Handbook

Note: The course code for this course was previously ARTS3093

Media is big business and the commercial incentives of media companies profoundly impact society, politics, and culture – as well as the working lives of media professionals. In this course, you will explore the relational power dynamics between media institutions, their business models, media content, and media users. Using diverse perspectives on the ways capitalism operates with and through media systems, the course will investigate how the competitive relationships between media businesses impact society, how innovation changes technological environments, and how business models shape the role of political information in the global mediascape. Via case studies in and beyond Australia, you will explore your own position as both resources and contributors to these media businesses, and ask how existing structures impact access to the media space for contributors with reduced market power. As future employees in media companies, and everyday participants in media systems, you will consider the social, political, creative and economic agency of media users within the context of these commercially driven power structures.