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Research Master
Vergelijk
Media Studies (Research)

Study programme

The Media Studies Research Master’s programme seeks to enhance students’ understanding of media as complex social and cultural phenomena in their historical and contemporary contexts.

Students can specialise in:

  1. Archival and Information Studies
  2. Cultural Data & AI
  3. Film Studies
  4. New Media and Digital Culture
  5. Global Cross-Media Cultures

There is also the option to develop, in consultation with the programme director, a fully customised programme that straddles these disciplines and potentially includes a semester abroad.

Research Master's specialisations

  • Archival and Information Studies is positioned at the intersection of information, technology, and people. It focuses on digital scientific and cultural heritage in libraries, archives and museums as well as alternative sources emerging on the (social) Web, and how these changes fundamentally affect our concept of “information.”
  • Cultural Data & AI prepares you for work in the media industries, the cultural heritage sector and public government sectors by teaching you essential computational techniques, in tandem with the necessary critical reflection that accompanies these techniques and their consequences.
  • Film Studies offers a theoretically rigorous engagement with the field of film studies and visual culture. The programme approaches the study of film as a multi-faceted phenomenon, one that plays a vital and ever-changing role in contemporary digital media culture.
  • New Media and Digital Culture provides a comprehensive and critical approach to new media research, practices and theory. The study of digital media is continually refreshed with objects, spaces, platforms and apps, each seeking new users and niches: Snapchat, Medium, Tinder and Instagram operate alongside formerly ‘new’ media giants such as Google, Amazon, Facebook and Apple. Students gain in-depth knowledge in how to theorise such digital media objects and environments by learning to historically situate them in such perspectives as platform capitalism, data infrastructures, algorithmic governmentality, information analytics, interface critique and software studies.
  • Global Cross-Media Cultures offers the tools to understand and evaluate the on-going transformation of media culture, and its impact on culture, politics and everyday life. It also takes television as a starting point in mapping the conceptual, social and cultural challenges that come with digital, mobile and social media.

Media Studies programme structure

The Research Master's programme Media Studies comprises 120 ECTS credits: 30 credits for your Specialisation (first semester); 60 credits for core courses, electives, tutorials, summer & winter schools (second and third semester), and 30 credits for your Research Master's thesis project (fourth semester).

COURSES SEM 1 SEM 2 SEMESTER 1 SEMESTER 2 EC
  • Specialisation courses
    30
  • Media Theory - Core Course 1
    12
  • Restricted-choice electives: Tutorials
    6
  • Free-choice electives
    6
  • Restricted-choice electives: National Research School
    6
COURSES SEM 1 SEM 2 SEMESTER 1 SEMESTER 2 EC
  • Research Practices in Media Studies - Core Course 2
    12
  • Thesis Seminar and Conference Research Master Media Studies
    12
  • Restricted-choice electives: Tutorials
    6
  • Free-choice electives
    6
  • Restricted-choice electives: National Research School
    6
  • Research Master's Thesis Media Studies
    18
Compulsory course
Elective
UvA Course Catalogue: Media Studies (Research Master's)
  • Core courses

    The two compulsory courses constitute the backbone of the programme. The first core course, ‘Media Theory’, offers in-depth teaching of classic and contemporary media theory, while the second core course, ‘Research Practices in Media Studies’, explores how theoretical concepts and debates inform key research practices and approaches within media studies. In combination, the two courses prepare students for developing their own research projects. 

  • Tutorials

    Senior staff members offer tutorials on their specific areas of research, enabling students to benefit directly from these scholars’ expertise in, and knowledge of the discipline. Tutorials are given in small groups (max. 5 students). They are usually initiated by staff members, but may also be proposed and customised by students. Examples of tutorials on offer over the past years include: ‘Non-theatrical Film’, ‘Doing Digital Methods’, ‘Governmentality’ ‘Revisiting Star Studies’, ‘Spectral Cities’, ‘Theories With Heart’, ‘Protesting in the cloud’, ‘Adventures in Multimodality’, ‘From Paganism to the Post-Postmodern Condition’, and ‘The University as Media Assemblage’.

  • Electives

    Students can choose electives from the national research schools (RMeS & NICA), as well as from the one-year Master's in Media Studies. With a few exceptions, students may also select courses offered by other Master's programmes at the Faculty of Humanities, or at other universities (please note that not every course is open to Media Studies Research Master's students).

  • Thesis

    The Master's thesis reports on research carried out by the student under the supervision of an academic staff member involved in the programme. The student and academic adviser must mutually agree upon the subject of the thesis. The thesis writing process is supported by the Thesis Seminar and Conference course, which helps students develop their research and position this research in larger academic and public debates. The course is organised around peer feedback sessions, in which the students discuss their work in progress. It concludes with a one-day conference, organised by the students themselves.

Students can specialise in Film, Television, New Media, Archival and Information Studies, or develop a customised programme. They will work with leading scholars, helping to redefine the rapidly evolving discipline of Media Studies. Prof. Misha Kavka

Internships and studying abroad

You have the possibility of doing an internship or spending a semester of the Research Master's abroad.

Credit transfer

Students who show exceptional promise during a regular or professional Master's programme are encouraged to continue their studies in the Research Master's programme. Once students are admitted to this programme, they can transfer credits earned during their previous course of study towards their Research Master's degree. The Examinations Board determines which courses qualify for transfer.