Welcome to MEDIA101 - Media, Culture and Society.

This paper explores the relationships between media and contemporary culture, with an emphasis on digital modes of communication.

With the ubiquity of smartphones media devices can feel very personal, like extensions of our body and brain and involving our emotions. However, these devices also inhabit a wider context where media systems and technologies have enormous economic, social, cultural, and political impacts upon contemporary life, but are themselves also shaped by these factors.

This paper will introduce students to some key critical frameworks for considering the relationships between media, individuals , and society, such as production, distribution, history, identity, and ethics. These frameworks are an important background for other Media Studies and Arts papers, and for working in media-related industries.

The learning objectives for this course include the following:

• to encourage students to reflect upon the complex relationships between 'media' 'the individual' and 'culture';
• to provide strategies so that students recognise that all forms of media are shaped by historical, social, cultural, economic, political and technological factors;
• to focus on current issues regarding the media;
• to encourage students to reflect upon their own position, and the position of others, in respect of contemporary media;
• to extend student vocabulary and terminology, in order for them to talk about media in an informed manner;
• to acquire important information about the media in respect to the concepts of identity, communities, citizenship and work;
• to introduce students to skills necessary for critically engaging with the study of media

In this paper we introduce a variety of perspectives on the complex and constantly changing relationships between media, the individual and society. The paper is structured around a series of topics that are focused on introducing key concepts and issues related to these relationships.

We discuss media in both current and historical contexts based on the contention tha we cannot understand what is happening now in (and the world generally) without having knowledge of what went before. Together, we examine past, present and future implications of the role of media on individual and collective life.

Lectures will be delivered face-to-face, as well as being recorded and uploaded via Panopto to Moodle. The material will be available in time for students to view it before attending face-to-face tutorials. The tutorials aim to devlop critical perspectives in an interactive way.

Students are expected to consult the Reading List regularly: some assessment tasks might include elements of the suggested readings.

Please use Moodle as your primary source of information and read all announcements. If you have questions please contact me as Convenor, and also your class representative.

If you want to contact me outside of class my address is: ann.hardy@waikato.ac.nz. The title of your email should contain the paper code. Please note that I do not answer emails in the weekends.

Please note that some aspects of the paper might have to be amended if circumstances require it. Potentially there might be slight changes in lecture content or topic order. All care will be taken to not disturb your study and the planning of the assessments.

Weekly readings are linked through Moodle. These readings will be discussed in lectures and tutorials; some of these readings will form the focus of your Opinion Paper. Supplementary readings and other resources will also be supplied to assist learning and assessments.