All film and television courses encourage independence of mind and a spirit of critical inquiry, and all learning takes place in this spirit, rather than in terms of establishing orthodoxies. Students are expected to understand the contexts of production of film and television, and in particular the changing economic and policy factors affecting the Australian situation in the international context and in the context of newly emerging technologies.
Fundamental to all courses is an understanding of genre (whether Hollywood genres or the `genres' of documentary or news programs), and to see these as involving stylistic and editorial choices in the social construction of reality.
At each year level, students are expected to master progressively more difficult concepts pertaining to the specificity of film form (from simpler concepts of viewpoint of construction, to more difficult if inherently practical notions such as montage or the construction of filmic space using the axis of action rule, and exceptions to the rule) and concepts of narrative organisation. Students are expected to be able to apply relevantly these concepts in their analyses of a wide variety of filmic and televisual texts from different eras and different countries (Australian, American, European, Asian and the third world) and to gain some understanding of the relevance of these concepts to gender studies, studies of ideology, and studies of cultural differences.
In some courses psychoanalytic theories of the filmic signifier are employed as ways of understanding how gender is constructed in film, and how the viewer is affected by film. Some understanding of recent semiotic theory is required in some courses. For instance, in courses on television studies and on documentary, students are expected to understand and apply semiotic concepts such as `metaphor and metonymy', and see their relevance to film and television which are indexical sign systems rather than simply iconic signs.
Some of the material taught is controversial and students are expected to be able to develop arguments which distinguish between different positions, and to make reasoned judgements about the soundness and relevance of different kinds of arguments.
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