Office Hours by appointment, via Zoom/Teams or in person on campus. I would kindly ask you to send me a short description of your inquiry by email no later than two days before our appointment.
Profile
Melanie Mika’s research focuses are on serial media, especially television series, character theory, and mental health discourses. In the field of media practice, she has many years of experience in the production of radio, audio media, and video post-production.
Curriculum Vitae
Melanie Mika studied musicology and media studies (BA) at the University of Tübingen. She then completed an international Master’s degree in Audiovisual and Cinema Studies at the universities of Montréal, Amsterdam and the Goethe University Frankfurt.
Before starting her academic career, Melanie Mika completed an apprenticeship as a media designer for image and sound at Südwestrundfunk Stuttgart. From 2010 to 2019, she worked alongside her studies for SWR as a freelance employee with an expertise in sound design and online content creation for SWR4 BW as well as for the online channels of SWR Aktuell. Since 2019, she has also been an examiner at the German Chamber of Industry and Commerce for the apprenticeship profession of media designer for image and sound.
Melanie Mika has been a doctoral student since 2018 with a dissertation project on the representation of mental illness in American television series. From 2019 to April 2022, this project was funded by the German National Academic Foundation (Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes).
Melanie Mika has been part of the Institute of Medias Studies since May 2022. Her responsibilities include the area of internationalization (Erasmus coordination and support of guest professors and researchers). She is the contact person for the Tübingen Media Days.
Doctoral Dissertation
Productive Psychopaths: Representations of Mental Illness in American Serials from a character theory perspective
Publications
Mika, M., Ossa, V., & Patka, K. (2022). Montieren. In H. Christians, M. Bickenbach, & N. Wegmann (ed.), Historisches Wörterbuch des Mediengebrauchs [Part 3]. Böhlau.
Mika, M. (2021). Paranoide Nachrichtenbilder. Inszenierungen von Verschwörungen und Verschwörungstheorien in der TV-Serie Mr. Robot. ffk Journal, 6, 326–340.
Mika, M. (2020). Kooperation und Konkurrenz. Veränderungen der Mediengestalter*innen-Ausbildung als Wettbewerb zwischen Sendeanstalten und Privatwirtschaft. Rundfunk und Geschichte, 46(3–4), 43–52.
Mika, M. (2020). Produktive Psychopathen: Inszenierungen von Selbstoptimierung in amerikanischen Fernsehserien. FFK Journal, 5, 223–236
