MDIA 3331 - Popular Media: Text, Audience, Industry

Popular franchise media dominate the contemporary English language screen media landscape. This course aims to analyse franchise media products from three separate directions: as texts, through audience analysis, and through examination of industrial structures. Students will work in teams, focusing on their choice (from given options) of franchise, applying the overlying theoretical and analytical frameworks to their specific case study. The first portion of the course will focus on the texts themselves, analysing how they make meaning using different media studies approaches. The second part of the course will focus on media users – fandoms and audiences – as well as interrogating the celebrity structures associated with the contemporary media industry. Thirdly, the industrial structures of mass media production will be investigated. The course work will build on the ideas and theories developed across the core courses in the media program, allowing students to apply their learning to a specific case study. The final assignment asks students to combine these three approaches into an integrated report on their franchise media product, demonstrating a cohesive understanding of the interdependence of text, industry, and audience.