Got it Covered
Magazines are a form of mass media that commonly perpetuate the heteronormative gendering of consumer behaviour. Critique these narrow gender representations by making your own magazine cover parody.
Gender, Sexuality and Media
Gender and Sexuality Gender and Sexuality Media are resources which many of us drawn upon when formulating our sense of self and modes of expression and the ubiquity of Western popular media means that they are significantly entwined with people’s … READ MORE
A Recipe for Culture Jam
Make your own culture jam and demonstrate how rhetoric and semiotics can be used to contest, subvert and redirect mediated messages and corporate communications, while revealing common tactics of information distortion to your audience.
Media Activism
Alternative media is a vehicle for advancing counter-hegemonic discourse and differs from mainstream mass media in that it is often presumed to have a much greater capacity for transforming spectators into citizens and empowering them to actively participate in social change. In this lesson, we will examine the validity of this presumption and explore a range of activist media tactics such as culture jamming.
Subcultural Style-isticles
Share your ritualised modalities of resistance or your vernacular subterranean style in one of the most mainstream forms of pop journalism on the internet today: a listicle.
Subcultural Style
Subcultures Subcultures Members of a subculture—punks, goths, b-boys, etc.— distinguish themselves from the dominant culture through shared styles of dress, taste in music, leisure practices and modes of media consumption. And since the 1970s, critical cultural theory has argued that … READ MORE
The Daily Exaggerator
Investigate how journalists grab your attention then create your own sensational headline for a current news story.
News Media
News media is the primary means by which the general public receives important information, helping them form opinions about their world and make important decisions about politics and government. A free and fair press is the cornerstone of democracy. In this lesson, … READ MORE
Making Sense of the Mainstream
The mainstream is a value-laden category that frequently derives its meaning in association with its multiple corollaries such as counter-culture, subculture, underground, indie, folk, alternative, experimental and avant-garde. In this lesson, we problematise our perceptions of mainstream culture and examine … READ MORE
Make Minimalist Movie Posters
Get students to make a minimalist movie poster as part of a lesson on semiotics or visual literacy.
Semiotics
Semiotics, or semiology, is the study of signs, symbols, and signification and investigates how cultural texts create and communicate meaning. In this lesson, we examine semiotics in relation to media texts, meanings, myths and orders of signification and unpack key terms and methods of analysis.
Aesthetics
No Title No Description What makes something qualify as art? Is beauty really in the eye of the beholder or are there certain ‘universal’ qualities we find beautiful? These questions are central to the branch of philosophy we call aesthetics. … READ MORE
My Avatar and Me
In this activity, we are going to look at the ways representations explicitly and implicitly communicate values that privilege or marginalise certain identities. Drawing on Stuart Hall’s theory of Encoding/Decoding will attempt to encode a representation of ourselves through avatar creation and … READ MORE
Representation
Representation Representation Introduction Representation refers to the construction in any medium (especially the mass media) of aspects of ‘reality’ such as people, emotions, experiences, places, objects, events, cultural identities and practices, social structures. In this lesson, we will explore representation … READ MORE
Poststructural Poetry
Calling all dead authors: black out and cut up. This creative learning task is designed to reinforce some of the key concepts of poststructuralism by getting students to make blackout poetry. The task is specifically designed to correspond with this online lesson content but may be easily adapted.
Poststructuralism
In this lesson, we will take a look at an intellectual movement from the mid-twentieth century called poststructuralism. Like postmodernism, poststructuralism is a critique of the movement that came before it, structuralism. Taking issue with operations of power such as … READ MORE
Media Effects
Mass communication and mass media permeate our society. At its most basic level, we can think of communication as the exchange of information or meaning. A medium, or media, is a technology which mediates this exchange. In this lesson, we are going to take a look at some of the key terms and theories of media studies. In particular, we’re going to explore the extent of the mass media influences its audiences.
The Meme is the Message
Share your media studies message with social stickiness and create a meme.
Post(er)modernism
Post(er)modernism: Make a poster about postmoderism
Postmodernism
This lesson introduces postmodernism, where everything is enclosed in “inverted commas”, deconstruction is imminent, nothing is true and copycats are cool. It is a culture of the bricoleur, a critique of authenticity and the final nail in the coffin of … READ MORE
Introduction to Media Studies
Media Studies intro Media Studies intro As our daily lives are transformed by digital media and networked public spaces, it is becoming increasingly important that we are literate in a vast array of media. While literacy is something that we … READ MORE
Give your Moodle a Makeover
This post is about embedding your curated content in a Moodle using four of my favourite services: Twitter, Pinterest, Youtube and Storify. With these tools you can easily transform your Moodle module into a dynamic and engaging learning space that … READ MORE
An Introduction to Blended Learning
Keywords: Blended learning, flipped classroom, digital literacy, multimodal lessons, active learning, self-directed learning, study planning, time management.
Dogmachine @ The Underdog
After playing capacity crowds at The Zoo for our reformation gig with PWEI in September, a second event will be held at The Underdog on 22 November 2014 with supporting acts VISI, Arado, Gimpus and newcomers Distaudio.
Dogmachine supports Pop Will Eat Itself
After an extensive hiatus, Dogmachine recently reformed to make a return to the live music scene and are currently working on new material. On 5 September 2014 Dogmachine will support UK band Pop Will Eat Itself (PWEI) at local iconic venue The Zoo.