Module Directory

This module introduces students to psychoanalytic approaches to screen media, exploring how film, television, and social media shape identity, desire, emotion, and unconscious fantasy.

Drawing on key ideas from thinkers such as Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung, Jacques Lacan, and contemporary media scholars, students will examine how screen texts engage viewers psychologically and culturally. Through case studies from cinema, streaming television, influencers, memes, and digital platforms, the module investigates themes including spectatorship, narcissism, voyeurism, fantasy, trauma, and the performance of the self online. Students will learn to analyse visual and narrative forms while considering how media technologies affect attention, intimacy, and social behaviour. The course combines an introduction to various psychoanalytic and analytic psychological theories with a crash-course in film analysis, encouraging students to connect psychoanalytic concepts to everyday media experiences. By the end of the module, students will be able to critically interpret a wide range of screen media using foundational psychoanalytic frameworks. 

The aims of this module are:

• To introduce students to foundational psychoanalytic theories and their relevance to screen media.


• To develop a critical understanding of how film, television, and social media construct identity, desire, and spectatorship.


• To explore the psychological and cultural effects of visual and digital media in contemporary society.


• To enable students to apply psychoanalytic concepts to the analysis of diverse screen texts and media practices.


• To encourage critical reflection on the relationship between media technologies, emotion, fantasy, and everyday experience. 

By the end of this module, students will be expected to be able to: 

1. Demonstrate a basic understanding of the major concepts in Freudian, Jungian, and contemporary psychoanalytic theory. 


2. Critically demonstrate how such methods and concepts can be applied to visual media, specifically film, television, and social media.


3. Show how psychoanalytic and analytic psychological concepts have affected the content of modern visual culture, particularly film, television, and social media


4. Identify and discuss themes such as desire, fantasy, voyeurism, identity, and performance in screen media.


5. Critically evaluate how contemporary digital platforms shape subjectivity, attention, and social interaction. 


6. Communicate informed academic arguments in written and verbal forms using relevant theoretical and textual evidence. 

Key Skills 

The module will:

• Help you develop your critical capacity and analytical skills


• Provide the opportunity to improve and develop your writing style


• Foster your ability to assess when and under what conditions psychoanalytic knowledge may be applied to other fields and or topics 

Employability Skills 

The module will: 

• Help you develop strong research skills


• Help you develop rhetorical skills, for instance, the ability to structure and present a persuasive argument

For students taking PA108 as an outside option, the module provides both an accessible and critical introduction to Freudian and Jungian ideas. This module also complements 'The Unconscious Psychoanalysis, Culture and Society' (PA208 6 AU FREUD)' and 'The Unconscious Analytical Psychology, Culture and Society' (PA209 6 SP JUNG).

This module will be delivered via:

• Weekly one-hour lectures by staff, followed by one-hour seminars. 

Students are expected to have seen and be familiar with the films before the seminar in which they will be discussed. In the case of the television series Stranger Things, students are expected to be familiar with the plot line of seasons 1 & 2, however, articles that explain some of the main themes of the series will be provided.