124265 KO Critical Media Analysis (2025S)

In recent decades, Western cultures have witnessed a tremendous cultural and social transformation of sexuality. Also, ideas about sexualized bodies, desires and practices have changed considerably. Still, sexuality, especially women's sexuality, continues to be a taboo topic. Most specifically, menopausal and ageing women are the ones whose sexuality is erased across media. In fact, scholars argue that ageing women’s sexuality is limited to a narrow set of undesirable experiences and that media continue to participate in a symbolic annihilation of ageing femininity.
In this course, students will critically examine the ways in which media both shapes and reflects societal understandings of identity and power structures, focusing specifically on the intersectional dynamics of gender, sex, and age.Through analytical frameworks drawn from feminist and queer theory, and age studies, the course invites students to interrogate the stereotypes, biases, and marginalization often embedded in media portrayals. We will look at and read about ideal, naked/nude bodies, examine sexualized and gendered bodies but also bodies in pain, bodies that bleed, bodies that undergo menopausal changes. We will deal with such issues as ideology, heterosexual matrix, power relations, gaze and objectification.

By the end of term, students will have:
- familiarized themselves with and have practiced the use of select cultural studies' concepts, theories and methods
- analyzed a spectrum of media texts and acquired media-critical competences
- offered critical reflection on representations of sexuality, gender and ageing
- practiced constructing careful arguments to make their points in the appropriate language and in a suitable format.

The class will be based on teacher's input and students' prior reading, which will enable engaged discussions, either in small groups or in a larger forum.