55063 Media, Culture, Identity
UTS: Communication: Journalism Information and Media LearningCredit points: 8 cp
Result Type: Grade and marks
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:
- compare and evaluate the contribution of different theoretical approaches in the analysis of media, social and cultural fields
- demonstrate a deep understanding of methodological debates within these fields
- contextualise the research traditions of these approaches within their underpinning assumptions and methodological approaches
- apply their understandings to original theoretical and/or empirical investigation, plan and execute such an investigation, and understand the practice and societal implications
- relate the scholarly issues and debates to the professional perspectives of practitioners in these fields.
Contribution to graduate profile
This subject:
- prepares students for postgraduate research
- emphasises interdisciplinary approaches
- integrates scholarship with contemporary media
- undertakes 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
| Objective(s): | a, b, c, e |
| Weighting: | 40% |
| Task: | In this assessment students will work over several weeks to prepare a mediated representation or 'map' with written exegesis (2000 words per student) of some aspect of Australian socio-cultural relations. The 'map' and exegesis are to be presented to class in draft form, and should demonstrate an understanding of the complex issues surrounding the theoretical, methodological and analytical work in the mediated representation of socio-cultural relations. After presentation, a revised version of the exegesis will be presented for assessment. |
| Assessment criteria: | Students will be assessed in terms of
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Assessment item 2: Major Research Project
| Objective(s): | b, c, d, e |
| Weighting: | 60% |
| Task: | Students will develop and negotiate a research project tailored to their specific interests and needs, and negotiated with the subject coordinator. The task will involve the design of a research project to be reported in a 5-6,000 word essay, involving the identification of a research question and methodological approach contextualised within relevant theoretical debates in the field, the scoping and collection of appropriate empirical resources to undertake the research, and an analysis that correlates the empirical evidence to the identified theoretical issues at stake. |
| Assessment criteria: | Students will be assessed in terms of
|
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 coordinator 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,
