Year
2023Credit points
10Campus offering
No unit offerings are currently available for this unitPrerequisites
NilIncompatible
MEDA101 - Theories of Media
Unit rationale, description and aim
Screen-based media, especially the smartphone, is a gateway to global cultures and communities. The small screen is inhabited by personal, corporate and political interests, and is also a melting pot of traditional and emergent content and production practices. There is a need for graduates in this space who bring a critical and ethical lens to bear upon their own work and the diversity of potential meanings that circulate with it, both locally and abroad.
This unit traverses a century of milestones in the evolution of mass media and introduces key theorists who either worried about or celebrated, those developments. A single unit cannot entertain them all, and emphasis is given to theories seeking to explain the media’s role in social organisation and meaning making. Our exploration is guided by several questions, most notably: what does the media look like from this vantage point, if I think/feel/believe in this way? How does this theory help me to frame and discuss contemporary issues, such as the spreading of ‘fake news’ or the marginalisation of particular groups or subcultures?
Each theoretical encounter will provide new tools in the analytic tool kit necessary to answer these questions and to critique the methods taught subsequently within the ACU media sequence.
The aim of this unit is to encourage you to critically reflect on your own values and beliefs, and the role that mediated representation has played in establishing and maintaining them: to what extent do we shape the media, and to what extent does it shape us.
Learning outcomes
To successfully complete this unit you will be able to demonstrate you have achieved the learning outcomes (LO) detailed in the below table.
Each outcome is informed by a number of graduate capabilities (GC) to ensure your work in this, and every unit, is part of a larger goal of graduating from ACU with the attributes of insight, empathy, imagination and impact.
Explore the graduate capabilities.
On successful completion of this unit, students should be able to:
LO1 - Identify and discuss the major traditions in media analysis and outline the value of each approach (GA3, GA6, GA7)
LO2 - Discuss the roles media communication play in the organisation and control of human society and, especially, in Western democratic societies (GA2, GA3, GA5, GA7)
LO3 - Analyse the power of myth in the construction of media narratives (GA4, GA6, GA8)
LO4 - Analyse the processes involved in the construction of meaning in established and emerging media (GA2, GA4, GA7, GA8)
Graduate attributes
GA2 - recognise their responsibility to the common good, the environment and society
GA3 - apply ethical perspectives in informed decision making
GA4 - think critically and reflectively
GA5 - demonstrate values, knowledge, skills and attitudes appropriate to the discipline and/or profession
GA6 - solve problems in a variety of settings taking local and international perspectives into account
GA7 - work both autonomously and collaboratively
GA8 - locate, organise, analyse, synthesise and evaluate information
Content
Topics will include:
- Human symbolic communication from the emergence of mass communication technologies in the 19th century to the public-private spaces of social media.
- Empirical and cultural approaches to the investigation of mass media will be explored in the context of their origins in North America and Europe.
- The unit will focus particularly on the ideological mechanisms through which media are able to construct realities as normal, natural, or ‘just the way things are’.
Learning and teaching strategy and rationale
Screen-based media, especially the smartphone, is a gateway to global cultures and communities. The small screen is inhabited by personal, corporate and political interests, and is also a melting pot of traditional and emergent content and production practices. Graduates in this space need to be able to apply critical and ethical approaches to their own work and the diversity of potential meanings that circulate with it, both locally and abroad.
This unit traverses a century of milestones in the evolution of mass media and introduces key theorists who either worried about or celebrated, those developments. A single unit cannot entertain them all, but we will work together to explore theories that seek to explain the media’s role in social organisation and meaning making. We will consider key debates and questions in the field, most notably: what does the media look like from this vantage point, if I think/feel/believe in this way? How does this theory help me to frame and discuss contemporary issues, such as the spreading of ‘fake news’ or the marginalisation of particular groups or subcultures?
Each theoretical encounter will provide new tools in the analytic tool kit necessary to answer these questions and to critique pre-existing understandings about the methods and approaches used in media analysis.
The aim of this unit is to encourage you to critically reflect on the role that mediated representation has played in establishing and maintaining our own values and beliefs and leads us to ask, to what extent do we shape the media, and to what extent does it shape us?
Assessment strategy and rationale
Each assessment task is designed to provide you with a distinct vantage point from which it will be easier to apprehend the relationships between the theories traversed in the unit, and the socio-political contexts from which they emerged.
Screenwriting guru Syd Field defines a plot point as “any incident, episode, or event that hooks into the action and spins it around in another direction”. There is no turning back from a plot point, for the landscape of the story has irreversibly changed, at least from the protagonist’s perspective (think “Luke, I’m your Father!”). Plot points in MEDA104 involve the emergence of new and disruptive media technologies and social practices, such as the social media challenge to traditional notions of news and ‘truth telling’, and also theories of media that have challenged scholarly narratives about media impact. The first two assessments focus upon plot points considered important for your own development as a media analyst: the emergence of semiotics and textual analysis (LO1/LO4), and ideological accounts of media as a vehicle for social control (LO2/LO3). These two tasks, supported by your tutor in the first instance and fellow students in the second, will prepare you to work more autonomously on the final task, the analysis of a contemporary media practice or output. The assessments and their weightings are designed to allow students to progressively demonstrate achievement against the LOs.
Overview of assessments
| Brief Description of Kind and Purpose of Assessment Tasks | Weighting | Learning Outcomes | Graduate Attributes |
|---|---|---|---|
Assessment 1: In-class Analysis The in-class analysis will introduce you to foundational techniques of textual analysis (LO3) needed for subsequent work completed in MEDA104. As prior exposure to media studies is not assumed, this task is initiated within the supportive environment of the tutorial. Additionally, ACU’s assessment procedures compel first-year units to facilitate academic skills development and identify students in need of additional assistance. With this in mind, the first assessment task allows for feedback on written argument that you may direct towards subsequent tasks. | 10% | LO1, LO3 | GA3, GA4, GA6, GA7, GA8 |
Assessment 2: Ideological Analysis This task focuses your evolving analytic skills on the topic of ideology, which is a body of theory we use to talk about the intervention of power in representation. Ideology is important enough to earn its own learning outcome (LO2), but is a complex subject area. To render this topic more accessible, you are invited to interrogate a concrete ‘text’ that you can literally walk around in, being a store in the CBD, before tackling more complex and abstract media ‘texts’ in the final assessment task. In this context, a ‘text’ is any assemblage of meaningful things; shots in a sequence, elements in a photograph, objects in a store, etc. | 40% | LO1, LO2, LO3 | GA2, GA3, GA4, GA5, GA6, GA7, GA8 |
Assessment 3: Media Research Project The media research project is a summative task (LO4) that encourages you to draw upon the theoretical frameworks explored in MEDA104 to interrogate a contemporary media practice or output. You will have the freedom to choose a practice or output that is relevant to you, and in doing so it is hoped that you will fulfil the ultimate aim of MEDA104 and reflect on the role that mediated representation plays in your life. | 50% | LO2, LO3, LO4 | GA2, GA3, GA4, GA5, GA6, GA7, GA8 |
Representative texts and references
Cultural Protocols
Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Cultural Protocols for Indigenous Reporting in the Media https://www.wipo.int/export/sites/www/tk/en/databases/creative_heritage/docs/abc_cultural_protocol.pdf
Australia Council, Protocols for Using First Nations Cultural and Intellectual Property in the Arts, https://australiacouncil.gov.au/investment-and-development/protocols-and-resources/protocols-for-using-first-nations-cultural-and-intellectual-property-in-the-arts/
Terri Janke, Pathways and Protocols: A Filmmaker’s guide to Working With Indigenous People, Culture and Concepts, Screen Australia, https://www.screenaustralia.gov.au/getmedia/16e5ade3-bbca-4db2-a433-94bcd4c45434/Pathways-and-Protocols.pdf
REPRESENTATIVE TEXTS AND REFERENCES
Baran, S & Davis, D 2021, Mass Communication Theory: Foundations, Ferment, Future, 8th edn, Oxford University Press, New York.
Berger, A 2019, Media Analysis Techniques, 6th edn, Sage, California.
Cunningham, S & Turnbull, S (eds.) 2014, The media & communications in Australia, 4th edn, Allen & Unwin, Crows Nest.
Curran, J & Hesmondhalgh D 2019, Media And Society, 6th ed, Bloomsbury Academic.
Hodkinson, P 2017, Media Culture and Society, 2nd edn., SAGE, London.
O’Shaughnessy, M & Stadler, J, Casey S 2016, Media and Society, 6th edn., Oxford University Press, South Melbourne.
Paxson, P 2018, Mass Communications And Media Studies, 2nd ed, Bloomsbury Academic Pavlik, J & Pavlik, J & McIntosh, S 2019, Converging Media: A New Introduction To Mass Communication, 6th edn., Oxford University Press, New York.
Sullivan, J 2020, Media Audiences: Effects, Users, Institutions, And Power, 2nd edn., SAGE, Thousand Oaks.