Undergraduate Units
Credit Points: 3
In the last 30 years, our understanding of culture has been radically transformed. The aim of this unit is to give students an accessible overview of these changes. Problems to be studied are: the relationship between 'high' and 'popular' culture; how we make 'meaning' from texts; the influence of gender, class, sexuality, race and ethnicity on the production and consumption of texts; and the ways texts construct, deconstruct and reconstruct us as individual 'subjects'. Students will learn the key ideas and terminology of recent debates, while working with a wide variety of texts. Media to be discussed include literature, film, TV, the visual arts and music. This unit is designed as an introduction to recent developments in critical and cultural studies, but it would be of value to anyone interested in the current reconsideration of the humanities and social sciences in general.
Get more information on CUL100 from the MQ handbook.
Credit Points: 3
This unit aims to develop an understanding of some of the main contemporary debates concerning the Australian media. The unit surveys these debates each week by focussing on a medium and recent questions raised regarding the medium.
Get more information on MAS104 from the MQ handbook.
Convenor: Catherine Simpson
Download unit outlineCredit Points: 3
This unit assesses some of the major transformations and continuities in the media environment of the early twenty-first century. Topics covered include: technological convergence; global media flows; regulation and ownership of media industries; the challenges to publicly-funded media in an increasingly global and digital media environment; new and emerging media industries, including the "creative industries" discourse; key discourses and frameworks for analysing media audiences.
Get more information on MAS105 from the MQ handbook.
Convenor: Sherman Young
Download unit outlineMAS110 Introduction to Digital Media Production
Credit Points: 3
The aim of this unit is to introduce students to digital media production in a research-led practice-based mode. The unit will combine work on the conceptual, aesthetic and technical elements underlaying digital media production exploring the ways in which contemporary media are both converging and marking out new territories. Students will gain experience in analysing and working with the written word, sound and image in a digital environment.
Get more information on MAS110 from the MQ handbook.
Convenor: Alex Munt
Download unit outlineMAS208 Multimedia Theory and Production 1
Credit Points: 4
Entry to this unit is restricted.This unit explores definitions of multimedia and analyses key opportunities and threats posed by the new media technologies. Students will also gain hands-on experience in using new media forms and developing basic web-based multimedia projects -- allowing the interrogation of multimedia cultures using theoretical ideas introduced in the unit.
Get more information on MAS208 from the MQ handbook.
Convenor: Steve Collins
Download unit outlineMAS209 Multimedia Theory and Production 2
Credit Points: 4
Entry to this unit is restricted. This unit examines how multimedia producers might explore the possibilities raised in MAS208. It examines multimedia contexts and explores key processes in the development of interactive multimedia. Students will apply these ideas by developing of web-based multimedia projects using industry-standard software.
Get more information on MAS209 from the MQ handbook.
Convenor: Steve Collins
Download unit outlineMAS220 Writing: Screen Media 1 (formerly MAS202)
Credit Points: 4
This unit offers an introduction to writing for film and television. The unit will provide an overview of writing processes and structures for both non-fiction and fiction film and video. During the course, each student will research and write a short film script.
Get more information on MAS220 from the MQ handbook.
Convenor: Kathryn Millard
Download unit outlineMAS221 News and Current Affairs (formerly MAS203)
Credit Points: 4
This unit provides a critical analysis of news and current affairs across different media forms. Topics covered include news values, narrative, the Fourth Estate, the doctrine of objectivity, the public sphere, tabloid media and moral panics. An additional emphasis is on the roles of different media technologies in the global news environment and their possible uses in the future shaping of news and current affairs.
Get more information on MAS221 from the MQ handbook.
Convenor: Greg Levine
Download unit outlineMAS222 Introduction to the Cinema (formerly MAS205)
Credit Points: 4
This unit is an introduction to the history and aesthetics of narrative film. Lectures, in conjunction with weekly film screenings, consider aspects such as the development of film narrative, Hollywood cinema of the 1940's and 50's, and European and American innovations from the 1950's through to the 90's.
Get more information on MAS222 from the MQ handbook.
Download unit outlineMAS223 Radio Production (formerly MAS206)
Credit Points: 4
This unit introduces core principles and practices of radio production, with a particular emphasis on public and community radio broadcasting. The lecture program covers theories and issues relating to media processes and analysis of radio, and forms the basis for the practical components of the unit. The workshop component comprises hands-on production classes and the use of digital facilities and equipment, especially digital audio workstations and Pro Tools software. This unit concentrates on techniques and skills of recording, editing and producing short items for use in radio broadcast programs (for example on 2SER-FM, SBS Radio and ABC) or online radio services.
Get more information on MAS223 from the MQ handbook.
Convenor: Peter Higgins
Download unit outlineMAS224 Advanced Radio Broadcasting (formerly MAS207)
Credit Points: 4
This unit extends the principles and practices of radio production covered in MAS206. This unit aims to give you an advanced understanding of principles and practices of radio production, with a particular emphasis on public and community radio broadcasting. The MAS207 Lecture Program will cover principles of radio broadcasting programming, program-making and production. Practical workshops will incorporate skills and techniques of devising live-to-air program material, location recordings, presentation elements and station promotional items. The assignments will be focused on studio-based work and radio 2SER-FM station-specific creative outcomes.
Get more information on MAS224 from the MQ handbook.
Download unit outlineMAS225 Writing: Print Media 1 (formerly MAS210)
Credit Points: 4
Entry to this unit is restricted. An introduction to the practices of writing for text-based media, such as magazines, newspapers and online publications. This unit concentrates on developing skills in writing non-fiction articles. Research skills receive special attention. Various ethical issues and concepts are explored.
Get more information on MAS225 from the MQ handbook.
Convenor: Peter Doyle
Download unit outlineMAS226 Writing: Print Media 2 (formerly MAS211)
Credit Points: 4
Entry to this unit is restricted. This unit develops further the skills necessary for writing for text-based media and other non-fiction prose. The emphasis is on writing magazine-style feature stories. The different personae a writer can adopt are explored, as is the question of writing for different kinds of audiences.
Get more information on MAS226 from the MQ handbook.
Download unit outlineMAS227 Screen Production 1 (formerly MAS212)
Credit Points: 4
Entry to this unit is restricted. An introduction to the processes by which film, television and video images are developed, produced and circulated. The unit focuses on the relationship between sound and image in the development of screen language.
Get more information on MAS227 from the MQ handbook.
Convenor: Maree Delofski
Download unit outlineMAS228 Screen Production 2 (formerly MAS213)
Credit Points: 4
Entry to this unit is restricted. A further introduction to the process by which film/television and video images are developed and produced. The unit focuses on the development and production of short narrative fiction.
Get more information on MAS228 from the MQ handbook.
MAS229 Media Forms: From Alphabet to Internet (formerly MAS214)
Credit Points: 4
This unit explores the relationships between media, technologies, and social and cultural change. The unit aims to develop both a historical perspective on the contemporary media environment and an understanding of the media as technologies. It examines the introduction, development and uses of a number of key communications technologies (including the printing press, the telegraph, broadcasting and the Net). It also considers some of the most important ways in which the relationships between media technologies and social or cultural change have been understood.
Get more information on MAS229 from the MQ handbook.
Convenor: Sherman Young
MAS230 Theories of Writing for the Media (formerly MAS215)
Credit Points: 4
This unit will introduce students to some of the major theories concerning writing for the media, and encourage them to explore how these may have had an impact on their own writing practices. Some of the theorists whose work may be covered include de Saussure, Bakhtin, Barthes, Derrida, de Man, Lacan, Cixous, Foucault, Kristeva and others.
Get more information on MAS230 from the MQ handbook.
Download unit outlineCredit Points: 3
Students wishing to apply for MAS300 need to supply an expression of interest to the Media Department by February 12th due to a limited number of places in this unit. Students wishing to arrange their own Internship Program must first make an appointment with the Head of Department to discuss program feasibility.
Get more information on MAS300 from the MQ handbook.
Convenor: Renata Murawska
Download unit outlineMAS306 Modernism and Postmodernism
Credit Points: 4
This unit examines various general theories of Modernism and Postmodernism while considering the historical context. We analyse Postmodernism through a study of contemporary art, media and popular culture.
Get more information on MAS306 from the MQ handbook.
Convenor: John Potts
Download unit outlineMAS308 Advanced Multimedia Theory and Production 1
Credit Points: 4
This is an intermediate level unit exploring the processes by which multimedia products are developed, produced and distributed. It introduces applied theoretical approaches to the design and implementation of multimedia solutions. Using advanced multimedia production tools, students will produce successful multimedia in the context of those ideas.
Get more information on MAS308 from the MQ handbook.
Convenor: Sherman Young
Download unit outlineMAS309 Advanced Multimedia Theory and Production 2
Credit Points: 4
Further study of the development and production of multimedia as pursued in MAS308.
Get more information on MAS309 from the MQ handbook.
Convenor: Steve Collins
Download unit outlineCredit Points: 3
This unit is intended to provide B Media students with the opportunity to work in a special area of interest at a higher level. It is particularly useful as a preparation for students who intend to do Honours or Postgraduate work in Media, although any student who wishes to specialise in an area of Media at a higher level may enrol in this unit upon obtaining special permission prior to enrolment from the member of staff convening the seminar unit. Students who take this unit will typically pursue a major project in their area of special interest in either theory or production. Students will either write a research project (usually of approximately 5000 words) or produce an appropriate media production under the supervision of the unit coordinator.
Get more information on MAS316 from the MQ handbook.
Convenor: John Potts
MAS320 Media Identities (formerly MAS302)
Credit Points: 4
This unit introduces students to key models used to investigate a range of identities in relation to media and communications. It covers major feminist theoretical perspectives as well as recent approaches to masculinity , sexuality and race. These approaches are applied to media forms and practices including film, print media, news, advertising, sports journalism and the Internet. The unit has an emphasis on the Australian media milieu and covers concepts of identity in terms of self-realisation, social media spaces, representational practices and processes of gender mediation.
Get more information on MAS320 from the MQ handbook.
Download unit outlineMAS321 Screens, Images, Ideas (formerly MAS304)
Credit Points: 4
This unit analyses recent issues in film culture by screenings of fictional and non-fictional films (and/or television, and video/DVD texts) from a range of countries. Typical topics covered include: contemporary Hollywood, global Hollywood, film franchises and revenue streams, film and other media, film tie-ins, cult and canonical cinema, independent cinema, exploitation cinema, national cinemas.
Get more information on MAS321 from the MQ handbook.
Convenor: Noel King
Download unit outlineMAS322 Culture and Technology (formerly MAS307)
Credit Points: 4
This unit explores the complex relation between technology and culture. Our primary focus is on creative expression. We analyse the ways in which artists have used and represented technology. Broader social, political and cultural issues regarding technology are considered in this specific context.
Get more information on MAS322 from the MQ handbook.
Convenor: John Potts
Download unit outlineMAS323 Writing: Print Media 3 (formerly MAS310)
Credit Points: 4
Entry to this unit is restricted. An intermediate unit to develop students' understanding and mastery of the processes writing and print production. There will be an emphasis on creative expression and the techniques used in fiction writing.
Get more information on MAS323 from the MQ handbook.
Convenor: Willa McDonald
Download unit outlineMAS324 Writing: Print Media 4 (formerly MAS311)
Credit Points: 4
Entry to this unit is restricted. An advanced unit to explore the genres of non-fiction writing, with particular emphasis on the use of literary techniques to enhance writing and engage audiences.
Get more information on MAS324 from the MQ handbook.
Download unit outlineMAS325 Advanced Screen Production 1 (formerly MAS312)
Credit Points: 4
Entry to this unit is restricted. This unit focuses on the development and production of short documentary works.
Get more information on MAS325 from the MQ handbook.
Convenor: Maree Delofski
MAS326 Advanced Screen Production 2 (formerly MAS313)
Credit Points: 4
Entry to this unit is restricted. Further study of the development and production of fiction, non-fiction and non-narrative film/video genres.
Get more information on MAS326 from the MQ handbook.
Download unit outlineMAS327 Writing: Screen Media 2 (formerly MAS314)
Credit Points: 4
Entry to this unit is restricted. MAS314 aims to build on screenwriting skills and concepts introduced in MAS202. It will explore writing strategies for film and television genres including drama, melodrama and comedy. Over the course of the unit, each student will develop a short script. But, while MAS314 is primarily a "hands on" screenwriting unit, it will also critically examine screenwriting templates popularised by contemporary script gurus. In this way, it aims to assist students to develop the skills to critically evaluate their own and others' screenwriting.
Get more information on MAS327 from the MQ handbook.
Download unit outlineMAS328 Contemporary World Cinemas (formerly MAS315)
Credit Points: 4
Contemporary World Cinemas engages with specialist areas of film theory in diverse social and cultural contexts. It deals with the question of alternative aesthetics in films produced outside the Hollywood mainstream. In any given semester, Contemporary World Cinemas will concentrate on one or more of the various international "cinemas of the moment", those forms of cinema that are exciting widespread critical attention. Students are introduced to concepts such as "national cinemas", "third cinema", "accented cinema", "postcolonial cinema" and "diasporic transnational cinema".
Get more information on MAS328 from the MQ handbook.
Download unit outlineMAS395 Public Relations 1 (formerly MAS389)
Credit Points: 4
Entry to this unit is restricted.This unit looks at the way businesses, community groups and government bodies use communications tools to promote themselves through media and in managing relations with significant publics. It examines various theories useful for understanding PR processes and effects, and the history of public relations as a particular branch of communication knowledge and practice. The unit will examine case studies of communication strategies employed by businesses and other organisations.
Get more information on MAS395 from the MQ handbook.
Convenor: Renata Murawska
Download unit outlineMAS396 Public Relations 2 (formerly MAS390)
Credit Points: 4
Entry to this unit is restricted.This unit is designed to build on the knowledge gained in MAS389 Public Relations I, and it focuses on developing practical PR skills. Students will work on developing a PR/communications plan for a "real-life" communications problem to present it as a PR "pitch". Presentation, persuasive and strategic planning skills are the main assessment emphasis in MAS390.
Get more information on MAS396 from the MQ handbook.
Download unit outlineMAS441 Honours (Writing) - Journeys and Visitations
Credit Points:
This is a largely theoretical subject that asks students to identify and critique key issues raised in the production of writings that concern place, belonging, travel and movement. In particular, the students are asked to critically analyse and theorise travel writing that has been written:
- As an avenue of self-discovery as well as ?discovery? and comment upon the wider world,
- to interrogate the legacies of colonialism,
- to address environmental concerns,
- to critique uneven power relations between groups of people And to describe and assess the social and cultural influences that shape such writings, while evaluating and debating the various theoretical positions that influence them.
Get more information on MAS441 from the MQ handbook.
Convenor: Willa McDonald
Download unit outlineCredit Points: 3
The aim of this unit is to introduce students to the theory and practice of university study, especially as it is relevant to the disciplines of Media, Critical and Cultural Studies, and International Communication. It will combine work on the concepts, values and ethics behind academic work in those disciplines with a practical introduction to research methods, writing and presentation, group work, planning and organisation, creative thinking and intercultural competency. There will be a balance between (1) work in researching and critiquing the history, place and meaning of university study and (2) focussed practice in skills and techniques necessary for success at university and beyond.
Get more information on MCS100 from the MQ handbook.
Convenor: Nicole Matthews