rmit HyperText
1995::HM302 Advanced Seminar
Department of Communication Studies, Royal Melbourne Institute of
Technology University
Subject Guide
Duration:
One semester
Offered:
13 weeks
Mode:
Internal
Contact Hours:
per week:
- One one-hour lecture
- one one-hour tutorial
- one one-hour laboratory
Non-contact Hours:
Eight (dossier reading, lab practice, research for assessment submission).
Pre-requisites:
Five semesters of communication subjects
Assessment:
One research essay, maximum 3,000 words (60%) due Friday 3rd November.
Class participation (40%).
There shall be two projects required to be
completed in the
Hypertext
Lab component of the subject:
Gradings:
HD, DI, CR, PA, NN
Prescribed Text:
Subject reading list
Teaching Staff:
Subject Aims and Content:
The subject functions as a final, advanced unit to complete the
communications major requirements of the B.A. (Media Studies). As such it
is designed to draw upon, and extend, the range of topics, issues and research
approaches covered in previous communications subjects. In particular the
subject aims to develop the capacities of students to deal with complex social
problems in an analytical, non-reductionist and inter-disciplinary fashion.
The focus of the unit is the concept of communication revolutions. Put
crudely, our central question is "What difference does a new
technology/technique of communication make?" By contrast with the
short-term, individualistic and behaviourist orientation of much media effects
research, our concern is with the ways in which, and extent to which , new
communications technologies transform the social (cultural, economic, etc.)
environment.
For example, what impacts do such technologies have on
- definitions of, relations between, public and private spheres
- the dimensions of power relations and forms of political practice
- conceptions of time (relations between the present, the past and the
future) and space (here and there, centre and periphery, etc.)
- constructions of the body, the individual self, modes of social interaction
- work/leisure patterns
- age, gender and class distinctions
- cultural hierarchies (high/low, elite/popular, etc.)
The subject is divided into two blocks:
A. (Weeks 1-6) Introduces various versions, and
critiques, of `communications revolution' theories and sketches in some
arguments about the historical impacts of new technologies (specifically, the
printing press and the first wave of electronic communications). Are general
distinctions between oral, print and electronic media of communication
productive or misleading?
B. (Weeks 7-12) Considers contemporary arguments
regarding digitised information technologies in relation to:
(a) the
characteristics of consumer society; and
(b) debates over post-modernism.
Is print culture doomed? Do new technologies fundamentally transform earlier
electronic media or merely act as extensions of them?
Subject Organisation:
This year we are introducing a new practical, laboratory-based component to
The Advanced Seminar. This is designed both to augment the student skills that
the course seeks to develop and to focus some of the broader thematic concerns
of the subject itself. The new component deals with hypertext writing and
publication. After an introduction in Week One, the class will be divided into
three groups for the instructional labs in hypertext markup language which will
run from Week 2 to Week 6 in the PowerMac Laboratory (6.4.06).
Hopefully, after this initial instructional period, the class can re-form into
project groups to work on
Hypertext
and World Wide Web publication in the latter half of the semester. But,
this is an experiment and we'll play it by ear.
Due to the introduction of the labs the normal two hour classes will be
converted to one hour tutorials for the duration of the semester.
Lecture/Tutorial Schedule:
BLOCK A
1 17 July Introduction
2 24 July Communication epochs:
the McLuhan-Ong thesis
3 31 July Communications technologies:
cultural contexts
4 7 August From scribal to print cultures:
the initial impacts of
printing
5 14 August The uses of print:
reading publics and print genres
6 21 August Early electronic media:
the electronic mythos
7 28 August Communication technologies and domestic consumption
BLOCK B
8 4 September Digital information and technological convergence
9 11 September Images of interactivity
10 18 September Hypermedia and postmodernism
[25-29 September MID SEMESTER VACATION]
11 2 October Hypertext: reconfiguring authors, texts and audiences
12 9 October Internet and virtual communities
13 16 October Reassessing communications revolution
Assessment:
(1) Major essay (60%) 2,500 - 3.000 words due Friday 3 November.
Sample topics will be circulated but students are encouraged to formulate
their own topics dealing with issues raised during the course.
(2) Class participation (40%) relates to exercises to be done in
tutorial and
laboratory
sessions.
Prescribed Reading:
HM302
reading list
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