Study

Courses in media history offered at undergraduate and postgraduate level at Australian universities. Subjects include the history of journalism and news, film history, and twentieth century popular culture.

Charles Sturt University
Macquarie University, Sydney
Monash University
University of Canberra
University of Melbourne
University of New South Wales, Sydney

Charles Sturt University

HST212: Film and History

http://www.csu.edu.au/handbook/handbook09/subjects/HST212.html

This subject examines the ways in which films shape the collective memory. Students will consider movies’ portrayal of political and social change, war and society, class, race, ethnicity and gender, and national identity. Close attention will be given to the historical contexts in which films were produced. The subject also examines the nature and value of movies as historical sources. A range of significant films from Europe, America, Australia and the Third World will be viewed.

COM226:  Media: History and Society 

http://www.csu.edu.au/handbook/handbook09/subjects/COM226.html

This subject examines media development from the late nineteenth century to the present. It introduces students to the relevant historical context, analyses evolving relationships between media and society and between different media, and focuses on key issues concerning media ownership and control, organisation, use and operation. It is designed to provide students in visual and performing arts courses with an understanding of the significance of the media in the modern and contemporary world.

Macquarie University, Sydney

HIST243 & HIST366: History on Film

http://www.modhist.mq.edu.au/undergraduate/units/hist243.html

Many people gain much of their knowledge of history through film and television. In this course, students will be invited to think about the promise and problems of history on film. Through lectures, film screenings and discussions, students will explore how images are selected and arranged, whether it is possible for the filmmaker to tell an interesting and plausible historical story and show that historical ideas are open to debate, and consider the advantages and disadvantages of film as a medium for history. This unit will be of interest to students from all parts of the University.

Staff Contact: Dr Michelle Arrow

HIST265 & HIST365: From Hula Hoops to Heroin Chic: Popular Culture Since the Fifties

http://www.modhist.mq.edu.au/undergraduate/units/MHIS365.html

This unit will present a cultural history of Great Britain, Australia and the United States from the beginning of the fifties until the end of the millennium. The unit will particularly focus on how class, gender and race have shaped the experience of popular culture throughout this period. Film/Television/Music and Music Video will be used in this unit to evoke seminal moments in popular culture. Students will be encouraged to think about their own experience of popular culture historically.

Staff Contact: Associate Professor Mary Spongberg and Dr Michelle Arrow

MHPG915: Bulletin to Big Brother: The Media in Australia Since 1880

http://www.modhist.mq.edu.au/postgraduate/units/mhpg915.html

Exploring the Australian media, this unit begins in 1880 with the launch of the Bulletin, legendary for its radical nationalism, and concludes with reality television, a contemporary media phenomenon. It investigates the print radio and television sectors, considering their audiences; the role of gender in media content and workplaces; and the media’s political interventions.

Post-graduate level

Staff Contact: Associate Professor Bridget Griffen-Foley

MHPG916: Australian Popular Culture from the Fifties to Now

http://www.modhist.mq.edu.au/postgraduate/units/mhpg916.html

A survey of Australian popular culture from the 1950s to now with an emphasis on its place in everyday life and its wider meanings. The unit examines the changing roles played by television, radio, popular music, film, print media and new media encouraging students to think about their own experiences of popular culture historically.

Post-graduate level

When Offered: Semester 1, 2009

Staff Contact: Dr Michelle Arrow

HIST480: Modern History Honours: Media and Methods

http://online.mq.edu.au/am/unit_list.html?maxlevels=2&department=7406#7406

History study at undergraduate level develops a range of generic skills: this honours unit extends those skills into new and exciting areas. This unit consists of nine, two-hour workshops over the semester: including sessions on history and radio, history and television, writing for non-specialist audiences, web designs and history and museums. Taught by staff in the Department of Modern History, the Department of Media, and specialist industry professionals, these introductory workshops will offer a glimpse into the ways history can be practised outside academic environments, and the ways in which these methodologies and skills can enhance and enrich academic work. This unit is open to Honours students in the Departments of Modern History and Media. Assessment consists of a review of a film/exhibition/television series or other piece of public history, and a longer project proposal for a hypothetical (or actual) public history project.

Honours level, restricted entry

When Offered: Online Learning
Staff Contact: Dr Michelle Arrow

Monash University

COM 3240 Australian Media Histories

In this unit students consider the key social, political and technological contexts in the development of the Australian media, and its significance within Australian life. It investigates the growth of the print, radio, television, popular music and cinema industries and accompanying national contexts including media ownership patterns, media policy settings and audience formations/desires. The subject examines both the building of forums for national debate, but also how the media industries assisted in the construction of nationhood. Through the study of different histories of media and approaches to media history, students gain an understanding of contemporary local media landscapes.

http://www.monash.edu.au/pubs/2009handbooks/units/COM3240.html

Contact: Dr Shane Homan

University of Canberra

7004: Communication History

http://www.canberra.edu.au/courses/index.cfm?action=detail&subjectid=7004&year=2008

This unit considers the relation between communication history, media history and collective memory. In particular, it studies community responses to the introduction of new media, beginning with print, and progressing through photography, telegraphy, telephony, radio, cinema, television, video, and the internet and convergent media. Each medium is situated within its cultural and social history as well as its technological context. The unit will focus specifically upon the development of cultural anxiety in relation to the introduction of new media across history, considering both public fear and fascination with these new forms. It will argue that this cultural anxiety is based on the idea of the uncanny, whereby the familiar is made strange. Each week, we will examine a different uncanny text in relation to the medium studied, exploring the ways in which the qualities of the medium and those of the text combine to produce cultural, societal, and at times, personal unease.

Staff Contact: Dr Belinda Morrissey

University of Melbourne

106-009: Media Histories

https://app.portal.unimelb.edu.au/CSCApplication/view/2008/106-009

The subject will explore the intimate connections between media technologies and changing understandings of culture over the last 150 years. Students will be introduced to the histories of major ‘old’‚ media technologies, and examine attempts to theorise the cultural significance and influences of those technologies. The subject focuses on innovations in print and photographic technologies, telegraphy and telephony, sound recording, radio, film, TV and video, and the transformation of analogue by digital technologies. Students will be introduced to key concepts such as mechanical reproduction and the culture industry, the optical unconscious and trauma, massification and broadcast, public sphere and media literacy, fragmentation and globalisation. On completing this subject, students will have a strong understanding of how critical histories of media technologies are a rich resource for thinking about contemporary culture.

Staff Contact: Dr Chris Healy

University of New South Wales, Sydney

HIST2036: Documentary Film and History

http://www.handbook.unsw.edu.au/undergraduate/courses/2005/HIST2036.html

Documentary film is a dominant form of historical knowledge in today’s world. This course explores the ways in which documentary films represent, remember, imagine and find meaning in the past, and their function as ‘History’ in the public sphere. Students will analyse documentary’s traditional status as a ‘truth telling device’ in light of similar debates over the nature of history and truth, and explore the tensions between documentary and written histories. The course also addresses the possibilities of the audiovisual archive as a source of historical research, and how the historian-as-documentarian might approach the non-print text as a primary source of historical evidence. Students are encouraged to consider both the limitations and the potential for documentary as a mode of historical production, and what the future holds for history on the screen. What films get made about the past, and when, is an important question for consideration in this course. Topics addressed in this course include the construction of historical memory; ethnography and race; testimony and the historical witness; television histories; historical re-enactment; myth; the audio-visual archive; home movies; found footage; web-based histories, and ‘reality’ history.

Staff Contact: Dr PF Brown

MEFT3201: Aspects of Film History

http://www.handbook.unsw.edu.au/undergraduate/courses/2010/MEFT3201.html

Introduces case studies in film history and brings into focus different perspectives, traditions, and methodologies in the historiography of cinema. Involves analysis of key texts, and viewing of a wide range of relevant films. Possible topics include cinema and popular memory; the cinema, modernism and modernity; changing performance styles in American cinema; cinema and the city.

Staff Contact: Dr DW Davis