28390 - Media Semiotics (1) (2nd cycle)

Academic Year 2018/2019

  • Teaching Mode: Traditional lectures
  • Campus: Bologna
  • Corso: Second cycle degree programme (LM) in Semiotics (cod. 8886)

Learning outcomes

At the end of the module, students will have the expertise and will have learned the semiotic tools to analyze the mass media products.

Course contents

 

The course will start with an introduction to a semiotic gaze on media as cultural phenomena, followed by a description of the main elements of what we could call a contemporary media textuality, characterized by increasing, yet ambivalent, process of media convergence, integration and transformation of media contents and forms. Particular attention will be given to the semiotic mechanisms able to generate links and connections between media objects and environments (games and videogames, TV series, fandom), and to activate a semiotic contagion that expresses itself through narrative, discursive and interactive dimensions.

By concentrating of concrete examples of analysis of audiovisual media texts and practices, different semiotic tools and concepts will be discussed and tested (from the specific dimensions of media textuality to the notions of media genre and format), with the aim at developing a semiotic gaze on both media-specific elements (the construction of the visible, of the audible, of rythms and languages’ syncrhetisms), and the relation between media textuality and experience. Furthermore, the course will focus on the ways in which contemporary media texts and genres construct gender identities and their intersectionality with race, color, class, age, disabilities, etc.

Readings/Bibliography

Eugeni R. (2010), Semiotica dei media. Le forme dell'esperienza mediale, Roma, Carocci (chapters 1-10).

Eugeni, R. (2015), La condizione postmediale. Media, linguaggi e narrazioni, Milano, Editrice La Scuola.

Peverini, P. (2012), I media: strumenti di analisi semiotica, Roma, Carocci.

Scaglioni M., Sfardini A. (2008), Multi Tv. L'esperienza televisiva nell'età contemporanea, Roma, Carocci, (pp. 17-49).

Further recommended readings

Innocenti V., Pescatore G. (2008), Le nuove forme della serialità televisiva, Bologna, Archetipo.

Jenkins H. (2007), Cultura convergente. Dove i vecchi e nuovi media collidono, Milano, Apogeo.

Turner G., Tay J. (eds.) (2009), Television Studies after Tv. Understanding Television in the Post-Broadcasting Era, London, Routledge.

A detailed schedule of each lecture and their recommended readings will be handed out at the beginning of the course.

Teaching methods

 

Alongside traditional lectures given by the teacher, mainly aimed at introducing research questions and methodologies, the course envisages an active participation of every student. After the first introductory week, students will be asked to prepare class presentations that will be based either on theoretical/methodological questions (see the recommended readings), or on the application of different semiotic tools to specific case-studies.

Lectures will be thus accopanied by the collective discussion of actual on-going works and reflections presented by the students.

Assessment methods

A written paper on one of the topic (forms of textuality and media practices, format and genres relating to gender and intersectional identities) discussed in class will have to be handed in at least 7 days before the exam.

The paper can be written individually (maximum of 27000 characters) or in a group of maximum 4 people (the light of the paper, in this case, depending on the number of people involved).

The paper will be discussed in a colloquium aimed at understanding the students' capacity to deal both with the questions posed, and the tools provided, by a semiotic gaze on the media.

All papers and will be valued by taking into account the student’s capacity to use the references provided in order to produce an accurate and critical analysis of contemporary media languages. An organic and critical view of the topics discussed during the course, along with an appropriate use of the analytical tools and the, will be valued with the highest marks. Syntactic mistakes, inappropriate use not only of the terminolgy, but of the vary basic Italian syntax, will be valued negativley (this does not apply, of course, to Erasmus students).

Teaching tools

 

Classes will be taught with the help of the multimedia tools (computer, projector, media player) available in all the teaching rooms of the Department, in order to facilitate the collective view of different material that will be helpful to the overall teaching and comprehension of the course.

Office hours

See the website of Cristina Demaria