Postgraduate - UnitAPG4894 - Communications theories and practices

This unit entry is for students who completed this unit in 2013 only. For students planning to study the unit, please refer to the unit indexes in the the current edition of the Handbook. If you have any queries contact the managing faculty for your course or area of study.

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12 points, SCA Band 1, 0.250 EFTSL

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Level	Postgraduate
Faculty	Faculty of Arts
Organisational Unit	National Centre For Australian Studies
Offered	Caulfield First semester 2013 (Day) Sunway First semester 2013 (Day) Caulfield Second semester 2013 (Day)
Coordinator(s)	Associate Professor Mark Gibson (semester 1); Dr Caron Dann (semester 2)

Synopsis

The unit offers a general orientation to communications and media studies at graduate level. It surveys a range of communication practices and introduces theories appropriate to understanding and analysing them. The major practices considered include journalism, broadcasting, organisational communication, public relations, development communication, political persuasion and new media forms such as blogs and social networking sites. These are considered both as fields of professional practice and as objects of scholarly analysis. Attention is given to the general conceptualisation of communication and media and to the major ways in which communication has been described and analysed.

Outcomes

to develop awareness of the range of social and professional contexts in which communication occurs;
to develop an understanding of communication as a set of practices and to identify common features within these practices;
to introduce some of the major ways in which communication and media have been understood at a theoretical level;
to consider the relation between theory and practice in the field of communication and an appreciation of how they can productively inform each other;
to introduce communications and media studies as a basis for further graduate study and professional practice in the field.

Assessment

Essay (3500 words): 40%
Essay (3500 words): 40%
Seminar presentation (2000 words): 20%

Chief examiner(s)

Associate Professor Mark Gibson (semester 1)
Dr Caron Dann (semester 2)

Contact hours

+ 2-hour seminar per week