POPULAR CULTURE IN MEDIATED SOCIETIES - 2023/4

Module Overview

This module aims to provide a critical and reflexive approach to everyday popular cultural forms and practices, paying
close attention to everyday and mediatised practices. The course covers the everyday significance of contemporary
cultural and media forms, including visual/screen media; therapeutic culture and celebrity/tabloid culture. It also focuses
upon the analysis of consumer culture, the social significance of phenomena such as music and fashion and the
distinction between popular and high forms of culture.

Module provider

Sociology

Module Leader

SEAL Alexander (Sociology)

Number of Credits: 15

ECTS Credits: 7.5

Framework: FHEQ Level 4

Module cap (Maximum number of students): N/A

Module Availability

Semester 2

Prerequisites / Co-requisites

None

Module content

Indicative content includes:

• Why it is important to understand and explain popular culture and everyday life


• Understandings of consumer and leisure cultures


• Notions of subculture and of fan cultures.


• The growth of tabloid, entertainment and celebrity culture


• The relationship between aesthetics, everyday life and popular culture


• The construction of distinctions between popular and ‘high’ form of culture.

Assessment pattern

Alternative Assessment

N/A

Assessment Strategy

The assessment strategy is designed to provide students with the opportunity to demonstrate a range of theoretical and empirical ideas around the role that popular culture plays in mediated societies.

Assessment one is focused particularly on students’ ability to independently identify and critically discuss different forms of literature, but the substance of this discussion also entails and assessment of all the other learning outcomes. Assessment two focuses directly on learning outcomes on use of literature and critical commentary but also tests awareness, understanding, ability to deploy appropriate vocabulary and relating areas of cultural and media sociology to wider debates. It is specifically intended that the skills developed in assessment one will feed into work on assessment two.

Thus, the summative assessment for this module consists of:

• 1000 word critical appraisal of two academic sources around a theme covered in the first part of  the module

 

• Essay (2000 words), requiring students to select one from a list of specific questions pertaining to different topics or debates covered on the module.

Formative assessment and feedback

Students gain formative feedback throughout the semester via the interaction of their ideas with peers and the seminar tutor. There are also limited discussions in the lecture whereby ideas are exchanged and the lecturer provides feedback. All students are encouraged to ask questions and test ideas in relation to the assignments during the weeks preceding their submission.

Module aims

• To provide an introduction to theoretical understandings of contemporary popular culture
• To explore a range of topics relating to such understandings, from consumer and leisure cultures, to celebrity culture to
  understandings of popular and high art
• To enable students to connect specific topics relating to the study of popular culture with broader understandings of media
  and of society

Learning outcomes

Methods of Teaching / Learning

The learning and teaching strategy is designed to:

Lectures focus upon providing a core background, enthusing students about the significance and importance of the topics and arguments, and enabling the understanding of core concepts and examples. Seminars enable students to develop greater depth of understanding through practical exercises and discussions centred on reading and connecting to key concepts from the lecture.

The learning and teaching methods include:

The teaching strategy consists of 11 x 1 hour lectures and 11 x 1 hour seminars. Students complete compulsory readings each week as preparation for the seminar discussions.

Indicated Lecture Hours (which may also include seminars, tutorials, workshops and other contact time) are approximate and may include in-class tests where one or more of these are an assessment on the module. In-class tests are scheduled/organised separately to taught content and will be published on to student personal timetables, where they apply to taken modules, as soon as they are finalised by central administration. This will usually be after the initial publication of the teaching timetable for the relevant semester.

Reading list

https://readinglists.surrey.ac.uk
Upon accessing the reading list, please search for the module using the module code: SOC1047

Other information

None

Programmes this module appears in

Please note that the information detailed within this record is accurate at the time of publishing and may be subject to change. This record contains information for the most up to date version of the programme / module for the 2023/4 academic year.