Cultural Products and Identity Construction(COM365)
| Course Code | Course Name | Semester | Theory | Practice | Lab | Credit | ECTS |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| COM365 | Cultural Products and Identity Construction | 5 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 3 |
| Prerequisites | |
| Admission Requirements |
| Language of Instruction | English |
| Course Type | Elective |
| Course Level | Bachelor Degree |
| Course Instructor(s) | Ece ELMAS (Email) İlker HEPKANER (Email) |
| Assistant | |
| Objective | |
| Content | This course will examine the relationship between cultural products and the formation of identities, both individual and social. We will examine how cultural products such as songs, photographs, film, TV, social media content, and museum exhibitions, as well as some everyday products such as maps and ID cards, represent and form different social and cultural groupings, with a particular emphasis on gender, race, ethnicity, class, and nationality. Each session consists of two parts: a theoretical introduction based on readings and in-class analyses of cultural products. |
| Course Learning Outcomes |
After completing this course, students will be able to • Think about identity and the role of cultural products in its formation. • Analyze and critique representations of diverse identities in the media and elsewhere. • Apply theoretical concepts deriving from scholarship in visual culture, media studies, performance studies, and history to academic analyses and cultural critique. • Develop research and expression skills to communicate their takes on personal and social identity. |
| Teaching and Learning Methods | |
| References |
Week 2 • Myria Georgiou, "Identity." Keywords for Media Studies. Eds. Jonathan Gray and Laurie Ouellette. New York: New York University Press, 2015. http://keywords.nyupress.org/media-studies/essay/identity/ • Carla Kaplan, "Identity." Keywords for American Cultural Studies, Second Edition. Eds. Bruce Burgett and Glenn Hendler. New York: New York University Press, 2014. http://keywords.nyupress.org/american-cultural-studies/essay/identity/ • Ella Shohat and Robert Stam, “Introduction” and “From Eurocentrism to Polycentrsim” Unthinking Eurocentrism: Multiculturalism and the Media. London and New York: Routledge, 1994. 1-12 and 13-54. Week 3 • Edward Said, “Introduction” “Chapter 1: Scope of Orientalism: II. Imaginative Geography and its Representation” Orientalism. 1-28 and 49-73. Week 4 • Benedict Anderson, “Introduction,” “Chapter 3: The Origins of the National Consciousness,” “Chapter 5: Old Languages, New Models,” “Chapter 7: The Last Wave,” and “Chapter 10: Census, Map, Museum” in Imagined Communities. London and New York: Verso, 1983 (2006). Week 5 • Helga Tawil-Souri, “Colored Identity: The Politics and Materiality of ID Cards in Palestine/Israel.” Social Text 29(2): 67-97. 2011. • John C. Torpey, The Invention of the Passport: Surveillance, Citizenship and the State, Cambridge UP, 2018. • Frances Stonor Saunders, “Where in the world are you?” London Review of Books. Week 6 • John Tagg, “Introduction” “Chapter 2: Evidence, Truth and Order: Photographic Records and the Growth of the State” and “Chapter 3: A Means of Surveillance: The Photograph as Evidence in Law” in The Burden of Representation: Essays on Photographies and Histories, Minneapolis, University of Minneapolis Press, 1988. 1-33, 60-65, 66-102. • Michel Foucault, “Panopticism.” Discipline and Punish. Reprinted in Neal Leach, ed. Rethinking Architecture. London/New York: Routledge, 1997. [1958, trans. 1969] • Byung-Chul Han, “Big Data” in Psychopolitics: Neoliberalism and New Technologies of Power. London and New York: Verso. 2017. 55-76. Week 8 • Alan Feldman “On Cultural Anesthesia: From Desert Storm to Rodney King” American Ethnologist. Vol 21, No. 2, May 1994. 404-418. Week 9 • Jean Baudrillard. “The Precession of Simulacra,” in Simulacra and Simulation. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 1994. pp. 1-42. • Roland Barthes, “The Death of the Author” in Image, Music, Text. McMillan, 1978. 142-148. • Guy Debord. “The Culmination as Separation” and “The Commodity as Spectacle,” in Society of the Spectacle. London: Rebel Press, 2006. pp. 6-25. Week 10 • Brian Eugenio Herrera. “Prologue” and “Chapter 3: How the Sharks Became Puerto Rican?” in Latin Numbers: Playing Latino in the Twentieth Century US Popular Performance. Ann Arbor: U Michigan Press. 2015. 1-17 and 96-127. Week 11 • Excerpts from Meg-John Barker and Julia Scheele, Queer: A Graphic History. London: Icon Books, 2016. • Robert T. Tally, Spatiality. London: Routledge, 2013. Week 12 • Svetlana Boym, The Future of Nostalgia, New York: Basic Books, 2001. Week 13 • İlker Hepkaner, "Heritage at Display: The Quincentennial Museum of Turkish Jews in Istanbul as a Flagship Cultural Institution" in Picturing the Past: The Formation of Jewish Heritage in Turkey and Israel (1948-2018), NYU, 2019, Unpublished dissertation. • Joe J. Phua "Sports fans and media use: Influence on sports fan identification and collective self-esteem." International Journal of Sport Communication 3, no. 2 (2010): 190-206. Week 14 • Andy Bennett, Music, space and place: popular music and cultural identity. Routledge, 2017. • Somogy Varga, "The politics of nation branding: Collective identity and public sphere in the neoliberal state." Philosophy & Social Criticism 39, no. 8 (2013): 825-845. |
Theory Topics
| Week | Weekly Contents |
|---|---|
| 1 | Introductions / Course content, expectations, and introductions. |
| 2 | Key Concepts |
| 3 | Orientalism, Stereotypes, East-West (Cultural Product Example: Clips from Hollywood & Yeşilçam films) |
| 4 | Nation, Print Capitalism, and Maps (Cultural Product Example: Various maps on the concept "nation" / Guest: Gülsin Harman - New York Times) |
| 5 | Movement and Mediation of Identities (Cultural product example: Various ID cards / Guest lecturer: Assistant Professor Dr. Elif Sarı - UBC) |
| 6 | Dossier, Discipline, Data (Cultural product example: "Spying" apps on smart phones) |
| 7 | Midterm Week |
| 8 | Media, Race, and Ethnicity (Cultural product example: Black Lives Matter posters from the US, France, and Turkey) |
| 9 | The Image and the Internet (Cultural product example: Internet memes about identity in the US, France, and Turkey Guest: Serdar Darendeliler - GAPO) |
| 10 | TV Representations of Regional Identities (Cultural product example: Clips from the sit-com Parks and Recreation and Avrupa Yakası ) |
| 11 | Gender, Sexuality, and Place (Cultural product example: Queering the Map Website / Guest lecturer: Avinash Rajagopal - Metropolis Magazine) |
| 12 | Nostalgia and Postmodern Representations of Identity (Dua Lipa's album Future Nostalgia and Facebook pages of 90s nostalgia from the US and Turkey) |
| 13 | Minority Identities and Institutional Belonging (Cultural product example: Students and the professor will do a field trip to the Quincentennial Museum of Turkish Jews and the Galatasaray Museum in Beyoğlu). |
| 14 | Musical Identities and Nation Branding (Cultural products: Various clips from the Eurovision Song Contest) |
Practice Topics
| Week | Weekly Contents |
|---|
Contribution to Overall Grade
| Number | Contribution | |
|---|---|---|
| Contribution of in-term studies to overall grade | 1 | 40 |
| Contribution of final exam to overall grade | 1 | 60 |
| Toplam | 2 | 100 |
In-Term Studies
| Number | Contribution | |
|---|---|---|
| Assignments | 0 | 0 |
| Presentation | 0 | 0 |
| Midterm Examinations (including preparation) | 1 | 40 |
| Project | 0 | 0 |
| Laboratory | 0 | 0 |
| Other Applications | 0 | 0 |
| Quiz | 0 | 0 |
| Term Paper/ Project | 0 | 0 |
| Portfolio Study | 0 | 0 |
| Reports | 0 | 0 |
| Learning Diary | 0 | 0 |
| Thesis/ Project | 0 | 0 |
| Seminar | 0 | 0 |
| Other | 0 | 0 |
| Make-up | 0 | 0 |
| Toplam | 1 | 40 |
| No | Program Learning Outcomes | Contribution | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | ||
| 1 | Will have effective written and oral communication skills in Turkish | |||||
| 2 | Will have a thorough knowledge of at least two foreign languages | X | ||||
| 3 | Will be informed about art and culture, human rights, social, professional and ethical values, law and legislation, quality standards, and will be aware of their responsibility on these subjects | X | ||||
| 4 | Will have sufficient knowledge about social sciences, professions and sectors in communication and media, innovative and entrepreneurial practices | X | ||||
| 5 | Will have the ability to use, in an effective and creative way, the techniques and tools and information technologies necessary for interactive and conventional media, in the context of health and safety in the workplace | X | ||||
| 6 | Will have the ability to develop documentary and fictional content related to their field for interactive and conventional media; also the ability to produce and manage this content in group | |||||
| 7 | Will have the theoretical knowledge and ability to carry out and share scientific work on communication environments and processes of interactive and conventional media and on the individual and social outcomes of the latter | X | ||||
| 8 | Will have the knowledge of analysis and modelling techniques to analyse interactive and conventional media and the communication environments and processes | |||||
| 9 | Will have the ability to question and critically analyse developments and problems concerning interactive and conventional media and the communication environments and processes, will be aware of the public interest, social responsibility and the environment, will be sensitive to contemporary world’s and Turkey's current problems; will develop a libertarian, democratic, constructive and problem-solving approach | X | ||||
| 10 | They are familiar with the historical development processes of electronic, digital media and film; and the current developments in these fields | X | ||||
| 11 | They learn sociological, cultural and aesthetic approaches in electronic, digital media and film | X | ||||
| 12 | They learn the political economy of cultural industries, labour and production relations, analysis of marketing and consumption patterns. | X | ||||
| 13 | They learn at a first level how to use the equipment necessary for the production of audio-visual content for TV, radio and digital media and of films in different genres | |||||
| 14 | They gain experience in conducting creative activities in electronic, digital media and film; in producing and working in groups | X | ||||
| 15 | They acquire theoretical information in the fields of public relations, advertising, integrated marketing communication and organizational communication | |||||
| 16 | They are familiar with the research, planning, implementation and evaluation processes in public relations and advertising; they can create campaigns, present them effectively and write reports | |||||
| 17 | They have knowledge of organisational communication, crisis and risk communication, reputation management, media relations, media planning, digital media management, brand management and interpersonal communication. They are able to carry out activities in these areas | |||||
| 18 | They use public relations and advertising strategies and tactics appropriate to the specificities of conventional and new media | |||||
| 19 | They are aware of legal regulations, ethical codes in public relations and advertising, and they remain faithful to them | |||||
| 20 | They are familiar with the different theoretical approaches regarding the social place, role and functions of journalism as a social institution and phenomenon; they are familiar with the process of producing information for conventional and digital media | |||||
| 21 | They are familiar with the structural and technical specificities, management characteristics of conventional/mainstream media, as well as alternative media structures | |||||
| 22 | They are familiar with the new conceptual and theoretical discussions emerging from interactive/digital media in terms of social sciences and humanities | |||||
| 23 | They are familiar with the historical development of journalism in Turkey and in the world; they can analyse it in the context of social and political history | |||||
| 24 | They have the ability to effectively use information technology, printing and publishing techniques; to write a press article using data collected on the web and on social media, to visualize this data and to publish it | |||||
| Activities | Number | Period | Total Workload |
|---|---|---|---|
| Class Hours | 13 | 2 | 26 |
| Working Hours out of Class | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Assignments | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Presentation | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Midterm Examinations (including preparation) | 1 | 10 | 10 |
| Project | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Laboratory | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Other Applications | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Final Examinations (including preparation) | 1 | 16 | 16 |
| Quiz | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Term Paper/ Project | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Portfolio Study | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Reports | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Learning Diary | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Thesis/ Project | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Seminar | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Other | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Make-up | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Total Workload | 52 | ||
| Total Workload / 25 | 2.08 | ||
| Credits ECTS | 2 | ||