Residents can find out more about how media and culture shapes, and is shaped by, our lives with a special free taster course run by the University of Worcester.
A series of sessions on media and culture will be held at The Hive throughout May and June, starting on May 9. These have been designed for adults looking to get back into learning at a higher level or developing their professional skills in an informal and flexible way.
The course consists of six two-hour sessions that will introduce some of the key fields of study concerning media and culture, whilst also engaging participants in discussion and debate of their own real-life experience. No prior knowledge or expertise is required to take part.
The course will be led Media and Culture Course Leader, Katy Wareham Morris, and her team, and these sessions are informed by the lecturers’ published research.
Ms Wareham Morris said: “This is a great opportunity for anyone who might be interested in studying this field in greater depth, for example at degree level, getting back into learning at a higher level or continued professional development to get a bitesize sample and see if it is for them. We have tried to make these sessions as flexible and accessible as possible. Sessions will explore how society, media and culture has changed and adapted to the world we live in and the benefits and complications this presents. As those involved will see, media and culture penetrate many aspects of our lives and probably more so than we might first imagine.”
Each session, held on Tuesdays, 12pm-2pm, will focus on a different topic.
The first session, ‘The Social Role of the Media’, which will look at why it is important to study the media and its relationship with culture and its changing social role over the last 70 years.
The next session, ‘The Rise of Social Media’, focuses on developments in the internet, but in particular on how user generated content has changed how engage with the media.
The third workshop is titled ‘Media, Culture and the Pandemic’. It explores the roles that different types of media played in the Covid-19 pandemic, the role culture had to play in global responses to the pandemic and whether culture has been changed by what happened.
The fourth session, titled ‘Fake News’, has participants debate how fake news influences society and to what effect. ‘Politics and the Media’ is the penultimate session. It considers coverage of international events, ranging from TV coverage of the Vietnam War to the role of social media in the Arab Spring and the Ukraine war. It will also look at the role of censorship and propaganda. Finally, ‘Media Futures’ will see participants debate the social, moral and ethical implications of Artificial intelligence and Virtual Reality.
The six sessions are also standalone, so participants have the option to choose individual sessions or attend the full six session course. Each session will need to be booked individually. No qualifications or prior knowledge are necessary to join the sessions, but participants will need to access course reading and writing materials and be able to participate in classroom discussions.
To book your tickets visit The Hive website What's On page or to find out more email Katy Wareham Morris on k.wareham.morris@worc.ac.uk.