Television and Society

Course aim

To extend students’ understandings of television as one of the most persuasive agents of popular culture and ‘information’, and to enable students to critically analyse the various popular and academic discourses within which television is situated.

Course content

Television as industry; advertising; free to air and pay television; digital TV and its disruption of broadcast paradigms; issues of globalisation and localism; Australian TV within world markets; critical approaches and issues in contemporary television study including: narrative theory and character, structuralism and semiotics, new genres; realism: current affairs and investigative journalism; ideology; representations of crime; ethnicity; women and families on television; subjectivity and address; psychoanalytic theory; audiences; modes of address and reception; reader-orientated criticism; feminism; postmodernism.

Textbook(s)

Allen, Robert C (ed) 1992, Channels of discourse, re-assembled: television and contemporary criticism, 2nd edition, Routledge, London

Prerequisite(s)

Common to all relevant programs
Subject Area & Catalogue Number	Course Name
COMM 1018	Screen Matters: Film, Television and New Media

Corequisite(s)

Nil

Teaching method

Component	Duration
INTERNAL, MAGILL
Lecture	1 hour x 13 weeks
Tutorial	2 hours x 13 weeks

Note: These components may or may not be scheduled in every study period. Please refer to the timetable for further details.

Assessment

Individual written program analysis, Research essay, Tutorial presentation

Fees

EFTSL*: 0.125
Commonwealth Supported program (Band 1)
To determine the fee for this course as part of a Commonwealth Supported program, go to:
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Fee-paying program for domestic and international students
International students and students undertaking this course as part of a postgraduate fee paying program must refer to the relevant program home page to determine the cost for undertaking this course.

Non-award enrolment
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* Equivalent Full Time Study Load. Please note: all EFTSL values are published and calculated at ten decimal places. Values are displayed to three decimal places for ease of interpretation.