Introduces students to the study of media, culture, and communication. The course surveys models, theories, and analytical perspectives that form the basis of study in the major. Topics include dialogue, discourse, mass and interpersonal communication, political economy, language, subject-formation, critical theory, experience, and reception. Liberal Arts Core/CORE Equivalent for Societies and the Social Sciences.
This course offers students a foundational understanding of the technological building blocks that make up digital media & culture, & of the ways they come together to shape myriad facets of life. Students will acquire a working knowledge of the key concepts behind coding, & survey the contours of digital media architecture, familiarizing themselves with algorithms, databases, hardware, & similar key components. These technological frameworks will be examined as the basic grammar of digital media & related to theories of identity, privacy, policy, & other pertinent themes.
This course offers students the opportunity to engage with theories of communication & culture through the context of consumption & contemporary consumer society. Our focus will be on the role of commodities & consumer practices in everyday life & in culture at large. We will give particular attention to consumption’s role in the construction of social & cultural identities. Students will consider critical responses to consumer culture, including the resistance & refusal of consumption as well as the attempted mobilization of consumption toward social change.
This course examines the culture of money& finance, and the role of the media & popular culture in making sense of economics. It engages with the ways that money, finance, & economics are shaped in part through media representations, that finance is not simply a system but also a culture, & that capitalism shapes world views. The course examines the history of ways of thinking about money, the centrality of financial markets in 20th-21st century globalization, & the examination of financial systems in the wake of the 2008 financial meltdown. Students will explore the role of money media in shaping attitudes toward consumerism, financial decisions, & finance systems.
This course investigates the mediation of music & music-like sounds in both private & public life. Commercial venues, from restaurants to rest rooms, pipe Muzakl into its spaces; radios broadcast more music than any other content today; soundtracks imprint the texture of signifying associations for television shows & films; we carry personal playlists on mobile music players; & musical media & technological, ideological & metaphysical dimension; as well as the relation of music to mass media (radio, television, the internet) & the film and music industries.
The course on “Media, Activism & Democracy” aims at, first, introducing students to the complex and fascinating topic of civil society activism; second, at illustrating them the linkages between activism and media; third, at showing them the impact of civil society’s advocacy on contemporary political systems. In a nutshell, the course aims at providing students with a closer understanding of the civil society activism-media-politics conundrums at the national and global levels.
A veritable buzzword globalization refers to several newly emerged trends. To name the three most visible ones these are the economy, culture and politics. Media do not only describe and interpret globalization but also are its important part. A study of globalization is inherently diverse and eclectic. So is this course. Students will read, watch, analyze and discuss. In class discussions and writings they are expected to engage questions connected to globalization, culture and the media. Through a series of lectures and discussions the course explores how the process of globalization transforms the media and examines the impact of new technologies on global communications. Emphasizing the transnational context of media and culture the course approaches global media and cultural production from a wide range of theoretical frameworks relevant to contemporary condition.
This course examines the emergence of the Internet as a commercial business. It pays particular attention to the various business models and practices employed in media-related enterprises, tracing their development from the late 1990s to the most recent strategies and trends. Case studies include the Internet Service Providers (ISPs), portals, search engines, early game platforms, the Internet presence of traditional media organizations, social network platforms.
This course is an analysis of changing trends in marketing ranging from corporate social responsibility to guerrilla and viral marketing. Discussion of theoretical concepts are applied through fieldwork and project-based learning. Guest lectures on emerging topics are featured.
This course examines fashion as a form of communication and culture. Through cultural and media studies theory, we will examine how fashion makes meaning, and how it has been valued through history, popular culture and media institutions, focusing on the relationship between fashion, visual self-presentation, and power. The course will situate fashion both n terms of its production and consumption, addressing its role in relation to identity and body politics (gender, race, sexuality, class), art and status, nationhood and the global economy, celebrity and Hollywood culture, youth cultures and subversive practices.
America’s founding principles of equality and equal opportunity have long been the subject of interpretation, debate, national angst, and widespread (oftentimes violent) conflict. No more is this the case than when we talk about the issue of race. While biological notions of race have lost their scientific validity, race remains a salient issue in American life as a social and political reality sustained through a wide variety of media forms. The broad purpose of this course is to better understand how notions of race have been defined and shaped in and through these mediated forms. Specific attention may be given o the ways that race is articulated in forms of mass media and popular culture.
An overview of the history and cultures of print. Examines typography communication and the persuasive power of print. Topics include print ’revolution’ in early modern Europe, printedness and the public sphere, as well as contemporary relationships between print and digital media. How are digital media making it possible to see new things about print? What can e-books tell us about books?
This course examines theories, technologies, and practices of listening in the modern world. How has our experience of sound changed as we move from the piano to the personal computer, from the phonoautograph to the mp3? How have political, commercial, and cultural forces shaped what we are able to listen to, and how we listen to it? Finally, how have performers, physiologists, and philosophers worked to understand this radical transformation of the senses?
This course examines the proposition that contemporary war should be understood as media. Was has become mediatized and media has been militarized. This course treats war and political violence as communicative acts and technologies and focuses on how they shape our understanding and experience of landscape, vision, body, time and memory.
Explores the various political and philosophical debates within western Marxism. Pays particular attention to the influence of the cultural turn in twentieth century Marxist thought on feminism, postcolonialism, and theories of mediation. Themes include: the commodity, alienation and reification, surplus value, culture, ideology, hegemony and subjectivity.
An inquiry into the ways that technology — mechanical, electronic, analog, and digital — shapes and is shaped by cultural, political, and social values. Students become acquainted with key concepts and approaches to understanding the interplay of technology and society (e.g. technological determinism, social construction of technology, actor networks, affordances) and how these have been applied to such cases as the clock, the automobile, the assembly line, household technology, the telephone, and more recent communication technology.
This course will examine the relationship between mediated forms of communications the formation of identities, both individual and social. Attention will be paid to the way mediated forms of communication represent different social and cultural groupings, with a particular emphasis on gender, race, ethnicity, class and nationality.
This course examines the broad range of activities associated with the globalization of media production, distribution, and reception. Issues include: the relationship between local and national identities and the emergence of a ’global culture’ and the impact of technological innovations on the media themselves and their use and reception in a variety of settings.
The course approaches video games through the lens of political economy. This means examining games foremost as commodities, transactional goods through which various modes of economic life occur. This course is designed to introduce students to the structure and economics of the game industry since its emergence in the 1970s, particularly across the United States, China, and Japan. Special attention is brought to the dramatic industry changes catalyzed by digital distribution, mobile gaming, live streaming, and other contemporary developments.
An exploration of film as a medium of information, conveyor and creator of culture and a form of aesthetic expression. Course examines the historical development of film as both a cultural product and industry.
An exploration of television as a medium of information, conveyor and creator of culture and a form of aesthetic expression. Course examines the historical development of television as both a cultural product and industry.
A site for IMA NY Students to find equivalent courses outside of IMA NY
For most students joining IMA in Fall 2022 and beyond, there is a new program structure that affects the categorization of courses on this site:
Any class in any IMA major elective category (ie "Art & Design") refers to the IMA program structure previous to those entering in Fall 2022. If you are in the class of 2026 (most entering Fall 2022 or later), any course in an IMA elective category are generic IMA electives in the new structure.