ATS3627 - Global cultures, media flows: Creating and consuming (popular) culture - 2018

The consumption (and re-creation) of rap in Japan, animated film in Kuala Lumpur and curry laksa in Melbourne are just a few of the examples of transnational cultural flows which are visible the world over. The mass electronic media of cinema, television, and the Internet have sped up the transnational flow of images of modernity and created local desires to consume cultures originating in distant places. This unit looks at the implications of globalisation for a variety of cultural phenomena, tracing transitions from local to global cultural practices. It looks at specific cases of local consumption of global cultures, including television, video games, popular music, fiction and comics, and the Internet.

Students successfully completing this unit should have:

1. A deeper knowledge of the concepts of modernity and tradition, and the problems of cultural ownership and authenticity, and an understanding of contemporary issues regarding copyright law;
2. Acquired knowledge about the challenges to cultural nationalism by transnational cultural flows, and the role of electronic media, especially the Internet in this;
3. Studied in depth some cases of cultural production and its local consumption, and critically analysed web-based and mass media material relating to these case studies;
4. Improved their oral skills by participating in tutorial debate, both face-to-face and on-line cross-campus, on specific instances of cultural flows and local identities created through their consumption;
5. Improved their written skills by producing a well-reasoned and well-documented essay on an aspect of the globalisation debate;
6. Developed independent research skills;
7. Developed the ability to critically assess the ideological implications of global cultural flows.

Within semester assessment: 100%

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

Anthropology

Chinese studies

Global cultural literacies

Indonesian studies

International studies

Japanese studies

Korean studies