55063 Media, Culture, Identity

Handbook description

This subject is concerned with the role of mediated representation and communication in the development and reproduction of cultural and social identity. It considers a broad range of symbolic forms, and relates them to the social construction of space, time and social interaction; forms of social identity such as ethnicity, class, nationality, gender, sexuality and age; and relates professional and community practice in the symbolic field to developments in the political, economic and coercive fields. It emphasises the specificity of historical and geographic factors within larger structural developments, and takes a comparative and critical approach to the use and evaluation of social theory.

Subject objectives/outcomes

At the completion of this subject, students should be able to:

1. compare and evaluate the contribution of different theoretical approaches in the analysis of media, social and cultural fields;
2. demonstrate a deep understanding of methodological debates within these fields;
3. contextualise the research traditions of these approaches within their underpinning assumptions and methodological approaches;
4. apply their understandings to original theoretical and/or empirical investigation, plan and execute such an investigation, and understand the practice and societal implications;
5. relate the scholarly issues and debates to the professional perspectives of practitioners in these fields.

Contribution to graduate profile

• to prepare students for postgraduate research
• to emphasise interdisciplinary approaches
• to integrate scholarship with contemporary media
• to undertake a program of advanced coursework

Teaching and learning strategies

The focus of teaching and learning will be students' engagement with complex ideas, extending their ability to critique ideas and to formulate their own viewpoints, positions and constructs, and then apply these ideas and formulations to their own original research. Learning activities will centre on lectures, workshops readings, discussion, and independent and group study. There is an emphasis on mutual engagement by students in each other's learning and research production in this subject. Lectures will introduce theoretical perspectives, issues and methodologies of the fields, and students will actively engage with the literature and each other's responses to it, both in preparation for and reflection on each session, and as part of the assessment process. Emphasis will be given to enabling students to develop more sophisticated approaches to interrogating contested and conflicting domains.

Content

• Historical and geographical perspectives on debates about the origins and compositions of contemporary Australian national identities and their underpinning values, assumptions, traditions, epistemologies, theoretical and professional contexts, arenas of convergence and contest; (Objectives a, b)
• The production and reception of symbolic representation and mediated communication in the formation of culture and identity (Objectives c, d)
• The debates in social theory about the relationships between political, economic, legal/coercive and cultural factors in the production of representations of culture and identity, particularly with respect to debates about urbanisation, globalisation and post-industrialisation (Objectives a, b, c, d, e)
• Contemporary research and scholarship in Australian social and cultural identities and their representation (Objectives c, d, e,)

Assessment

Assessment item 1: Minor Project

Assessment item 2: Major Research Project

Minimum requirements

Students are expected to attend and participate in classes and be familiar with the readings and lecture material. All assessment tasks must be completed in accordance with good academic practice, submitted on time and a satisfactory level overall must be achieved to pass the subject. In cases where sickness, accident or other serious misadventure occurs, students should discuss the matter with their subject co-ordinator and apply for Special Consideration. Appropriate written documentation must be supplied. Students with disabilities should discuss their situations with the Faculty's Academic Liaison Officer.

Indicative references

Anderson, B. 1991: Imagined Communities, London, Verso

Anderson, B. 1998: The spectre of comparison: nationalism, southeast Asia and the world London, Verso

Anti-Discrimination Board of NSW, 2003: Race for the Headlines: racism and media discourse, ADB, Sydney NSW

Bell, D., 1999: The Coming of Post Industrial Society, 1999, Basic Books

Berry, C. et al. (eds), 2003: Mobile cultures: new media in queer Asia, Durham: Duke University Press.

Bourdieu, P. 1984: Distinction: a Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste, Harvard Uni. Press

Bourdieu, P. 1993: Sociology in Question, Sage

Calhoun, C. LiPuma E. and Postone, M. (eds) 1993: Bourdieu: Critical Perspectives, Polity Press, Cambridge

Carey, J. 1989: Communication as Culture, New York and London: Routledge,

Castells, M., 1996, 1997, 1998: The Information Age: Economy, Society and Culture. Volumes 1,2 & 3, Blackwell

Cunningham, S. and Sinclair, J (eds) 2000: Floating Lives: the Media and Asian Diasporas, University of Queensland Press

Curran, J. and Park, Myung-Jin (eds.), 2000: De-Westernising Media Studies, Routledge London

Donald, S. et al. (eds), 2002: Media in China: Consumption Content and Crisis, Routledge Curzon London

Gillespie, M., 1995: Television, Ethnicity and Cultural Change, Routledge, London

Grace, A., 2003: Matthew Shepard and Billy Jack Gaither: The Politics of Victimhood, Los Angeles: GLAAD Center for the Study of Media & Society

Gross, L., 2001: Up from invisibility: lesbians, gay men, and the media in America, New York: Columbia University Press.

Harvey, D., 1989: The Urban Experience, Johns Hopkins UP

Harvey, D., 1990: The Condition of Postmodernity, Blackwell

Harvey, D., 1996: Justice, Nature and the Geography of Difference, Blackwell

Innis, H, 1951/91: The Bias of Communication, Toronto: University of Toronto Press

Lull, J. 1995: Media, Communication Culture - A Global Approach Polity Press, Cambridge

Mann, Michael, 1986: The Sources of Social Power, Cambridge University Press, two volumes

Manning, P. 2003: Dog Whistle Politics: reporting Arabic and Muslim people in Sydney newspapers, Australian Centre for Independent Journalism, University of Technology, Sydney

Ong, W. J. 1982: Orality and Literacy: the Technologising of the Word, Routledge

Swartz, D, 1997: Culture and Power: the sociology of Pierre Bourdieu, University of Chicago Press, Chicago

Thompson, J.B. 1995: The Media and Modernity: a social theory of the media, Polity Press

van Zoonen, L. 1994: Feminist Media Studies, Sage

Wanning Sun, 2002: Leaving China: Media Migration and Transnational Imagination, Rowman and Littlefield, Boulder, CO,