Mediating War

Undergraduate / Graduate

This course will explore the reciprocal relationships between war and media. At the core of this class we will ask: how is war itself a medium? In doing so, we will consider not only the technologies used to wage war, but also how war operates as a material and conditioning substrate for experiences of time, space, and power. Indeed, war is not simply a state of armed conflict, but a mode of aesthetic and political communication that shapes modern sensoria. Beginning with key frameworks for war in media studies, we will proceed by examining a range of medial sites used to wage war, as well as documentary and entertainment practices that represent war for the public. Along the way, we will interrogate how the mediating processes of war conflate civilian and soldier, violence and entertainment, weapon and communication device. With historical references, this course will focus primarily on global experiences of armed conflict in the late twentieth and twenty-first centuries. In addition to specific war technologies like drones, we will also analyze key media forms like photography, cinema, television, computers, and video games.