Unit convenor and teaching staff |
Unit convenor and teaching staff
Unit Convenor
Tanya Muscat
TBA
Consultation by e-mail appointment
Maya Ranganathan
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Credit points |
Credit points
3
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Prerequisites |
Prerequisites
15cp at 100 level or above
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Corequisites |
Corequisites
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Co-badged status |
Co-badged status
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Unit description |
Unit description
This unit discusses international television programs and the way in which these are constructed and distributed by media companies, and how they are interpreted within different cultures. The globalisation of production and distribution models for the television industry are examined, as are the interpretive practices audiences bring to bear on television programming that originates from elsewhere. News and current affairs television are studied, as are entertainment and educational programming.
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Information about important academic dates including deadlines for withdrawing from units are available at https://www.mq.edu.au/study/calendar-of-dates
On successful completion of this unit, you will be able to:
Name | Weighting | Hurdle | Due |
---|---|---|---|
TV Game Show | 20% | No | Weeks 4-12 |
Content Analysis | 30% | No | 11pm Fri 13 September |
Audience ethnography | 50% | No | 11pm Fri 8 November |
Due: Weeks 4-12
Weighting: 20%
In an allocated tutorial, in teams of three, you will design and present a television game show that draws on the readings for that week and tests the knowledge of your peers. Your show should be based on one or more existing TV game shows from anywhere around the world. During the presentation, all team members will act as hosts for show.
The presentation should begin with an engaging 5 minute summary of key theories and concepts from the readings for that week (make references to key scholars/authors where appropriate). Each team member should contribute to this part. Include a brief history of the game show (or shows) you are drawing on, then clearly explain how to play it. Creatively come up with ways that will involve ALL students and will require them to discuss their views on the weekly topic, lecture and readings. It is strongly encouraged that you have small group activities as well as whole class discussions built into the show.
Note that while many TV shows request simple right/wrong answers, for this assignment use your creative licence to ensure there are aspects that allow for some extended discussion (e.g. around why a certain answer is right or wrong). Involving students in the analysis of TV clips on YouTube in relation particular concepts is also strongly encouraged.
Briefly end your presentation with a clear articulation of what you hope your classmates learnt from participating in the show, linking back to the key concepts for this week.
This assignment will be marked individually based on each student's performance, contribution to group work, and summary of the chosen key concept. Each student must demonstrate his or her contribution towards the planning and delivery of the game show by detailing their activities to team work and submitting a 200 word summary of their chosen key concepts. Before commencing your game show provide the tutor with a printed handout which includes a short description of your gameshow, each student's contribution and individual summaries with authors clearly identified, references collated into one document.
The presentation should take about 40 minutes, allowing some time at the end for feedback.
Students may use audio visual aids as well as props and costumes if they wish.
Students will be assessed on their ability to:
This Assessment Task relates to the following Learning Outcomes:
There are no make-up dates available for students who fail to appear on their allocated presentation dates. Students must apply for special consideration if they are unable to present with their group due to sickness or other unplanned event.
Due: 11pm Fri 13 September
Weighting: 30%
This assignment assesses your ability to critique two culturally divergent global television news services by analysing their online news content.
Length: 1200 words.
Carry out a content analysis of Internet television of two reputable news organizations, one Western and one non-Western by studying elements such as language, pictures and headlines in the reporting of a major international event or issue that is covered by both news organisations. The issue could, for instance, be related to politics, business/economics, a conflict, a natural disaster, or a particular person or celebrity. The issue should be important enough that it attracts sustained media coverage.
In selecting your two television networks, ensure that they are comparable (e.g. both are global networks, or both are national-level networks). Students with skills in languages other than English are encouraged to compare an English and non-English language news organisation's coverage of the same issue, with key references, headlines and quotes translated into English. If you are interested in this inter-lingual option, your tutor and/or convenor can provide further assistance.
Over a 2-week period gather data from each TV news website looking at the news agenda relating to that event or issue. From the data gathered write a comparative analysis of news content focusing on the following questions:
Your insights and analysis should be supported by examples from the evidence gathered from the TV news websites as well as course readings and other literature.
Include samples of your page views as an appendix for each website (no more than 4 pages).
Examples of global news networks you may choose include:
Submit your analysis and samples as one document to Turnitin.
Students will be assessed on their ability to:
Due: 11pm Fri 8 November
Weighting: 50%
For this assignment you are required to develop a log (worth 20%) and research report (worth 30%) on the television (or digital device) viewing behaviours of a group of people (3-4 people) with whom you are in contact covering weeks 9-11. The participants may be members of your family (siblings, parents, grandparents, cousins), a selection of friends, people at work (e.g. if TV is shown in the workplace), or others who you are able to access watching TV. Not all your participants need to be viewing at the same time but there should be something that unites them as a group. The participants you follow may consume television in any of its myriad forms e.g. broadcast, online, on laptops or on mobile phones.
As an ethnographer your role is to temporarily step out of your participants' world and imagine you are from a different country or culture looking back at them with new eyes. What would you notice about their TV viewing habits that is interesting or unusual? Your main approach for this assignment is not to interview participants, but to observe them. However, if you are a participant ethnographer you may comment on conversations around shows that you have with your participants or that they have with others.
For ethical reasons, ensure you get verbal permission from your participants to observe them. You may use pseudonyms to protect the identity of your participants in your report.
Log 20%
Use the log sheet that will be available on ilearn and fill out details from your observations over the 4 weeks. Use Marie Gillespie's observations on the use of television among South Asian families in Southall as a guide (Gillespie 1995, Week 8 readings). These log sheets and all working notes on observations must be included in an appendix at the end of your report. For this reason it is better to type instead of handwrite your notes.
Your log must provide details on the following:
Research Report 30%
In your report explain:
Link your discussion as much as possible to key 'international' concepts. For instance, when describing your participants you may consider their cultural, ethnic, and national backgrounds. You may explain the programs they watch in international terms e.g. what countries they come from, whether they are global formats, hybridisations, or local etc. You may consider what might be driving your participants' TV choices culturally as well as any intersections with other factors like gender, class and generational differences as appropriate.
Report Length: 1200 words. Log: Minimum 1000 words
Submit your report and log as one document to Turnitin.
You will be assessed on your ability to:
NB: Detailed marking rubrics for all assessment tasks can be found on ilearn.
LECTURES AND TUTORIALS
ICOM201 consists of a weekly 1-hour live lecture and a weekly 1-hour tutorial.
Tutorials begin in week 2. Students can meet with the tutor in week 13 to discuss their ethnographic research data and analysis.
ATTENDANCE EXPECTATIONS
Students are expected to attend all tutorials for ICOM201. Tutorials are not optional: they deliver important content and are a central component of meeting the learning outcomes in this unit. Students who elect to not attend tutorials will miss out on unit content and learning activities, and do so at their own risk.
REQUIRED READINGS
The required unit readings can be found listed under weekly topics on ilearn. Readings are available on the library's e-Reserve. Students are expected to read the weekly readings before each week's tutorial, make notes on the readings using the key questions and points in the unit schedule as a guide, and bring these to class to inform their discussion.
RECOMMENDED READINGS
Other recommended texts are available in the reserve section of library, and include:
Alvarado, M., Buonanna, M., Gray, H., Miller, T., (Eds.) (2014). The SAGE Handbook of Television Studies, SAGE Publications.
Curtin, M., Holt, J., Sanson, K. (Eds.) (2014,) Distribution Revolution: Conversations about the Digital Revolution of Film and Television, Oakland: University of California Press.
Straubhaar, J. (2007). World Television: from Global to Local, Los Angeles: Sage.
Sunetra, S. N. (2014). Globalization and television : a study of the Indian experience, 1990-2010 First edition., New Delhi : Oxford University Press, 2014
Moran, A. and Keane, M. (Eds.) (2004). Television Across Asia: Television industries, program formats and globalization, London: RoutledgeCourzon.
Wilson, T. (2004). Playful Audience: From talkshow viewers to Internet users, Creskill, NJ: Hampton Press.
Parks, Lisa and Kumar Shanti (Eds.) (2003). Planet TV: a global television reader. New York ; London : New York University Press
Ammon, Royce J., (2001). Global television and the shaping of world politics: CNN, telediplomacy, and foreign policy. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarlan
French, David and Richards, Michael (Eds.) (2000). Television in Contemporary Asia. New Delhi: Sage.
Thussu, Daya Kishan (2000). International Communication. Continuity and change, London: Arnold pp.200-223
Barker, Chris. (1997). Global Television: An Introduction, Oxford: Blackwell Publishers
Thomas, A. O. (1996). Global diasporic and subnational ethnic, audiences for satellite television in South Asia, The Journal of International Communication, 3(2). pp.61-75
Jenkins, Henri. (2006) Convergence Culture – Where Old and New Media Collide. Introduction pp. 1-24.
ILEARN
Students are also expected to regularly follow the unit on ilearn and stay informed of special announcements and additional information posted there. It is the student's responsibility to check iLearn regularly, at least once every week. Students are also advised to check their student emails regularly.
ASSIGNMENT SUBMISSION
All written assessments are to be submitted online via Turnitin, accessed through the ICOM201 ilearn site.
Feedback in this Unit
Feedback in this unit will be made available in multiple forms: General comment, rubric and in-text comments attached to assignments marked in Turnitin; in-class feedback after a tutorial presentation, informal feedback through the ‘announcement’ function in iLearn if there are points of relevance to the whole class; interactions with peers in the forum activities; in personal consultations made by appointment; in email communication with individual students by the convenor in response to questions related to unit activities.
Detailed marking rubrics for all assessment tasks can be found on iLearn.
Examples of relevant and related assessment tasks will be made available on iLearn and discussed in tutorials.
LATE SUBMISSION
Unless a Special Consideration request has been submitted and approved, (a) a penalty for lateness will apply - two (2) marks out of 100 will be deducted per day for assignments submitted after the due date - and (b) no assignment will be accepted more than seven (7) days (including weekends) after the original submission deadline, No late submissions will be accepted for timed assessments - eg quizzes, online tests.
Week 1 Unit Overview and Assessments
Introduction to international television and discussion of Unit outline and assessments.
No Tutorials are scheduled for this week.
Complete readings for Week 2
Week 2 Study of Television
Until the arrival of the Internet in the late 1990s, television was the most glamorous field of study and research across the many fields of media scholarship. New media technologies like the Internet and mobile communications have completely reconfigured the entertainment and information business. Television audiences are disappearing and moving onto interactive and on-demand services.
Tutorial discussion: What is technology disruption and how is it impacting on both the production and distribution of television? Discuss your own consumption habits of television and Internet.
Week 3 Trends and Flows/Convergence Media
Whether you’ve got access to one channel or 500, television has spread to virtually all parts of the world in one way or another over the last 50 years. At one level it is global and flows across national borders, at another it is local and reflects the character of its audiences.
Tutorial activity: What are the characteristics of transnational television? Does convergence media influence this? What are the global frameworks within which the study of global television may be conducted as discussed by Straubhaar? Define and discuss cultural proximity in relation to audience reception of global television?
Week 4 Television News
Beyond direct experience, television news plays an important role in shaping the viewers’ knowledge about places, people and events around the world. However, the view of the world through television news can be distorted and disorientating. This can cause dire political, cultural and social misunderstanding.
Tutorial activity: Define and discuss two of the following - News Agenda, agenda setting, gate keeping and news values. What are some key professional practices and cultural factors that influence news production? Watch television news segments and identify some of these.
Week 5 Reporting Conflict – The Power of Pictures
Television has been the battleground for fighting ideological wars. Television news frames each conflict to appeal to its target audience.
Tutorial activity: Watch coverage of a conflict by CNN and Al Jazeera and discuss how their reporting may differ. Do they reflect any of the ten proposals for war coverage discussed by Galtung?
Week 6 Commercial Imperatives - Entertainment TV
Television is a promotional space that is aimed at matching audiences with advertisers. The pressures of commercialisation have reconfigured all aspects of television to generate profits and encourage the consumption of products and services, including international sports such as the Olympics.
Tutorial Discussion: How have commercial imperatives changed the business of television? Discuss the symbiotic relationship between sports and global television networks. and the success of format programming (such as the Voice) in different markets.
Week 7 State-Funded TV Services
Public service broadcasting has traditionally aimed at social agendas associated with concepts like nation-building, education and information dissemination. In recent years these concepts have been challenged by conservative political agendas that emphasise a reduced role for government in public services.
Tutorial activity: Discuss the principles of public service broadcasting and how it contributes towards a democratic society? How is Chinese State television different to western public service broadcasting?
Week 8 TV Audience Research
Television can be found almost everywhere: from the lounge room to the airport lounge people can be found glued to it – or are they? Audience research illustrates the social, cultural, political and economic dimensions of television and just what it means to the viewer.
Tutorial Discussion: What are the differences between effects study and reception study in television research. Name some key scholars who have influenced the study of audience research. Why are they important?
Week 9 Education and Development Television
Television has played an important role in the developing world in educating and informing the population as well as in the project of nation building. While technologies may eventually blur the distinctions between television and Internet content, the old box remains the key to widespread public access to information, entertainment and communication around the world.
Tutorial Discussion: Using the case study of Doordarshan discuss the development mandate of television broadcasting in India. How can television contribute to bringing a diversity of views in pluralistic societies such as nations in Africa and the Middle East?
Week 10 Hybridity, Multiplatform and Convergence Media, Identity and TV Consumption
Many people worry about the amount of foreign TV programs that appear on their screens. This relates to the concern that exposure to foreign values, behaviours and practices will ruin local cultures and traditions. This debate remains one of the strongest themes in the study of international flows of programming.
Tutorial Discussion: How does audience identity play out in TV consumption? Does convergence play a role?
Week 11 Indigenous and Community Television
Indigenous and community groups want access to television production for cultural maintenance and social action. Aboriginal people in Australia and Canada are leading the world in the production of proactive messages for their people to counter mainstream programming.
Tutorial Discussion: Why is it important for indigenous and marginalised groups to have access to the means of television production?
Week 12 New Media and Beyond
This week we discuss how social media and new technological inventions may shape the production, dissemination and consumption of television as we know it.
Tutorial Discussion: If you were the head of television at ABC TV or Channel 7, what are the things that excite you about the future of television. What are some of the challenges that you foresee?
Week 13 Review
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Assessment tasks are aligned to the unit Learning Outcomes. Timely submission of assessment tasks is a unit requirement or penalties apply.
For unit assessment requirements and standards for this unit, please refer to the Assessment Policy (Schedule 1): https://staff.mq.edu.au/work/strategy-planning-and-governance/university-policies-and-procedures/policies/assessment
Additional information
MMCCS website https://www.mq.edu.au/about_us/faculties_and_departments/faculty_of_arts/ department_of_media_music_communication_and_cultural_studies/
MMCCS Session Re-mark Application http://www.mq.edu.au/pubstatic/public/ download/?id=167914
Information is correct at the time of publication
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