Category: teaching
#BCM110: Representation and Interpretation
This week’s topic is Representation and Interpretation of texts.
For this week, we will be learning how to decode images using Semiotic theory.
Simple Explanation – Signs, Signifers, Signified
John Oliver – Arbitrary Sign Trump
How images can cause controversy – what meanings might this image have for different audiences?
ACTIVITY: In pairs, interpret one of these images as a practice for this week’s blog post:
This week’s blogging assignment:
-Locate an example of a complex image
-Discuss the denotation (what is there) and the connotation (what it means)
-Is it possible to read this image in more than one way?
Recommended reading – Semiotics for beginners
Welcome to BCM110 tutorials
Welcome to your first BCM110 tutorial
Unpacking Media Effects Theory: What does media ‘do’ to audiences, rather than what does the audience do with media?
This episode of The Simpsons (where Marge crusades against cartoon violence) is a good example of a satirical rendering of a serious social issue blamed on the media .
This week’s reading is ’10 things wrong with the Media Effects Model’ by David Gauntlett. You can find this on the BCM 110 Moodle site under Week 2.
BCM289: Government Support in Building Media Industries
BCM 332: Censorship at Home
HAVE A LOOK AT THIS CARTOON – what do you think it is trying to say/critique?
Self censorship: most powerful?
Free Speech:
WATCH Waleed Aly present on Free Speech
Australia – we don’t actually have a bill of rights that protects free speech – key difference from America – so a bit of a grey area, since we do not have specific legislation to protect!!
Free Speech after Charlie Hebdo:
#BCM241: Cinemas – Strangers in Public
Hagerstrand’s three human constraints… and carpool karaoke with FLOTUS
- Capability (can I get there?)
- Coupling (can I get there at the right time?)
- Authority (am I allowed there?)
Hagerstrand’s Time Geography: http://escholarship.org/uc/item/2t75b8sj#page-1
Further reading: Jancovich, M. (2011) “Time, Scheduling and Cinema Going”. Media International Australia. No 139: p 88-95.
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1329878X1113900112
Cinema spaces
Audience participation at cult cinema events is counter to the typical discourse on cinema viewing:
The end of cinema?
or the evolution of the ‘cinema event’?
Cinema as a consumption of place (see Hubbard, 2003) – Gold class, boutique cinemas.
Consider the consumption of space this week, as we ask you to plan and attend the cinema – how did Hagerstrand’s constraints come into play?
BCM332: The War on Information
If time (or in your own time) Watch this – Riz Ahmed makes the link between representation, and information.
Have a look at: https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/about/
Where do you get your information from?
Do you trust it?
Peer Feedback on Case Studies – some useful links:
Strategies to enhance peer feedback
Guidelines for students – peer review
#BCM332: On and Behind the Screen: Why Representation Matters
Tutorials:
- Tips on Peer teaching
- Time to work shop your case studies
- Time to spend with Peer Teaching groups
- REMINDER
- First 500 part of case study due in Moodle this WED 9/8/17, 5pm (upload link to your blog).
- You will not receive a grade until the final submission on 6/9/17 – but I will provide feedback for you to revise.
ACTIVITY – REPRESENTATION.
As I mentioned in the lecture, this week, Netflix has started the #FirsttimeIsawMe hashtag as a way to promote their series Dear White People.
Watch this.
http://mashable.com/2017/08/01/netflix-dwp-firsttimeisawme/#FQgt7yH9xkq1
WATCH:
Christopher Bell TED talk on female superhero merchandise.
What are your thoughts on this in relation to representation?
Do you think there is a responsibility of companies to represent characters equally?
https://www.ted.com/talks/christopher_bell_bring_on_the_female_superheroes#t-2078
TIPS ON PEER TEACHING
The main things I would suggest
- a variety of activities
- things you can do in small groups – and hopefully have students talk to one another – try to make it interactive.
- As you will see in the outline, feel free to bring handouts, show the class any visual material and have them discuss. At the end of each tutorial, come and see me if you need any handouts printed etc, and I can do this for you before class.
- LOOK AT THE COURSE OUTLINE – lots of resources with ideas! Here are a few more:
http://www.otago.ac.nz/hedc/staff/tutor/start/
WATCH:
https://ablconnect.harvard.edu/group-cooperative-learning-students-classroom-leaders
#BCM241: Media Audiences and Ethnography
Additional sources for this week’s tutorial:
http://www.seevibes.com/en/tv-audience-measurement-for-dummies-tv-ratings-101/
Click to access Frigo_MIT-MEL_SocialTV.pdf
(from 2.55)
BCM332: UNESCO, diversity and the digital divide
The course is centred around two aims:
To examine strategies and campaigns to address global inequalities in media and information flows; and
To explore the rights and responsibilities of global media citizenship through case studies of media regulation, and citizens’ media initiatives.
It is a good idea to keep coming back to these ideas, and refer back to them as a touchstone throughout the semester, as you write your case studies, and plan out your activities for peer teaching. Ask yourself – how do the examples you have chosen relate back to these aims?
The digital divide – Broadband access in India. Watch this:
What did you learn from this?
How might it relate to the issue of the ‘digital divide’?
Have a look at this report on digital inclusion in Australia.
- What did you discover?
- What can a document like this tell us about the reality of digital access in Australia?
- Thinking critically, what voices are absent from this report?
Renée Middlemost 
