New Media Texts, Acr Cultures

3 Credits · Level: Graduate

This course explores the field of Comparative Media Studies. Each unit pairs an English text with a non-Western one—and then asks what the contrasts tell us about each respective culture. Such texts emerge in a variety of New Media—including, for instance, Graphic Novels (Comic Books), Anime, Video games, Fan Fiction, Fan-Viding, Comi-Con, TikTok, Instagram, Metaverse Environments, Blogs, Podcasts, Remixes, Online Journalism, RSS-Feeds, Wikis, Online Communities, Hypertexts, the new E-books—as well as in recent television reality shows, talent contests, dramas, and other experimental forms. Here's the way the class works: after covering the general background and foundations of the field, we develop special topics in the seminar according to the particular research interests of each class member. For the Fall 2025 semester, we will also be adding short units on New Media in Asia: including the pan-Asian influence of Japanese anime and manga; Korean television, celebrity, and K-Pop; and Chinese developments in cinema and variety shows. (In this context, we will also review advances in Bilibili, Alibaba, Sina Weibo, Baida, Youku, Tudou, Taobao—and Mukbang.) More generally, we will also be considering such media in light of Gender Identity, Cross-Cultural Understanding, International Marketing, Political Communication, and Adaptation Studies (that is, the adaptation of literature to film, television, and YouTube, such as the “Lizzie Bennet Diaries” riff on Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice—and also Disney’s intercultural transplants, such as Mulan, Zootopia, and Frozen). Other units will compare graphic novels from several cultures, such as Fun Home, Akira, Boys Over Flowers, Persepolis, The Watchmen—and the Marvel canon. Finally, we will also include studies of dating, talent, and romance media—including “Produce 101,” “American Idol,” “Idol Producer,” “So You Think You Can Dance,” “The Bachelor,” “Heart Signal,” and “Are You the One?” Here again, we consider all media from a comparative, cross-cultural perspective, including the English subtitling of Japanese anime, Korean drama, and other non-Western genres. Later in the term, each student in the class chooses a research topic of his or her own interest—the choice is completely open--and makes it their central project for the semester. Once we have a list of these individual topics, part of our syllabus shifts in order to incorporate these specific interests of the students enrolled that semester. Individual projects might include, for instance, cross-cultural comparisons of museums, libraries, or art collections. They might also include cross-cultural analyses of digital copyright, digital “texts,” and online editions of literary works. Students might ask, for instance, how “graphic” texts by Lewis Carroll, Dickens, Thackeray, Sterne, Blake, Danielewski, Austen, Byron, Dickinson, and Charlotte Bronte compare cross-culturally with works like The Dream of the Red Chamber and “Farewell, My Concubine.” Students will learn how International Relations and Intercultural Communication have been transformed by new digital technologies and human interactions enabled by digital media. Such computer technologies will include emerging trends in advanced global communications (such as the CGI interaction between Idols and international users on Weverse and Bubble Platforms); the technologically-enhanced, international communication between participatory users and content creators (such as on Niconico, Bilibili, VTubers, and other global modalities); and Data Encryption (including the creation of streamed subtitles and enhanced dubbing). (As this list of units suggests, the class will be address global technologies that are only just now emerging in the U.S.) More generally, students will learn how International Relations and Intercultural Communication have been transformed by new digital technologies and human interactions enabled by digital media. Such computer technologies will include emerging trends in advanced global communications (such as the CGI interaction between Idols and international users on Weverse and Bubble Platforms); the technologically-enhanced, international communication between participatory users and content creators (such as on Niconico, Bilibili, VTubers, and other global modalities); and Data Encryption (including the creation of streamed subtitles and enhanced dubbing). (As this list of units suggests, the class will address global technologies that are only just now emerging in the U.S.) Research methods emphasized in the course will include the analysis Google algorithms and Google-page hierarchies—as well as the deployment of keyword searches that work in conjunction with these hierarchies. In addition, the course will teach students the principles of Textual and Visual Analysis—including the particular analyses required to interpret recent Anime, Graphic texts, Gaming Narratives, and linguistically-defined cultures. In order to help students determine if this class addresses their cross-cultural interests, I recommend that prospective students email the instructor during the pre-registration period, so that I can provide more information about the topics, organization, and foci of the course.