IN BRIEF
THE DEPARTMENT OF MEDIA STUDIES
The Department of Media Studies is a part of the School of History, Cultural Research and Art Studies in the University of Turku together with five other departments (Art history, Comparative literature, Finnish literature, Musicology and Women's studies). The department focuses its teaching and research on the whole spectrum of media: printed mass media, film, radio, television, digital media, and speech.
Elements from the study of arts and mass communication as well as cultural studies are utilised in teaching and research. In combining the traditions of humanities and social sciences, Media Studies offers ample possibilities to explore particularly the relations between media representations and their use, and the rapid changes taking place in these relations.
Media Studies acquaints the students with the history and fields of media culture, the methods of media analysis and critique, and the theoretical and methodological foundation of the branch of study. Different parts of media culture and their development are studied and taught as historical, aesthetic, technological, and social phenomena.
The primary goal of the Department of Media Studies is neither to provide research that serves directly practical purposes, nor to offer vocational training in media professions. The aim is to educate well-versed, critical experts of media culture that can be employed in the fields of research, teaching, the private sector, or public administration.