Documenting Reality: Film, TV, And Digital Media

Semester and Year	FA 2010
Course Number	ELEC-GG2645
Section	001
Instructor	Julian Cornell
Days	Thu
Time	6:20 PM - 9:00 PM
Units	4.0
Level	G
Foundation Requirement

Description

Although documentaries remain a marginal genre, reality has become an increasingly vital part of modern media culture. This course explores how the likes of reality TV, blogging, internet news coverage, gossip and memoirs reorient traditional forms of realism, constructing new relationships between texts, forms, audiences and the real. We will explore realism as a modern construct and interrogate theories of realism in the context of the reality new media presents, examining the value of the real today and its relationship to new forms of screen culture. Although reality has become a devalued term, often linked to escapism, we will explore its potential use for modern politics and political action, whether viral campaigns or the breaking news covered on Twitter or the more “serious” issues raised in some reality television shows.

Course Type

Graduate Electives (ELEC-GG)