MEVIT4703 – Screen Politics
Course content
In Screen Politics we will focus on the political dimensions of our relationships and interactions with screens. Screen relations are often intimate and private and appear to be far removed from broader social and political concerns. However, as we will learn, it is in the very intimacy afforded by our screens that they unfold their political powers. Screens both provide and prohibit access to our global realities and affect all aspects of everyday life. They do so by making these provisions and prohibitions seem natural, making that which becomes afforded real and that which drops from sight non-existent. They shape our behaviours and set frames for our expectations.
Television series such as Netflix’s Bodyguard (2018), for example, address us as people for whom an omnipresent danger of terrorism has become the norm. As another example, even a mundane gesture, such as Tinder’s ‘swipe’, which turns dating into an efficiently binary selection process, has political implications in the way that it teaches us something about how to ‘deal with’ other people.
The course will shed light on, and delve increasingly deeper into, processes such as the above. It will do so in three consecutive, interrelated steps, presenting and discussing:
- Theories of subjectivity, society and the political (and how these are interwoven).?
- The politics of screens (i.e. how our screens and the ways in which they are given to us as nodes, platforms and interfaces grant, or bar us from accessing services and enacting rights and responsibilities).?
- The politics on screens (i.e. the politics of representation and participation in the news and other genres).
Learning outcome
Knowledge:
Screen Politics students will acquire a holistic understanding of:
- Theories of subjectivity and the self, as well as their political dimensions.
- Theories of and approaches to screen media and their political implications.
- Theories of politics and political communication from a humanities perspective and how they intertwine with the above.
Skills:
Screen Politics students will learn:
- How to meaningfully apply the above theories in one’s assessments of sociocultural and political landscapes and figurations.
- How to independently analyse and interpret media texts, cultural artefacts pertaining to the political dimensions of screens and the individual as well as institutional practices and the cultures surrounding them.
General Competence:
An overall aim of the course is to help equip students with:
- A critical awareness and a keen eye for the often subtle political and ideological dimensions of our everyday lives ‘in media.’
- A vocabulary and terminological apparatus with which to ‘put one’s finger on,’ identify and articulate these political influences so that others, too, can learn to see and understand them.
- A degree of self-confidence as a cultural analyst, based on training, experience and self-reflection, with which to respond to the political dilemmas of our screen-based lives, in one’s private as well as professional spheres.
Admission to the course
Students who are admitted to study programmes at UiO must each semester register which courses and exams they wish to sign up for in Studentweb.
The course is available to students admitted to Screen Cultures (master). Students enrolled in other Master`s Degree Programmes can, on application, be admitted to the course if this is cleared by their own study programme.
If you are not already enrolled as a student at UiO, please see our information about admission requirements and procedures.
Teaching
Coursework will consist of lectures conjoined with seminar discussions. We will run 9 three-hour meetings. Each meeting will consist of lecture parts intermixed with seminar discussions and group work. It is hoped that the longer sessions will create familiarity amongst students and between students and course convener so that we all can have active and lively exchanges and a cooperative, in-depth work process.
The lecture parts will highlight important principles, arguments, and other relevant aspects of the curriculum; the accompanying seminar parts will focus on discussions and additional perspectives on the texts, in part as developed and presented by the students themselves.
Students are expected to read and make notes during and between sessions on the curriculum and other relevant texts. Such notes will then be useful resources for both in-class discussion and presentations, as well as for the term paper (see below: Examination).
Obligatory qualifying assignment:
- Obligatory attendance - 6 out of 9 sessions
- An obligatory qualifying assignment: Students are required to give an in-class presentation (ca. 15 mins) of one of the texts on the curriculum and relate it to their own screen cultural interests. This presentation will be scheduled at the beginning of the course.?
The compulsory assignment will be assessed as approved/not approved. Approval of the assignment and attendance is a prerequisite for being allowed to sit for the examination.??
If you get ill or have other valid reasons for not attending or being able to meet the deadline of the compulsory activity, you must apply for valid absence or postponed deadline.???
Examination
The exam consists of a term paper of 10 pages. The obligatory qualifying assignments must be passed in order to submit the term paper.
A term paper or equivalent that is passed may not be resubmitted in revised form.
If you?withdraw from the exam?after the deadline, this will be counted as an examination attempt.
Language of examination
You may submit your response in English or Norwegian.
Grading scale
Grades are awarded on a scale from A to F, where A is the best grade and F is a fail. Read more about the grading system.
More about examinations at UiO
- Use of sources and citations
- How to use AI as a student
- Special exam arrangements due to individual needs
- Withdrawal from an exam
- Illness at exams / postponed exams
- Explanation of grades and appeals
- Resitting an exam
- Cheating/attempted cheating
You will find further guides and resources at the web page on examinations at UiO.