Media identities at the intersection of selected audiovisual examples and professional reviews of those examples.
Order Description
The final essay focuses on media identities at the intersection of selected audio visual
examples and professional reviews of those examples. Students will choose 1
media example (see the list of options below), source at least 2 reviews of that
example, and 5 academic reference reading (2 from the reading list), write an essay on the construction of media identities based on these materials.

You are expected to analyse both the chosen media example and the reviews of that
example, and to build your own view on the construction of media identities based
on this analysis. Your task is to consider how identities are represented in your
chosen example and, conversely, how the reviews account for these
representational strategies. You may, for example, want to consider if the reviews
commend or criticise the identity political efforts of the example, and then articulate
your own view based on this consideration. You may also want to address the
extent to which the reviews focus on identity political issues.
Note that you are not expected to write a review of the chosen audio visual piece.
You are expected to analyse its representational strategies and to account for the
ways in which these strategies have been discussed in professional reviews. You are
also expected to tie your discussion to the unit themes ? such as otherness,
performativity, activism and vulnerability ? as applicable to your chosen example.

Choose one (1) media examples from the below:
Animal Kingdom (David Michod, 2010): Kanopy Streaming
Australian Rules (Paul Goldman, 2002): Kanopy Streaming
Black comedy (ABC TV, 2015): Series 1 DVD available for viewing at MQ library
reserve collection (choose 1 episode for in-depth analysis, reviews can address the
series on the whole)
Kenny (Clayton Jacobson, 2006): Kanopy Streaming
Redfern Now (ABC TV/ Blackfella films, 2012): Series 1 is available at Kanopy
Streaming (choose 1 episode for in-depth analysis, reviews can address the series on
the whole)
Samson and Delilah (Warwick Thornton, 2009): Kanopy Streaming
Somersault (Cate Shortland, 2004): Kanopy Streaming
The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (Stephan Elliott, 1994): DVD

At least two (2) professional review from:
A professional review is by a renowned critic and published by a reputable media
source (print, online, radio, television). In this context, user comments on Rotten
Tomatoes or similar sites are not acceptable as reviews. There are many places you can source reviews from. Some reputable written sources are The Guardian, Sydney Morning Herald, Sight & Sound, and Senses of Cinema.

Students must refer to at least 5 written academic sources (reference), 2 of them must choose in the following list (24 options):

Topic: Ways of seeing
1. Berger, John (1972) ?Ways of Seeing? in Amelia Jones (ed.) The Feminism and Visual Culture Reader. 2ndedition. London: Routledge, pp. 49??52 (chapter 7).
2. Mulvey, Laura (1975) ?Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema? in Amelia Jones (ed.) The Feminism and Visual Culture Reader. 2nd edition. London: Routledge, pp. 57??65 (chapter 9).
Topic: Representation and visibility
3. Hall, Stuart (1997) ?The Work of Representation? in Stuart Hall (ed.) Representation: Cultural Representations and Signifying Practices. London: Sage, 1997: 15?30.
4. Kohnen, Melanie (2016) Queer Representation, Visibility and Race in American Film and Television. London: Routledge: pp. 12?37.
Topic: The other in/of the media
5. hooks, Bell (1992) ?Eating the Other? in Meenakshi Gigi Durham and Douglas M. Kellner, Media and Cultural Studies: KeyWorks. Revised Edition. Oxford: Blackwell, 2006: pp. 366???380.
6. Hall, Stuart (1992) ?The New Ethnicities? in John Hutchinson & Anthony D. Smith, Ethnicity. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006: pp. 161?163.
Topic: Performing gender
7. Butler, Judith (1999) ?Preface (1999)? & ?Preface (1990)? in Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. New York: Routledge: pp. viii?xxxiii.
8. Cohan, Steve (1997) ?The Spy in the Gray Flannel Suit? in Masked Med: Masculinity and the Movies in the Fifties. Bloomington: Indiana University Press: pp. 1?33.
Topic: The making of a celebrity
9. Smith, Jacob (2012) ?The Adventures of the Lion Tamer? in Thrill Makers: Celebrity, Masculinity, and Stunt Performance. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2012: chapter
10. Coleman-Bell, Ramona (2006) ??Dropping it like it?s hot?: the sporting body of Serena Williams. In Su Holmes and Sean Redmond (eds.) Framing Celebrity. London: Routledge, 2006: pp. 195?205.
Topic: Mediatized selves
11. Alexander, Jonathan & Elizabeth Losh (2010) ?A YouTube of One?s Own?: “Coming Out” Videos as Rhetorical Action? in Christopher Pullen & Margaret Cooper (eds.) LGBT Identity and Online New Media. London: Routledge: pp. 37?50 (chapter 2).
12. Herrig, Susan C. & Sanja Kapidzic (2015) ?Teens, Gender, and Self-Presentation in Social Media? in International Encyclopedia of Social & Behavioral Sciences. Elsevier Ltd: pp. 146?152.
Topic: Media and mobility
13. Morley, David (2000) ?Media, mobility and migrancy? in Home Territories: Media, Mobility, Identity. London: Routledge: 149?170 (chapter 7).
14. Farman, Jason (2015) ?Stories, Spaces, and bodies: The production of embodied space through mobile media storytelling? in Communication Research and Practice vol. 1:2, 101?116.
Topic: Difference and becoming
15. Sotirin, Patty (2005) ?Becoming-Woman? in Charles J. Stivale (ed.) Gilles Deleuze: Key Concepts. Montreal: McGill-Queen?s University Press, pp. 98?109.
16. Simpson, Catherine & Nicole Matthews (2012) ?Dancing Us To Her Song: Enabling Embodiment and Voicing Disability in Heather Rose?s Dance Me to My Song? in Australian Feminist Studies vol. 27:72, pp. 139?155.
Topic: Minorities and media
17. Bogue, Ronald (2005) ?The Minor? in Charles J. Stivale (ed.) Gilles Deleuze: Key Concepts. Montreal: McGill-Queen?s University Press, pp. 110?120.
18. Deger, Jennifer (2013) ?The Jolt of the New: Making Video Art in Arnhem Land? in Culture, Theory, Critique vol. 54:3, pp. 355?371.
Topic: Vulnerability
19. Cvetkovich, Ann (2012) ?From Dispossession to Radical Self-Possession: Racism and Depression? in Depression: a public feeling. Durham: Duke University Press: pp. 115?153.
20. Kundsen, Britta Timm and Carsten Stage (2015) ?Illness Blogs and Online Crowding? in Global Media, Biopolitics and Affect: Politicizing Bodily Vulnerability. London: Routledge: pp. 28?45.
Topic: Activism
21. Boler, Megan (2008) ?Introduction? in Megan Boler (ed.) Digital Media and Democracy: Tactics in Hard Times. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press: pp. 1?50.
22. Cover, Rob (2012) ?Transforming Scandal: The ?St Kilda Schoolgirl?, Digital Media Activism and Social Change? inMedia International Australia, 143: 47?56.
Topic: The true in the media
23. Miller, Toby (1993) ?The Truth is a Murky Path: Technologies of Citizenship and the Visible? in Technologies of Truth: Cultural Citizenship and the Popular Media. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press: chapter 5.
24. Williams, Linda (2014) ?Ethnographic Imagination: From Journalism to Television Serial? in On the Wire. Durham: Duke University Press: pp. 11?36 (chapter 1).
Assessment criteria:
Reading and research: evidence of critical engagement with set course materials
(unit readings, lecture themes and tutorials); evidence of research on the chosen
media example (background research); evidence of independent reading of
appropriate academic materials; evidence of thorough review research (newspapers,
magazines, online sources, media resources, archives)

Argument and analysis: media analysis of both the media example and the
reviews; evidence of critical thinking (through taking a position in relation to key
ideas from the course, and supporting this position); evidence of relational thinking
(through making connections between the media example and the reviews, and
supporting this position); well-articulated and supported argumentation