Characteristics
- Course: Roem, succes, celebrity
- Programme: Nederlandse Taal en Cultuur
- Group size: 40 students
- Study load: 6 EC
- Year: second-year and third-year Bachelor's students
Course description
In the course ‘Roem, succes, celebrity’, students approach the phenomenon of (literary) celebrity from a variety of perspectives. We specifically investigated how analysis of celebrity might relate to critical media literacy, that is, whether a critical reading of celebrity culture enhances the students’ awareness of the constructed nature of media representations. This was explored by introducing an assignment that invited students to analyse a ‘celebrity hoax’: an example of a widely circulated belief about – or a news report on, or a statement by – a specific celebrity that on closer inspection was revealed to be questionable or even completely untrue. By discussing their observations with each other, students learn to identify the constructed nature of media messages, to characterise their specific ‘language’, and to critically assess what values they foreground, and how. Students were to write a paper on their case study, analysing the hoax in full.
By having students reflect on a 'celebrity hoax' from different perspectives, they become more aware of methods to critically assess the impact of the mediadr. Gaston Franssen