This unit entry is for students who completed this unit in 2016 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.

ATS3645 - Journalism and global change

6 points, SCA Band 1, 0.125 EFTSL

Undergraduate - Unit

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

Faculty

Organisational Unit

Coordinator(s)

Offered

First semester 2016 (Day)
First semester 2016 (Online)

Synopsis

This unit explores the significance of people power to journalism and role of journalism in empowering the dispossessed. Students gain critical insight into key forms of reporting that raise issues of advocacy, agency and accountability, including environmental journalism, peace and development reporting, and public journalism. By exploring the rationale behind each, students learn to approach news not as a series of discrete violent events but rather as part of complex, ongoing processes of social and environmental change. Drawing on case studies, theory and practical research techniques, students will evaluate gate-keeping decisions while producing in-depth investigations of their own.

Outcomes

On successful completion of the unit, students should be able to:

recognise the local and global dimensions of high-quality environmental, development and peace reporting;
demonstrate an advanced ability to research, discuss and analyse issues in a clear, concise and nuanced way;
use a range of research skills to find and interview a wide range of sources;
produce written work to deadline, making effective use of the conventions of in-depth journalism and scholarly presentation;
demonstrate a critical awareness of the role and functions of quality journalism in a context of marked environmental and social change.

Assessment

Within semester assessment: 100%

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.

Chief examiner(s)

Associate Professor Philip Chubb

This unit applies to the following area(s) of study

Journalism

Prerequisites

Twelve credit points of second-year Arts units. As this is a third-year level unit, it is highly recommended that students only take this unit after they have completed two second-year level units in Journalism studies.

Prohibitions

ATS2645