Season 02 · Media Strikes Back
Manipulated
How media shapes what we believe
Media doesn’t just show the world — it constructs it. You learn to read the codes, representations and algorithms that shape what an audience believes, and write a structured analysis of a real news segment.
06 episodes
The episodes
Symbolic codes
Everything inside the frame is a choice — the setting, the objects, the performances, the colour. Learn to read what a frame is saying before anyone speaks.
Technical codes
How the product is captured and assembled — camerawork, lighting, editing and audio. The choices a crew makes to control what you see, and how you feel about it.
Written codes
The language inside a media product — the words you read on screen and the words you hear spoken — and how producers use both to anchor what you believe.
Reading the news
A real current-affairs segment, watched twice — once as a viewer, once as an analyst. Every code you now know, hunted in the wild.
Representation
Media re-presents the world — it never simply shows it. Who is shown, how, and who gets left out of the frame.
Synthetic media & AI
When anyone can generate a photograph, what does a photograph prove? Real-or-AI line-ups and the new rules of believing what you see.