Details
INSTRUCTOR: Jacqueline Nusz
SECTION: RVI
SCHEDULE: Online
Course Description
This course will teach students how to analyze visual images by deconstructing media through a historical and cultural lens and how this affects the construction of identity. Students will apply Peter Burke’s theory that images are not merely the reflection of a time or place but rather an “extension” of a period’s social context to the time in which a visual image was produced. They will examine visual media from the early twentieth century until today and deconstruct a range of images from propaganda posters, political cartoons, magazines, advertisements, and newsreels
to unveil the social messages of each production. This course will drive students to think critically about the objective of media production when there is no explicit written message. Students will develop a global perspective through the analysis of international media materials and become globally aware by identifying common threads produced in visual images of the same time period.
Additionally, this process of inquiry will steer students to reflect on their position as a consumer of media in the present day.