 Researcher Profiles Research Projects | about usThe Media, Culture and Society Research Group inquires into the media within cultural, political, economic, historical and social context. The research will encompass various perspectives such as textual or visual analysis of media representations, social analysis of new media (Internet, digital, computer), identity formation, new communication technologies, mobile culture and audience studies. The group has an interdisciplinary focus and will regularly engage with a wider range of issues in cultural, textual and social analysis. There will be an intersection of the humanities and the social sciences throughout the research and discussion of the media.
research interest areasCommunication and cultural studies: A recent focus on issues of equity, diversity and social sustainability has seen researchers in CCI focus on refugees, young people ‘at risk’, older people, youth subcultures and the relationships of the Australian Muslim population with the broader Australian community. Some of these projects have been supported by federal funding. Various approaches are employed from ethnographic, interviews (individual, focus groups etc) to analyses of signifying systems.
Critical cultural analysis: The analysis of national identity (what it means to be Australian), discourses around terrorism, the Iraq war and representations of otherness are explored through the interrogation of all forms of media texts (including broadcast, narrowcast, print, film, photographic and performance).
Media studies: Content analysis, discourse analysis and audience (reception) studies research are carried out in the Faculty with a particular emphasis upon research into the social and cultural dimensions of both new and old media as well as communication technologies. The Faculty has been the base for a nationally-funded research project on the Internet in Australian Family Life. Recent analyses have been of the televisual experience of new television designs, pay television, female music videos, and discourses of sexuality in children’s television.
Journalism: Recent research has focused on the question of ‘what is journalism’, reflecting on how globalisation and technological developments redefine journalism, its professional model and norms. Other areas covered are newsroom studies, research into sports journalism and journalism history. |
