Communication and Media Studies Master's Program (Turkish) (with Thesis) (M.A., 1 - 2 Years)

Consistent with the Regulations of the Institute for Graduate Education and Research, students will register to this course until completing their theses.

This course provdes students w’th useful analytical tools for conceptualizing the broad contexts within which the Mass media are situated. In this course we will explore these questions. What does the media do? Repeat the truth? Make up the truth? Entertain in order to be more profitable? What are the unseen forces that determine what we view and read? How does media content affect the nature of society? Some selected topics are role of the audience, effects controversy, ratings, visual images which dominate our society, news, public opinion.

A graduate level introduction to İletişim ve Medya Çalışmaları through a review of Major historical and contemporary trends in communication research and literature. The course begins with an overview of the early work produced by North American and European scholars and social theorists around communication and culture, proceeds through the historical debates of the 1970s around the possibility of a “field” of communication and considers the more contemporary and still emerging approaches to understanding communication as a social practice while providing the theoretical background and analytic skills needed to navigate the tensions among these varying approaches. We will consider questions concerning the multiple ways in which communication issues can be addressed from different points of view, and explores how these different points of view support different knowledge claims.

This course aims to introduce the students to the epistemology, ontology and methodology of standard and alternative research in communication studies. It provides not only the theoretical background but also practical skills of carrying out research in communication. The students taking this course are expected to contrast research with reasoned inquiry and common sense; to identify problems which will justify communication research; to formulate researchable research techniques; to select appropriate research techniques; to write a succinct, detailed and persuasive research proposal, to present it orally and defend it against criticism; to explore quantitative and qualitative research methodologies and produce research reports in both of them.

Many graduate students under-perform in their course work, exams, and eventually their theses due to poorly developed basic study skills. Taking essay writing as its basic activity, this course demonstrates how the integration of study, planning, time management, rhetorical and language skills is an essential prerequisite of good results.The course will be run on a “workshop” basis – much of the actual exercises we will be doing will occur during class time. Come expecting to participate in discussions and practical work. There will also be occasional homework assignments. All of this work is important as it will form the basis of students’ coursework mark. In the final essay students will be expected to demonstrate all the skills they have acquired during the course – preparing outlines, drafts, coherent argument, etc.