media production fields, as well as a firm understanding of the media’s effects on and interaction with identity politics. This course is intended to provide a 360- degree (over)view of media production.