University of Sydney Handbooks - 2018 Archive

Download full 2018 archive Page archived at: Fri, 21 Sep 2018 05:39:45 +0000

Digital Cultures

Digital Cultures

Major

(i) 12 credit points of 1000-level core units
(ii) 12 credit points of 2000-level core units
(iii) 6 credit points of 3000-level core unit
(iv) 12 credit points of 3000-level selective units
(v) 6 credit points of 3000-level Interdisciplinary Project units

Minor

A minor in Digital Cultures requires at least 36 senior credit points from this table including:
(i) 12 credit points of 1000-level core units
(ii) 12 credit points of 2000-level core units
(iii) 6 credit points of 3000-level core unit
(iv) 6 credit points of 3000-level selective units

1000 level units of study

MECO1001 Introduction to Media Studies

Credit points: 6 Session: Semester 1 Classes: 2x1hr lecture/week, 1x1hr tutorial/week Assessment: 1x1200wd Essay (30%), 1x1800wd Essay (40%), 1x2hr exam (30%) Mode of delivery: Normal (lecture/lab/tutorial) day
This unit offers an introduction to the history and theory of media and communications studies. Students will gain a foundation in key concepts, methodologies and theorists in the field. They will also explore the interdisciplinary roots of media and communications studies and acquire basic research skills. By the end of the unit students should be familiar with major shifts in the history and theory of media and communications studies and with basic concepts and methodologies in the field.
MECO1002 Media and Communications Landscapes

Credit points: 6 Session: Semester 2 Classes: 1x1hr lecture/week, 1x2hr tutorial/week Assessment: 1x500wd create landscape infographic (10%), 1x750wd create and design a work profile (20%), 1x1250wd online lit review quiz (30%), 1x2000wd research essay (40%) Mode of delivery: Normal (lecture/lab/tutorial) day
This unit explores digital media and communications landscapes by teaching students to map and analyse policy settings, industry performance, and patterns of access, voice, diversity and engagement. Within this framework, the unit focuses on the immaterial and creative forms of labour found in networked landscapes, and on conceptual and practical means of negotiating workplace norms, hierarchies and routines. Students will have opportunities to extend their disciplinary literacy and create professional branding strategies using open source software and social media.

2000 level units of study

Core
ARIN2610 Internet Transformations

Credit points: 6 Session: Semester 2 Classes: 1x1hr lecture/week, 1x2hr tutorial/week Prerequisites: 18 Junior credit points in any of Anthropology, Art History, Computer Science, Design Computing, English, Gender and Culture Studies, History, Information Systems, Information Technology, Linguistics, Media and Communication, Philosophy, Psychology or Sociology or 12 credit points at 1000 level in Digital Cultures Prohibitions: ARIN2100 Assessment: 1x1000wd tutorial exerices (25%), 1x1500wd short essay (35%), 1x2000wd critical analysis and map (40%) Mode of delivery: Normal (lecture/lab/tutorial) day
The Internet is an infrastructure that supports constant industrial and social change, while also becoming progressively integrated into the routines of everyday life. Internet Transformations critically examines the online technologies, platforms and industries at the heart of these changes. It introduces key skills in analysis, evaluation and critique of these objects, situated in a historical context. It also interrogates the implications of emerging internetworked phenomena such as the internet of things, augmented reality and algorithmic cultures.
ARIN2620 Cyberworlds

Credit points: 6 Session: Semester 1 Classes: 1x2hr lecture/week, 1x1hr tutorial/week Prerequisites: 18 junior credit points in any of Anthropology, Art History, Computer Science, Design Computing, English, Gender and Culture Studies, History, Information Systems, Information Technology, Linguistics, Media and Communication, Philosophy, Psychology or Sociology or 12 credit points at 1000 level in Digital Cultures Prohibitions: ARIN2200 Assessment: 1x2000wd essay (40%), 1x1250wd take-home exercise 1 (25%),1x 1250wd take-home exercise 2 (25%), participation (10%) Mode of delivery: Normal (lecture/lab/tutorial) day
Are online encounters different from face-to-face encounters? What is the difference between the real and the virtual? How do online identities relate to offline identities? This unit of study introduces students to key perspectives, themes and debates in the expanding world of online interaction and cultural production including social media, art, games, virtual worlds, augmented reality and participatory culture. Is the term 'cyberworld' redundant in a world where online and offline experiences, cultural forms and identities have become increasingly enmeshed?

3000 level units of study

Core
ARIN3620 Researching Digital Cultures

Credit points: 6 Session: Semester 2 Classes: 1x1hr lecture/week, 1x2hr tutorial/week Prerequisites: 12 Senior credit points in Digital Cultures Prohibitions: ARIN2000 Assessment: 1x2000wd Research blog (45%), 1x2500wd Research proposal (45%), Tutorial participation (10%) Mode of delivery: Normal (lecture/lab/tutorial) day
How do people make and use new media technologies? To answer this question you need to know how to conduct research: a systematic investigation using carefully chosen and ethically sound methods. In this unit students prepare a research proposal to improve knowledge about the social implications of the latest developments in information technologies. They build their methodology by choosing a combination of methods: big data analysis; ethnography, interviews, surveys, online methods, discourse analysis, content analysis and/or case studies.
Selective
ARIN3610 Technology and Culture

Credit points: 6 Session: Semester 1 Classes: 1x2hr lecture/week, 1x1hr tutorial/week Prerequisites: 12 senior credit points in any of Digital Cultures, Anthropology, Art History, Computer Science, Design Computing, English, Gender and Culture Studies, History, Information Systems, Information Technology, Linguistics, Media and Communication, Psychology or Sociology Prohibitions: ARIN2600 Assessment: 1x1000wd Provocations and report (20%), 1x1500wd Influence analysis (30%), 1x2000wd Essay (40%), Tutorial participation (10%) Mode of delivery: Normal (lecture/lab/tutorial) day
Technology and Culture analyses the relationships between technological developments and cultural change, with a particular focus on digital media. This unit of study interrogates the changing conceptions of technology in society by tracing the influence of key works in the critical Humanities and social sciences. Through close readings and provocative discussion of advanced texts, students explore the significance of technology in social power, identity, gender, social shaping, class, space, assemblages, actor-networks, experience, thought, time, and the future.
ARHT3601 Cinematic Transformations

Credit points: 6 Session: Semester 2 Classes: 1x2-hr lecture/week, 1x1hr tutorial/week Prerequisites: 12 Senior credit points in ARHT and ARHT2656 or (ARHT2656 and 12 senior credit points in ARHT2652, ARHT2653, ARHT2655, ARHT2657, ENGL2627, ENGL2638, ENGL3604, FILM2601, HSTY2608, ICLS2637, JPNS3675, MUSC2663) or (ARIN2630 and 12 senior credit points in ARIN) Assessment: 1x1000wd montage analysis (20%), 1x750wd online group assessment task (15%), 1x2000wd research essay (35%), 1x750wd blog (20%), tutorial participation (10%) Mode of delivery: Normal (lecture/lab/tutorial) day
What is the cinematic object of the twenty-first century? Where do we locate the essence of a medium that has undergone such a radical transformation? This course examines the intersection of film, digital cinema, and new media experiences such as YouTube, machinima and mobile cinema. Where many have spoken of the death of cinema in a digital era, we will conceptualise the complexity of cinema's evolution from its earliest celluloid incarnation to the technologies of digital simulation.

Interdisciplinary project unit of study

FASS3999 Interdisciplinary Impact

Credit points: 6 Session: Semester 1,Semester 2 Classes: 1hr lecture/performance event week for 5 weeks 2hr workshop per week for 10 weeks 2hr online learning modules for 5 weeks Prerequisites: 18 credit points at 2000 level Assessment: 1x 2000 wds equivalent Mapping knowledge exercise (30%), 1x 10 minutes Collaborative Presentation (30%), 1x 2000 wds equivalent Critical reflection essay (40%) Mode of delivery: Normal (lecture/lab/tutorial) day
Note: Department permission required for enrolment
Interdisciplinarity is a key skill in fostering agility in life and work. This unit provides learning experiences that build students' skills, knowledge and understanding of the application of their disciplinary background to interdisciplinary contexts. In this unit, students will work in teams and develop interdisciplinarity skills through problem-based learning projects responding to 'real world problems'.

Honours

Honours in Digital Cultures requires 48 credit points from this table including:
(i) 12 credit points of 4000 level Honours seminar units
(ii) 36 credit points of 4000-level Honours thesis units

Honours seminar unit of study

MECO4113 Theoretical Traditions and Innovations

Credit points: 6 Session: Semester 1 Classes: 1x2hr seminar/week Assessment: 1x 1500wd class paper (25%), 1x 1000wd Wikipedia theory entry (20%), 1x 3500wd critical essay (55%) Mode of delivery: Normal (lecture/lab/tutorial) day
The unit gives students an advanced understanding of the foundational traditions in communications, media, and digital cultures. It relates these traditions to contemporary innovations, rethinking ideas to grasp present and future media and communications forms, practices, structures, and meanings. The unit features detailed reading and analysis of key ideas, texts, thinkers, and contexts.
MECO4114 Research Methods

Credit points: 6 Session: Semester 1 Classes: 1x2hr seminar/week Assessment: 1x 1500wd Thesis/Dissertation Critical Rev (25%), 1x 1500wd Methodology review (25%), 1x 3000wd Research Design Task (50%), 1x Presentation (0%) Mode of delivery: Normal (lecture/lab/tutorial) day
This unit will develop students' knowledge of key research methods used in media, communications and digital cultures research. Students will be introduced to a range of research techniques and methods, including quantitative, qualitative and mixed methods, and will have the opportunity to reflect critically on these methods through practitioner presentations and directed discussion. The assessment tasks will help students develop their skills to design and undertake a supervised research dissertation and enhance their abilities as researchers and practitioners.

Honours thesis units of study

MECO4211 Digital Cultures Honours Thesis 1

Credit points: 12 Session: Semester 1,Semester 2 Classes: 7 x 0.5hr supervision meetings/semester on average Mode of delivery: Supervision
In this unit students begin a substantial, independent research project in Digital Cultures. Regular meetings with a supervisor approved by the Media and Communications Honours Coordinator will guide your progress. Students will develop a plan for researching and writing the thesis, submit an ethics application if required, familiarize themselves with disciplinary conventions and standards, engage with relevant literature, theories and methodologies, and submit drafts at agreed times.
MECO4212 Digital Cultures Honours Thesis 2

Credit points: 24 Session: Semester 1,Semester 2 Classes: 7 x 0.5hr supervision meetings/semester on average Assessment: 1x 18000-20000wd Thesis (100%) Mode of delivery: Supervision
In this unit students complete and submit a substantial, independent research project in Digital Cultures. Regular meetings with a supervisor approved by the Media and Communications Honours Coordinator will guide their progress. Students will continue to submit drafts at agreed times, developing expertise in relevant research methods and analytical skills as well as in the subject matter of their specialist topic.

Advanced Coursework

The requirements for advanced coursework in Digital Cultures are described in the degree resolutions for the Bachelor of Arts/Bachelor of Advanced Studies.
24-36 credit points of advanced study will be included in the table for 2019.