Media, Culture and Technology
Media, Culture and Technology is offered as a major or a minor in the Bachelor of Arts, and provides students with a progressive understanding of the social, cultural and phenomenological impacts of media and communications technologies in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.
Download the Media, Culture and Technology Information Flyer (PDF) (594 Kb)
Career Opportunities
Graduates from the Major in Media, Culture and Technology are well equipped for the creative, cultural and media industries, including diverse areas of the public or private sector involved in the use of contemporary media technologies. Expertise extends into a variety of other areas such as education and specialised information services. Career options include: media producer, arts management, communications management, communications and cultural policy in public and private sector, and education.
Honours Program
Honours is an extra year of study, usually following immediately on from a pass degree, that combines aspects of undergraduate study with those of post-graduate research. Studying Honours in the School of the Arts and Media at UNSW offers a chance to develop your research and professional skills guided by staff who are passionate about research and the development of new researchers.
Program Information
The aim of this major is to provide students with a progressive understanding of the social, cultural and phenomenological impacts of media and communication technologies in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. The sequence starts with an accessible introduction to ways of thinking about the emergence and consequences of two technologies that most students take for granted: television and telephony. Students then progress through a number of pathways and perspectives that move towards the present reality of 'intermedia'; that is, complex global media, information and communication systems and networks that people access through a variety of increasingly digital technologies.
In short, the focus of Media, Culture and Technology Major is on media in a period of transition. In terms of learning skills, the major develops conceptual frameworks and modes of analysis through which students can understand and explain not only changes in the media, but also reasons for those changes and their social and affective consequences.
Aims of the Major
The subject-specific aims of the BA Major in Media, Culture and Technology are:
• Student outcomes at the end of Level 1:
• students will have competencies in key concepts in media theory
• the ability to critically analyse the social and cultural dynamics of media technologies and their impacts on everyday life and experience
• skills in basic research and analytical writing
• the ability to reflect on their own media practices and the ways in which their understandings of self and world are formed in relation to media.
Student outcomes by the end of Level 2:
• students will have an understanding of the interdisciplinary nature of media studies
• an ability to reflect on the relationship between media and cultural organizations and political, technological and economic processes
• an understanding of the networked nature of media and the balance between local and global media
• the ability to analyse different systems of representation and aesthetic practices and the role of diverse audiences and users in this process
• skills in reading and using media theory and researching media.
Student outcomes by the end of Level 3:
• students will be able to understand the dynamics of intermedia and emerging media forms as they are played out in relation to questions of aesthetics, politics, technology, transnational media and performance
• they will also have well-developed skills in analytical and critical thinking, independent and in-depth research methods and an appreciation of the pivotal role of media in contemporary social organization.
• be able to research and explore key areas of the media industries they are focussing upon
Discipline Convenor: Ramaswami Harindranath
2012 Courses
Level 1 Courses
PLEASE NOTE: ARTS1090 - Media, Culture and Everyday Life is the compulsory Gateway Course for MCT.
Please check the rules of your program before enrolling in any courses listed. For program rules, please visit the UNSW Online Handbook.
Resources & Important Documents
- Assignment Cover Sheet (PDF)
- Assignment E Cover Sheet (Turnitin version)
- Clash Management Form (PDF) (81 Kb)
