Undergraduate Course: Researching with Media (GEGR10134)
Course Outline
| School | School of Geosciences |
College | College of Science and Engineering |
| Credit level (Normal year taken) | SCQF Level 10 (Year 4 Undergraduate) |
Availability | Not available to visiting students |
| SCQF Credits | 20 |
ECTS Credits | 10 |
| Summary | This course is designed to provide you with a deeper understanding and acquisition of skills in analysing and working with media. You will be introduced to conjunctural analysis, an approach that brings together Gramscian and Foucauldian insights that in combination are useful for understanding and analyzing the crises that are at work in a given society at a given historical moment or conjuncture. Conjunctural analysis involves exploring the prevailing common sense and thinking about the forms of hegemonic or counterhegemonic struggle at work that sustain or undermine this common sense through processes of articulation, dis-articulation or re-articulation. This approach requires sophisticated geographical thinking, and you are encouraged you to pay close attention to the geographies at play. We understand the media to be an uneven and contested site in which ongoing struggles over meaning can be grasped. We will focus on a range of convergent media genres and platforms, including TV drama, social media, and Indigenous media, in which dominant, popular and alternative knowledges circulate and through which people seek to make sense of the current cultural or political settlements. We will also explore the ways in which these different genres and platforms converge and interact, a phenomenon we might refer to as transmediation. |
| Course description |
Course Organiser: Prof Julie Cupples
Lecturers: Prof Julie Cupples
Office Location: 3.08a
Office Hours: Wednesday (10:00am - 11:30am) in weeks 6-9 only.
Course Structure:
Each week we will have a 2-hour lecture which is followed by a 2-hour group-work practical. The lectures will provide you with insights into how to deploy the form of analysis covered in the course with examples and there will be time for discussion and student participation. In the lectures, we will think about the collection of research materials, analysis, theoretical orientation and ethics. The lab time will involve group work when you work with others on the analysis and interpretation of your own media texts.
General Aims:
1. To provide an introduction to doing cultural research with different forms of contemporary online and broadcast media.
2. To gain a deeper understanding of an important theoretical, analytical, and methodological approach useful for media research.
3. To become aware of the ethical issues that arise when working with media.
4. To develop an awareness of the relationships between categories, representations, discourses, interaction and cultural politics.
5. To acquire the ability to deploy conjunctural analysis in the exploration of contemporary media phenomena.
|
Course Delivery Information
|
| Academic year 2025/26, Not available to visiting students (SS1)
|
Quota: 40 |
| Course Start |
Semester 1 |
Timetable |
Timetable |
| Learning and Teaching activities (Further Info) |
Total Hours:
200
(
Lecture Hours 8,
Supervised Practical/Workshop/Studio Hours 14,
Programme Level Learning and Teaching Hours 4,
Directed Learning and Independent Learning Hours
174 )
|
| Assessment (Further Info) |
Written Exam
0 %,
Coursework
100 %,
Practical Exam
0 %
|
| Additional Information (Assessment) |
Media Analysis (100%):
The assessment is a 4000-word media analysis.
Use of AI Tools is Not Permitted:
Academic integrity is a core principle of research and academic practice. All submitted work must be your own. AI tools (e.g., ELM) must not be used for this assessment. Unauthorised use of AI may constitute academic misconduct.
Coursework Extensions:
Extensions are permitted for this assessment. Please review the guidance on the Registry Services website and apply via MyEd.
Extra Time Learning Adjustments:
Students with Extra Time Learning Adjustments may request additional time for this assessment. Applications should be made using the Extra Time Learning Adjustment (ETA) tool, available via the Disability Support page in MyEd.
Pass Requirements:
Students must attain an overall mark of 40% (or above) in order to pass the course. |
| Feedback |
Formative verbal feedback will be given during weekly practical classes. Verbal feedback will be given for the group presentations in Week 5. Students can also receive formative written feedback on a 20% sample of their final analysis for the course, submitted during Week 5. |
| No Exam Information |
Learning Outcomes
On completion of this course, the student will be able to:
- Demonstrate a detailed, integrated understanding of the theoretical, practical and ethical issues of media research.
- Gain an understanding of conjunctural analysis and its value for analysing the role of the media in the contemporary world.
- Critically consider the relevance of conjunctural analysis techniques for different sets of research questions, problems and contexts.
- Gain an awareness of the workings of sectors of the current media environment and of critical theories used to study the relationships between media and culture.
- Understand and have strategies for working with media texts and materials that can be used effectively in essays, dissertations, reports and presentations.
|
Reading List
Course Textbook:
Glynn K and Cupples J (2025) Transmedia Geographies: Decoloniality, Democratization, Cultural Citizenship, and Media Convergence. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press.
Other Useful Texts:
Adams P, Cupples J, Glynn K, Jansson A and Moores S (2017) Communications/Media/Geographies. London: Routledge
Arroyo J (2023) Caribes 2.0: New Media, Globalization, and the Afterlives of Disaster. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press.
Birchall C (2006) Knowledge Goes Pop: From Conspiracy Theory to Gossip. Oxford: Berg.
Couldry N, Hepp A and Krotz F (eds) (2010) Media Events in a Global Age. London: Routledge.
Durham GD and Kellner D (eds) (2001) Media & Cultural Studies: Keyworks. Malden: Wiley Blackwell.
Fiske J (1996) Media Matters: Race and Gender in US Politics. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Gerbaudo P (2012) Tweets and the Streets. London: Pluto Press.
Hokowhitu B and Devadas V (eds) (2013) The Fourth Eye: Maori Media in Aotearoa New Zealand. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Jenkins H (2008) Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide. New York: New York University Press
Stokes J (2013) How to do Media and Cultural Studies. 2nd ed. London: Sage.
Takacs S (2012) Terrorism TV: Popular Entertainment in Post-9/11 America. Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas.
A detailed reading list is provided in the course syllabus.
|
Additional Information
| Graduate Attributes and Skills |
1. Understand the contemporary media environment and analyse the ways in which media texts, audiences, industries and platforms interact.
2. Develop and present a sophisticated media analysis.
3. Effectively search, locate and analyse pertinent media texts.
4. Analyse the perspectives, experiences, discourses and forms of knowledge and power that are present in media spaces.
|
| Special Arrangements |
This course is only available to 4th year students on the Geography (MA Hons) Degree Programme. |
| Keywords | Conjunctural Analysis,Conversation Analysis |
Contacts
| Course organiser | Prof Julie Cupples
Tel: (0131 6)51 4315
Email: Julie.Cupples@ed.ac.uk |
Course secretary | Miss Leigh Corstorphine
Tel: (0131 6)50 9847
Email: lcorstor@ed.ac.uk |
|
|
University Homepage