In this course television is treated as a medium that produces images of reality, representations of society as well of the "others", and transmits social norms and values. Studies of TV-texts give means of understanding shifts of cultural identity and trends in collective consciousness in Russia of the 2000s. Television remains important in the system of Russian social and cultural communication. In spite of growth of the Internet users' segment, television is still the most widespread and accessible medium. As a technology and a medium it defines modes of thinking and feeling, proposes ways of communicating on various levels. The culture of new media in Russia is being formed on a base of watching, understanding and criticizing TV.

The main goal of this course is to interpret television programs of different genres in order to reveal characteristic features of the recent Russian culture. It also aims to demonstrate methods of "reading" TV-messages - that is, semiotic analysis of verbal and visual TV-texts, study of narratives, and discourse analysis.

Topics of this course include:

-          constructions of the reality in the news;

-          popularity of infotainment;

-          rhetoric of nation and nationalism in analytical   programs;

-          images of the society in "new Russian" series;

-          representations of gender, age and ethnicity in talk-shows;

-          constructions of subcultures on TV-screen;

-          images of the past in documentaries;

-          trash and  glamour in TV-shows.

Enrolment via NettiOpsu