124265 KO Critical Media Analysis (2015S)

We think of London as a multicultural, cosmopolitan metropolis but these ideas are very contradictory. How can London be both “cool Britannia” and the centre of multi-ethnic immigration? Who lives there and who is a “Londoner”? How did it produce both the 2011 riots and the 2012 Olympic Games? Why is it home to the global financial market and the original “working class”? This course on contemporary British culture and media analyses and critiques contemporary London based on theory of urban space from Doreen Massey’s World City (2010) and Danny Dorling’s The 32 London Stops on the Central Line (2013). Keeping to the fore the 2008 financial crisis and the 2011 London riots, we see multiple and contradictory views of London—a kaleidoscope of shifting perspectives—to challenge popular and mainstream images of the city. The course approaches multiple media forms (images, maps, documentary, film, stand-up comedy, interactive drama series, music, fashion) through deconstructive critical media tools of social semiotics, thing theory, feminist, and postcolonial theories.