Courses / Module

Module 2 takes a more practical approach to actively engaging media content for questions about culture and cultural difference, particularly in the co-evaluation of content across different media. The module approaches the critical analysis of documentary and other qualitative sources through interrogating or corroborating claims, explanations, and evidence, in relation to specific themes or issues about culture and cultural difference, by engaging a range of media and academic sources.

In the course of this module, students are introduced to approaches for actively engaging qualitative media content, as particularly through ethnographic research practices. The module thereby provides students with a reflexive awareness about the opportunities, challenges, and pitfalls of engaging different media content, not only as an entry point for questions about culture and cultural difference, but as actual subject of ethnographic research.

Through tutorials, students will work in small groups to identify a specific issue or claim about culture or cultural difference that will be critically interrogated by drawing on different media and sources. Successive exercises focus on identifying and articulating a specific claim or issue; the formulation of critical questions for evaluating specific explanations and evidence in relation to the identified issue or claim; partially guided research of collating different sources addressing the issue or claim, including scholarly work; and leading into a final written report to be presented that evaluates the claim or issue based on juxtaposing different media content and academic sources.