Intro to Game Studies (OART-UT 1606)

This class is an overview of the field of video games that approaches them from several theoretical and critical perspectives. No special theoretical background or prior training is needed to take the course, but to have had a broad practical experience with and basic knowledge of games is a distinct advantage. Also, an interest in theoretical and analytical issues will help. You are expected to actively participate in the lectures, which are dialogic in form, with ample room for discussion. The course will prepare the student to: – Understand and discuss games from a theoretical perspective – what are the components of a game? – Apply new theories and evaluate them critically. – Assess and discuss game concepts and the use of games in various contexts. – Analyze games, and understand and apply a range of analytical methods.

Open Arts Curriculum (Undergraduate)
4 credits – 15 Weeks

Sections (Fall 2022)


OART-UT 1606-000 (14537)09/01/2022 – 12/14/2022 Tue4:00 PM – 6:00 PM (Late afternoon)at Brooklyn CampusInstructed by Pratt, Charles


OART-UT 1606-000 (14534)09/01/2022 – 12/14/2022 Thu9:00 AM – 11:00 AM (Morning)at Brooklyn CampusInstructed by Pratt, Charles


OART-UT 1606-000 (14535)09/01/2022 – 12/14/2022 Fri2:00 PM – 3:00 PM (Early afternoon)at Brooklyn CampusInstructed by Pratt, Charles

Cell Phone Cinema (OART-UT 566)

Hollywood in your palm. That is what this combination of lectures, screenings, demonstrations and practical production workshop will offer to the students in this course. There will be several professional guests making presentations and Q&A sessions from the mobile phone filmmaking industry. In addition to the historical and critical overview of the emergence and exponential growth of global cell phone cinema, students will shoot all footage on cell phones and download them for computerized editing. The final project will be under three minute shorts. Projects will include all genres of film and television: news, mini-documentaries, animation, music videos and narrative shorts. Completed student projects will be suitable to be posted on the Internet and entered into domestic and international mobile phone film festivals. For example, two minute long improvisations of Bollywood Style Music Videos shot on Cell Phones by the students have been projected at the Tribeca Cinemas as part of the New York Indian Film Festival. It is suggested but not compulsory that students bring to the class a cell phone capable of recording video.

Undergraduate

Media Audiences (MCC-UE 9016)

An examination of the great debate concerning the effects of mass media and mass communication on our society. Analysis and application of major perspectives and approaches used in formulating modern theories of mass communication.

Media, Culture & Communication (Undergraduate)
4 credits – 14 Weeks

Sections (Fall 2025)


MCC-UE 9016-000 (10998)08/28/2025 – 12/04/2025 Wed6:00 PM – 9:00 PM (Evening)at NYU Los Angeles (Global)Instructed by Litvinsky, Marina

Introduction to Media Studies (MCC-UE 9001)

Credits: 4
Duration: 14 Weeks
Dates: Tue,Thu

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.

Media, Culture & Communication (Undergraduate)
4 credits – 14 Weeks

History of Media and Comm (MCC-UE 9003)

This course introduces students to key concepts in the history of media and communication, and to the stakes of historical inquiry. Rather than tracing a necessarily selective historical arc from alphabet to Internet or from cave painting to coding, the course is organized around an exploration of case studies in context. Liberal Arts Core/CORE Equivalent for Societies and the Social Sciences.

Media, Culture & Communication (Undergraduate)
4 credits – 14 Weeks

Media and the Environment (MCC-UE 9027)

This course will investigate the dominant critical perspectives that have contributed to the development of Environmental Communication as a field of study. This course explores the premise that the way we communicate powerfully impacts our perceptions of the “natural” world, and that these perceptions shape the way we define our relationships to and within nature. The goal of this course is to access various conceptual frameworks for addressing questions about the relationship between the environment, culture and communication. Students will explore topics such as nature/ wildlife tourism, consumerism, representations of the environment in popular culture and environmental activism.

Media, Culture & Communication (Undergraduate)
4 credits – 14 Weeks

Sections (Fall 2020)


MCC-UE 9027-000 (14132)08/31/2020 – 12/10/2020 Tue12:00 AM – 3:00 PM (Early afternoon)at NYU Sydney (Global)Instructed by

Television: History and Form (MCC-UE 9006)

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.

Media, Culture & Communication (Undergraduate)
4 credits – 14 Weeks

Sections (Fall 2025)


MCC-UE 9006-000 (10997)08/28/2025 – 12/04/2025 Wed3:00 PM – 6:00 PM (Late afternoon)at NYU Los Angeles (Global)Instructed by Connelly, Thomas

Critical Making (MCC-UE 1033)

Credits: 4
Duration: 15 Weeks
Dates: Wed

Critical making is hands-on hardware practice as a form of reflection and analysis that draws on the literature of media studies and digital humanities. We turn to the physicality of computation and communications infrastructure, taking objects apart both literally and figuratively to understand how they work. In the process we learn to interpret and intervene in the material layer of digital technologies, using prototyping, reverse engineering, hardware hacking and circuit bending, design fiction, electronics fabrication, and other approaches.

Media, Culture & Communication (Undergraduate)
4 credits – 15 Weeks

Journalism and Society: Leaks and Whistleblowers (MCC-UE 9111)

In 2010, WikiLeaks, in a partnership with some of the most important news publications, began releasing thousands of classified diplomatic cables sent between the U.S. State Department and consulates and embassies around the world. Three years later, Edward Snowden leaked top secret information about surveillance activities by the NSA. More recently, the Panama Papers became the biggest data leak in the history of journalism. These events signal the beginning of the big leak era, which this course will focus on. We will analyze the role of media concentration and technological innovation as twin driving forces in the inception of this big leak era over recent years. We will study the consequences of these changes at three different levels: (i) the legal consequences for whistleblowers; (ii) the resulting birth of global networks and partnerships that expose technical, cultural and economic limitations in the traditional media; and (iii) the geopolitical implications, as a breach in one government ́s security apparatus is a victory for that government ́s opponents. Finally, we will confront one larger question: whether the big leak era means that transparency will (could?) replace fairness as journalism ́s main paradigm. .

Media, Culture & Communication (Undergraduate)
4 credits – 14 Weeks

Sections (Fall 2025)


MCC-UE 9111-000 (10745)08/28/2025 – 12/03/2025 Tue,Thu2:00 PM – 3:00 PM (Early afternoon)at NYU Buenos Aires (Global)Instructed by ODonnell, Santiago

Tango and Mass Culture (MCC-UE 9121)

This course explores Tango as an aesthetic, social and cultural formation that is articulated in interesting and complex ways with the traditions of culture and politics in Argentina and Latin America more generally. During the rapid modernization of the 1920s and 1930s, Tango (like Brazilian Samba), which had been seen as a primitive and exotic dance, began to emerge as a kind of modern Field available for additional information in footer primitive art form that quickly came to occupy a central space in nationalist discourse. The course explores the way that perceptions of a primitive and a modern converge in this unique and exciting art. In addition, the course will consider tango as a global metaphor with deeply embedded connections to urban poverty, social marginalization, and masculine authority. .

Media, Culture & Communication (Undergraduate)
4 credits – 14 Weeks

Sections (Fall 2025)


MCC-UE 9121-000 (10756)08/28/2025 – 12/03/2025 Tue,Thu3:00 PM – 5:00 PM (Late afternoon)at NYU Buenos Aires (Global)Instructed by Dieleke, Edgardo

Introduction to Visual Culture (MCC-UE 1412)

Credits: 4
Duration: 15 Weeks
Dates: Tue,Thu

This course covers key issues, theories, and concepts in the field of visual culture, focusing on the social role of images and visuality (the power relations of looking, being seen and unseen). Topics include modern forms of visuality and visual technologies, concepts of spectacle, museums and image collections, image icons, taboo images, how images relate to memory, how images circulate through various social arenas such as art, advertising, popular culture, comic books, news, science, entertainment media, video games, theme parks, architecture, and design.

Media, Culture & Communication (Undergraduate)
4 credits – 15 Weeks

Media Events and Spectacles (MCC-UE 1065)

Credits: 4
Duration: 15 Weeks
Dates: Mon,Wed

This course examines the role played by media events & spectacle in the shaping of belief, attitudes, & actions, with particular attention paid to the concept of the masses & its changed meaning over time. The course examines concepts of mass culture, the decentralization of cultural forms, & the rise of convergence culture. It explores the history of the media event & the theories that have shaped it, & the role of spectacle in society from the Renaissance to modern society to the age of digital media.

Media, Culture & Communication (Undergraduate)
4 credits – 15 Weeks

Consumption, Culture and Identity (MCC-UE 1409)

Credits: 4
Duration: 15 Weeks
Dates: Mon,Wed

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.

Media, Culture & Communication (Undergraduate)
4 credits – 15 Weeks

Health Media and Communication (MCC-UE 1040)

The meanings of health & disease are shaped not only by scientific & Medical discourses, but by media, communication, & the cultures of health. This course examines the impact of media & health cultures on what counts as normal & pathological, how medical environments are understood & experienced, popular tactics for communicating & contesting biomedical information, public understandings of biotechnology, & how media representation & popular culture help to shape understandings of disease & health. readings, films (& other sources) will be drawn from a variety of genres, including epidemiology, public health, anthropology, history, communication studies, & medical memoir.

Media, Culture & Communication (Undergraduate)
4 credits – 15 Weeks

Sections (Fall 2020)


MCC-UE 1040-000 (14114)09/02/2020 – 12/13/2020 Mon,Wed9:00 AM – 10:00 AM (Morning)at Washington SquareInstructed by

Media and Culture of Money (MCC-UE 1404)

Credits: 4
Duration: 15 Weeks
Dates: Tue,Thu

Departing from the premise that money and finance are not simply a system but also a culture, this class considers how money, finance, and economics are shaped in part through media representations. We examine historical ways of thinking about money, the centrality of financial markets in 20th-21st century globalization, and the examination of financial systems in the wake of the 2008 financial meltdown. Students explore the role of money media in shaping attitudes toward consumerism, financial decisions, and finance systems.

Media, Culture & Communication (Undergraduate)
4 credits – 15 Weeks

Global Media Seminar: Latin America (MCC-UE 9455)

Credits: 4
Duration: 14 Weeks
Dates: Mon,Wed

The course acquaints students with Latin American theories, practices, and representations of the media. Departing from a critical approach to Habermas’s theory of the public sphere, the course traces the arc of the media in Latin America from independence to the post-neoliberal era and the so-called “Media Wars.” Students engage in current incendiary debates about the role of the media, the new media law, and the complex relationship between the media, politics and the state.

Media, Culture & Communication (Undergraduate)
4 credits – 14 Weeks

Media and the Environment (MCC-UE 1027)

Credits: 4
Duration: 15 Weeks
Dates: Tue,Thu

The course investigates dominant critical perspectives within the field of Environmental Communication, the premise of which is that the way we communicate powerfully impacts our perceptions of the “natural” world, and that these perceptions shape the way we define our relationships to nature. We access various conceptual frameworks for addressing questions of environment, culture, and communication. Students explore topics such as nature/wildlife tourism, consumerism, representations of the environment in popular culture, and environmental activism.

Media, Culture & Communication (Undergraduate)
4 credits – 15 Weeks

Media and Music (MCC-UE 1037)

Credits: 4
Duration: 15 Weeks
Dates: Wed

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.

Media, Culture & Communication (Undergraduate)
4 credits – 15 Weeks

Global Media Seminar: Media Activism and Democracy (MCC-UE 9452)

Credits: 4
Duration: 14 Weeks
Dates: Tue

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.

Media, Culture & Communication (Undergraduate)
4 credits – 14 Weeks

Global Media Seminar: East-Central Europe (MCC-UE 9453)

Credits: 4
Duration: 14 Weeks
Dates: Mon

The course addresses issues and perspectives in global communication, a rapidly evolving field. Students critically assess shifts in national, regional, and international media patterns of production, distribution, and consumption over time, and critically analyze the tumultuous contemporary global communication environment. Topics include national and global media consolidation, cultural implications of globalization, international broadcasting, information flows, law and regulation, and emerging technologies. The focus of the course is international.

Media, Culture & Communication (Undergraduate)
4 credits – 14 Weeks