Culture, Media, and Data

Students study the agency of media and data in human cultural and social life with an emphasis on the generation of differences and inequalities. We excavate assumptions beneath representations of reality in documentary film, track the circulation of mass media across cultures, watch indigenous filmmakers as cultural producers, and explore the datafication of media and experience. We carry out our analyses by using the tools for making media and data to break them apart. Looking closely at their individual elements, we can view media and data as cultural constructions as well as use them to produce alternative images and counter-narratives.