Units

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Sample subject outline - Semester 2 2012

Note: Subject outlines often change before the semester begins. Below is a sample outline.

Rationale

This unit expands and builds on the connections made between new media and everyday life for the individual in KCB206 to include the relationships between individuals and communities that are afforded, extended, amplified and intensified as well as attenuated by new media technologies and practices. It accomplishes this through an exploration of contemporary worlds - the world of connections; the world of play; the world of commerce and the world of politics - with new media lenses.

Alongside the concepts underlying these explorations, you will also examine, confront and challenge the notion of the boundaries surrounding new media such as the limits of embodiment, nation-states and their infrastructures of laws and economics. The knowledge you gain and processes you learn in this unit will add to your professional, academic and creative development.

Aims

This unit aims to broaden and deepen your understandings of contemporary theories, thinking and debates surrounding new media technologies and practices. You will experience as well as explore how new media are employed to construct, organise, convene and maintain communities for various purposes and build your capacity to analyse the implications of such usages for the societies in which these communities are embedded.

Objectives

On completion of this unit, you should be able to:
1. Critically evaluate the potentials and tensions that new media hold for communities, societies and nations
2. Understand and unpack the more advanced concepts, theories and controversies surrounding new media technologies and practices
3. Critically analyse emerging and current trends in new media.

Content

The unit addresses content such as:
· Histories (temporalities) of new media
· Geographies (spatialities) of new media
· Understandings of new media collectives
· Politics of/in/surrounding new media
· Implications of new media on the intersecting spheres of law, regulation, commerce and politics
· New media beyond the first world.

Approaches to Teaching and Learning

Key concepts will be introduced and discussed in formal lectures. These will be built on further with discussions, student presentations and activities at the weekly two-hour tutorials. These will also be directed at supporting student work-in-progress on assessment tasks.

Assessment

LATE ASSIGNMENTS
An assignment submitted after the due date without an approved extension will not be marked. If you are unable to complete your assignment on time, you should submit on time whatever work you have done.

Faculty Assessment Information
To access complete Creative Industries Faculty Assessment Information please refer to the Blackboard site for this unit.

Grading Scale - You will be awarded a final grade on a 1 to 7 scaleFORMATIVE ASSESSMENT
You will receive formative feedback on your progress in this unit during tutorials and discussions throughout the semester.
Weight 0%

Assessment name: (Applied) Case Study
Description: This is a class effort and will involve you working in teams as well as individually. In addition to the overall functioning of the wiki as a communal task, you are expected to contribute most heavily to the area that is the chosen subject of your case study.
Relates to objectives: 1, 2, 3
Weight: 40%
Internal or external: Internal
Group or individual: Group with Individual Component
Due date: TBA

Assessment name: Self-assessment
Description: Wiki contribution based on a pre-determined set of criteria including:
- critical evaluation of sources cited
- professionalism
- group work
- self-assessment.
Relates to objectives: 1, 2, 3
Weight: 10%
Internal or external: Internal
Group or individual: Individual
Due date: TBA

Assessment name: Essay
Description: You are to select and track a current issue developing in any of the worlds of connections, play, commerce and politics, and write an essay on how you predict the issue will develop based on the histories and theories on media, old and new.
Relates to objectives: 1, 2, 3
Weight: 50%
Internal or external: Internal
Group or individual: Individual
Due date: TBA

Academic Honesty

QUT is committed to maintaining high academic standards to protect the value of its qualifications. To assist you in assuring the academic integrity of your assessment you are encouraged to make use of the support materials and services available to help you consider and check your assessment items. Important information about the university's approach to academic integrity of assessment is on your unit Blackboard site.

A breach of academic integrity is regarded as Student Misconduct and can lead to the imposition of penalties.

Resource materials

The unit readings will be held on the unit's CMD, which you can find under 'Learning Resources' on the BB site. Items with a URL can be accessed through their own URLs and not through the CMD.

Risk assessment statement

There are no out of the ordinary risks associated with this unit.

Disclaimer - Offer of some units is subject to viability, and information in these Unit Outlines is subject to change prior to commencement of semester.

Last modified: 25-May-2012