In contemporary society, media and culture are crucial sites where identities are produced and popular ways of seeing are consumed. While the media set agendas, audiences/users negotiate these within a complex matrix of power and resistance. In a globalising world, vertical integration of media empires co-exists with greater democratisation and access through the internet. Our contemporary mediascapes are contested and dynamic spaces, constantly throwing up new challenges for media production, research and activism.

Cultural Studies enables us to meaningfully engage and interact with these new modes of being and doing. By making us conscious of the many complex ways in which power impinges on our lives and constructs our cultures, it has the potential of empowering us to critically read the media and other cultural institutions and artefacts, to understand how they shape our identities and to think about how we could possibly shape them.

This one year, fulltime post-graduate Diploma programme in Media and Cultural Studies thus works towards honing skills of media production and research within a framework that enables the development of a critical perspective on media, culture and society.

This Diploma aims at enabling the creation of a lively group of young media ‘thinking doers’ and ‘doing thinkers’ who could then choose to branch out into a diverse range of work or educational situations. It is envisaged that students of this course might make choices that include working with NGOs and media organisations, becoming independent media practitioners, opting for more specialised professional courses or media and cultural studies research oriented educational programmes.

The one year post-graduate programme is divided into 2 semesters, involving both theory and research based courses as well as production courses and practical work. Video production exercises and projects will be done by student teams of 5. The total of 38 credits (570 hours) is distributed as indicated in the table below (BC: Basic course, OC: Optional course, LC: Lab course):

The Diploma project is either an individual or a small group project, involving the production of a film or a research based dissertation. The project would go through various stages including proposal preparation and defense, preparation of a final process document and a viva voce examination with a board of examiners.

The programme will follow a modular/semi-modular pattern. It is envisaged that evaluations will be conducted after the end of each course module.