Critical Approaches to Media and Migration

1 Course Unit

This course explores the role of media texts and technologies in shaping our understandings of migration. Topics include media about people’s migration (e.g. TV series, documentaries, YouTube series portraying stories about migrants); media for migration control (e.g. drones, data surveillance, state propaganda); and migrant uses of media (i.e. how peoples on the move mobilize media technologies to facilitate such movement or to advocate for themselves). Though our focus is primarily on the politics of migration in the 21st century, we locate these within the historical legacies of slavery, colonialism, and neoliberalism. Throughout the course, we draw from critical inter-disciplinary scholarship in sociology, geography, cultural studies, and ethnic studies, to inform our understandings of media, migration, race, and class in the contemporary historical moment. 1 Course Unit