PhD Audiovisual Arts and Media Studies

The programme facilitates two modes of study: creative practice based audiovisual arts studies and empirical media studies. The curriculum focuses on contemporary forms and phenomena of media and audiovisual arts, first and foremost media content and media production research. Special focus is given to the processes of change in media and arts.

The importance of audiovisual culture and industry is on the rise in contemporary society and BFM has a special area of responsibility in Estonia to develop the Estonian audiovisual culture. Thus although the curriculum is planned to be interdiciplinary we put special emphasis on themes of audiovisual culture and contemporary digital culture. This means relying to a significant extent on humanities based approaches, but we lead an interdiciplinary dialogue with other approaches especially with economics based approaces to media and the audiovisual industries. A special kind of attention will be given to the role of media in education and to the questions of audiovisual literacy and didactics.

The curriculum has two parallel main objectives:

• to support independent empirical doctoral research in contemporary media and communication cultures, primarily in the fields of digital and audiovisual media;
• to support the production of media and film projects as practice-based artistic doctoral research projects;

In both study areas the focus is also on developing the necessary skills and knowledge to a high level. An additional objective is to support the students preparation for careers in teaching and conducting research by developing the necessary pedagogical and research organisation competences.

The central idea behind the practice-based doctoral thesis is that creative work can be also a form of research, only one accomplished using different means and modalities. In the context of this study programme, the research is carried out and/or reflected using different (above all, audiovisual) media, not only written argumentation.

In 2019, there will be two PhD students admitted to conduct research as part of the CUDAN project and two PhD students admitted to conduct research as a part of the EU Mobilitas Pluss Top Researcher project of Prof. Pia Tikka. One study place will not be attached to a project and is thematically free.

Full-time studies

• PhD studies consist of a course component and a thesis component. Many of the courses are based on individual work and demand close co-operation with the supervisor.
• Some subject courses and all general courses will have contact meetings. Not all the general courses will be offered in English every year.
• PhD students must participate in the PhD seminars throughout their studies.
• The official full-time study period of PhD studies is four years.