Media

Unit 1: Media forms, representations and Australian stories 

The relationship between audiences and the media is evolving. Audiences engage with media products in many ways. They share a common language with media producers and construct meanings from the representations within a media product.

In this unit, students develop an understanding of audiences and the core concepts underpinning the construction of representations and meaning in different media forms. They explore media codes and conventions and the construction of meaning in media products.

Students analyse how representations, narratives and media codes and conventions contribute to the construction of the media realities that audiences read and engage with. Students gain an understanding of audiences as producers and consumers of media products. Through analysing the structure of narratives, students consider the impact of media creators and institutions on production.

Unit 2: Narrative across media forms

Fictional and non-fictional narratives are fundamental to the media and are found in all media forms. Media industries such as journalism and filmmaking are built upon the creation and distribution of narratives constructed in the form of a series of interconnected images and/or sounds and/or words, using media codes and conventions. New media forms and technologies enable participants to design, create and distribute narratives in hybrid forms such as collaborative and user-generated content, which challenges the traditional understanding of narrative form and content. Narratives in new media forms have generated new modes of audience engagement, consumption and reception.

Unit 3: Media narratives, contexts and pre-production

In this unit, students explore stories that circulate in society through a close analysis of a media narrative.

Narratives are defined as the depiction of a chain of events in a cause-and-effect relationship occurring in physical and/or virtual space and time in fictional and non-fictional media products. Students consider the use of codes and narrative conventions to structure meaning and explore the role these play in media narratives. Through the close analysis of a media narrative, students develop media language and terminology and a deeper understanding of how codes and narrative conventions are combined in a narrative. They study how social, historical, institutional, culture, economic and political contexts may influence the construction of media narratives and audience readings.

Unit 4: Media production; agency and control in and of the media

In this unit students focus on the production and post-production stages of the media production process, bringing the pre-production plans created in Unit 3 to their realisation. Students refine their media production in response to feedback and through personal reflection, documenting the iterations of their production as they work towards completion.

The context in which media products are produced, distributed and consumed is an essential framework through which audiences view and read media products. Social, historical, institutional, cultural, economic and political contexts can be seen through explicit or implied views and values conveyed within media products. The media disseminate these views and values within a society and, as a result, can play a key role in influencing, reinforcing or challenging the cultural norms.