FACULTY | CURRICULUM & COURSES
GPIA’s Media & Culture (MC) concentration aims to equip students with a critical reading and understanding of media’s role in international politics as well as provide them with a practical basis. Courses survey current and sweeping changes to the media environment (blogging, social media, Wikileaks, media activism), debates about the relevance of “old media debates,” and the consequences of these changes for US mainstream media as well as consumers and media advocates, propaganda, political campaigning, the relation between photography and human rights, and US media discourses on key regions (the Middle East) as well as explore the relation between culture and politics (e.g. Global Soccer, Global Politics). More practically orientated courses teach students skills in documentary film, photography and the use of social media. MC pays equal consideration to the role of state and private institutions, with attention to their positive and negative influences on the media in both democratic and non-democratic societies.
Allie Esslinger is a 2010 graduate of the GIPA program and concentrated in Media Studies and Governance & RIghts. During her time at The New School she took classes across the Political Science and Media departments and completed a Practicum with the Cities Alliance. Throughout the final years of GPIA, Allie was working with various production companies throughout the CIty, building off the hands-on classes she was taking. Allie is the founder of Section II, a recently launched online streaming service and production company focused on lesbian-related films and series. Section II is dedicated to the better representation of queer women in popular culture and launched a beta site in February, which allows for rentals and downloads of feature films, web series, and shorts.
