Programme N0388A200002: Media and Area Studies - master, full-time

Academic year 2023/2024

The Master in Media and Area Studies (MARS) combines two important contemporary fields of study: Media Studies and Area Studies. This combination provides in-depth and critical knowledge about processes of mediation and signification, and how space and geography - the political and social specificities of an area - intersect with them. In particular, MARS will enable a thorough understanding of the role of context. Media (and communication) studies has a long tradition of emphasizing the importance of context, in dealing, for instance, with media production, content and interpretation/reception. And, of course, contexts are also spatial. Regions and countries, with their imagined communities, their politics, their institutional structures, their insides and outsides, are particular, and they impact in particular ways on media (infra)structures, media content and audience practices. MARS will generate a better understanding of the complexity of this context. Regions and countries are not internally homogeneous, and they cannot be studied in isolation and as structurally different from other regions and countries. MARS still takes into consideration that these regions and countries are particular socio-political and cultural entities that have characterizing but complex (and sometimes contradictory) particularities, which are extremely significant for the study of the media spheres that are embedded in these regions and countries. MARS is a collaboration between the Institute of Communication Studies and Journalism (ICSJ FSV UK) and the Institute of International Studies (IIS FSV UK).

MARS graduates will have achieved in-depth knowledge about the media and political ecology in Central Eastern Europe and the European Union. This will support their future employment in more senior/advisory positions in a variety of social fields and organizations, including state administrations, private sector (including media), public service institutions, and non-profit organizations.

Programme supervisor: professor Nico Carpentier

Programme coordinator: Mgr. Jan Miessler

Course Structure and Study Requirements

Optional courses see article 5 para 4 of Consolidated University Code of Study and Examination of Charles University in Prague.

Master state examination

(JDIP01) Master's thesis defence

(JSZ384) Theories of Media and Area Studies

Compulsory courses

Group J#0450

Total ETCS: 84

Elective courses - Social and Political Context

Group J#045123

Minimum ETCS: 12

Elective courses - Media Communication

Group J#045221

Minimum ETCS: 12

Recommended optional courses

Group J#0453

Prerequisites, co-requisites, Interchangeable and incompatible courses