Introduction to geomedia studies

The course provides a common knowledge base for students from different subjects and prepares them for later courses and studies. The course introduces key concepts and theories in the main areas of human geography and media and communication studies, and an overview of the development, main features, and current research topics and debates of geomedia research. Media and communication are discussed in terms of representations, institutions, and infrastructures related to various human geography conceptualisations of time, space, place, and mobility. In this way, the course content shows how geomedia combines research traditions and epistemologies that have been separate historically. The course also includes a critical introduction to the recent transformations of technology and society that underpin the "spatial turn" in media research and the "communicative turn" in human geography. Students practise identifying research topics in media and communication geography, perform critical analyses of current social issues, and relate such issues to general theoretical contexts.