Sandra Ristovska, PhD, sees her research and filmmaking as interrelated endeavors through which she explores how visual media facilitate processes of knowledge acquisition and how they influence institutional and legal decision-making. In particular, her work looks at questions around visual evidence and human rights across journalistic, legal, policy and activist settings.
keywords
human rights, visual culture/communication, visual evidence, visual advocacy, global media activism, social movements, ethnography, documentary filmmaking
MDST 1001 - Foundations of Media Studies
Primary Instructor
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Fall 2018 / Summer 2019 / Spring 2020 / Summer 2020 / Spring 2021 / Summer 2021
Introduces students to key issues and debates and contemporary applications of critical media studies focusing on economic, social, political and cultural implications. Provides an understanding of the relationship between theory and practice and equips students with the tools to critically analyze various forms of textual transmission.
MDST 2002 - Media and Communication History
Primary Instructor
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Spring 2018
Examines the historical development of communication forms, tools, technologies and institutions (orality, writing, printing, photography, film, radio, television, computers, internet); their influence on culture (forms of expression and social relationships); and their impact on social and individual experience. Applies knowledge of communication history to contemporary social issues and problems in media and society, domestically and internationally.
MDST 3002 - Digital Culture and Politics
Primary Instructor
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Fall 2018 / Spring 2019 / Spring 2020 / Fall 2020 / Spring 2021
Examines issues at the intersection of digital media, culture and politics, such as regulation and network architecture, piracy and hacking, and grassroots activism. Engage with a range of theories about cultural politics, democracy, liberalism and neo-liberalism in relation to digital information and communication technologies.
MDST 4241 - Visual Culture and Human Rights
Primary Instructor
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Fall 2020
Provides the critical tools needed to understand images and their impact on the recognition and restitution of human rights claims. The course examines both visual practices (e.g. documentation, archiving, witnessing, advocacy and surveillance) and visual media (e.g. photography, film, video, drone and satellite images), unpacking the growing entanglement between visual culture and human rights.
MDST 4931 - Internship
Primary Instructor
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Spring 2018 / Summer 2018 / Fall 2018 / Spring 2019 / Summer 2019 / Fall 2019 / Spring 2020 / Summer 2020 / Fall 2020 / Spring 2021 / Summer 2021
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MDST 6871 - Special Topics
Primary Instructor
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Spring 2020
Special topics. May be repeated up to 15 total credit hours hours
MDST 7021 - Proseminar in Media and Communication Theory 2
Primary Instructor
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Spring 2021
Continues the introduction of principle concepts, literature, and theoretical and paradigmatic perspectives of media studies and mass communication and their ties and contributions to parallel domains in the social sciences and humanities. Formerly MDST 7021.
MDST 7051 - Qualitative Research Methods in Media
Primary Instructor
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Spring 2019
Examines various methods of qualitative data gathering and analysis in the mass and social media context. Formerly CMCI 7051.
