units

ATS2449

Faculty of Arts

Monash University

Undergraduate - Unit

This unit entry is for students who completed this unit in 2015 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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6 points, SCA Band 1, 0.125 EFTSL

Refer to the specific census and withdrawal dates for the semester(s) in which this unit is offered.

LevelUndergraduate
FacultyFaculty of Arts
Organisational UnitSchool of Media, Film and Journalism
OfferedGippsland Second semester 2015 (Day)
Gippsland Second semester 2015 (Off-campus)
Coordinator(s)Dr Graham Jones

Synopsis

Media Texts introduces a range of ways of conceiving, composing and reading representation in general, and uses these techniques to analyse particular media texts. The unit considers how traditional depictions of media texts as narrative and as ideology underpin many common-sense readings of media representations, before broaching the analysis of such texts in terms of discourse and textuality. The unit also examines a range of compositional technqiues with regard to their potentia social, conceptual and corporeal effects, before speculating on how these techniques can connect with established textual histories and reading protocols to enable a range of interpretive possibilities.

Outcomes

On successful completion of this unit students will have:

  1. an understanding of a range of theories informing the analysis of media representations
  2. an ability to use these theories to conduct the analysis of media texts in both academic and journalistic contexts
  3. a capacity to analyse a range of compositional techniques in terms of how they may be deployed to produce specific social, conceptual and corporeal effects
  4. an awareness of the force of reading protocols and textual histories in directing both everyday and scholarly responses to media texts
  5. an appreciation of the importance of cultural and communications theory for opening new possibilities in the everyday interpretation of media texts.

Assessment

Within semester assessment: 60%
Exam: 40%

Workload requirements

Minimum total expected workload to achieve the learning outcomes for this unit is 144 hours per semester typically comprising a mixture of scheduled learning activities and independent study. A unit requires on average three/four hours of scheduled activities per week. Scheduled activities may include a combination of teacher directed learning, peer directed learning and online engagement.

See also Unit timetable information

Chief examiner(s)

Prerequisites

Twelve credit points of first-year Arts units.

Prohibitions

ATS3449, COM2409, COM3409, GSC2409, GSC3409