Handbook

Note: The course code for this course was previously ARTS2096

From the climate crisis to resurgent racisms, from gender in tech to global pandemics, media is central to social justice. Media shapes our perception of key challenges and our capacity to respond, whether we are media practitioners or simply participants in contemporary society. In this course you will learn to analyse media through a social justice lens – revealing hidden costs and social, political, cultural implications of emerging media technologies and longstanding media practices. You will be introduced to key concepts and theories from media studies, journalism studies, cultural studies, sociology, and criminology, with an emphasis on First Nations knowledges and critical approaches to race and gender. By applying this knowledge to current issues in media and to media technologies, you will equip yourself with a conceptual tool kit that will help you become a media change maker, developing alternatives to the status quo and practicing critical interventions. By the end of the course, you will have developed and begun to apply an ethical framework for working in media and for engaging with media and social justice across a wide range of work and social contexts.