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Popular Culture: From K-pop to Selfies (CULS20018)
Undergraduate level 2Points: 12.5Dual-Delivery (Parkville)
From 2023 most subjects will be taught on campus only with flexible options limited to a select number of postgraduate programs and individual subjects.
To learn more, visit COVID-19 course and subject delivery.
About this subject
- Overview
- Eligibility and requirements
- Assessment
- Dates and times
- Further information
- Timetable(opens in new window)
Contact information
Semester 1
Overview
| Availability | Semester 1 - Dual-Delivery |
|---|---|
| Fees | Look up fees |
Popular culture shapes how we think and feel, how we relate to one another; in short, how we imagine and live our lives. This subject examines the dynamics between popular culture, media consumption, and our social worlds. It will draw on students’ own consumption of popular culture as entry points to explore the various roles mass-mediated popular culture plays in our lives. From pop music and blockbuster films to viral videos, memes and selfies, this course interrogates: How can we define what is ‘popular’? What do debates about popular culture tell us about current political anxieties? And how does popular culture maintain, reproduce or challenge our existing social and political formations within and across cultures in an increasingly globalized world? The subject is organized around a series of questions about production, regulation and consumption that will introduce students to a range of key concepts in cultural studies. The goal is to familiarise students with debates in cultural studies about the politics of mass culture, popular culture and viral culture, drawing from examples of both twentieth century and contemporary computer-mediated cultural practices.
Intended learning outcomes
On completion of this subject, students should be able to:
- Demonstrate a developing knowledge in current research on a range of specific instances of or practices in popular culture.
- Understand the importance of the ways in which Cultural Studies has theorized popular culture.
- Engage critically with scholarly approaches to the circuit of culture model covering the production, regulation and consumption of mass cultural forms
- Demonstrate developing understanding of the relationships between particular examples of popular cultures and broader cultural and political formations in an increasingly globalized world
- Effectively use research skills to produce a research essay based on a case study in the field of popular culture that demonsrates the capacity for detailed description and reflective analysis.
- Understand the disciplinary specificity of Cultural Studies approaches to popular culture and popular media their inter-relationship with approaches in related disciplines.
Generic skills
- Apply critical and analytical skills and methods to the identification and resolution of problems within complex changing social contexts.
- Apply an independent approach to knowledge that uses rigorous methods of inquiry and appropriate theories and methodologies that are applied with intellectual honesty and a respect for ethical values;
- Articulate the relationship between diverse forms of knowledge and the social, historical and cultural contexts that produced them;
- Act as informed and critically discerning participants within the community of scholars, as citizens and in the work force.
Last updated: 8 August 2023
Eligibility and requirements
Prerequisites
None
Corequisites
None
Non-allowed subjects
None
Recommended background knowledge
Understanding of Cultural Studies as a disciplinary formation, as taught in CULS10005
Inherent requirements (core participation requirements)
The University of Melbourne is committed to providing students with reasonable adjustments to assessment and participation under the Disability Standards for Education (2005), and the Assessment and Results Policy (MPF1326). Students are expected to meet the core participation requirements for their course. These can be viewed under Entry and Participation Requirements for the course outlines in the Handbook.
Further details on how to seek academic adjustments can be found on the Student Equity and Disability Support website: http://services.unimelb.edu.au/student-equity/home
Last updated: 8 August 2023
Assessment
Semester 1
| Description | Timing | Percentage |
|---|---|---|
Blog
| From Week 2 to Week 12 | 30% |
Essay
| Mid semester | 30% |
Research essay
| End of the teaching period | 40% |
Tutorial attendance Hurdle requirement: This subject has a minimum requirement of (or at least) 80% attendance at tutorials, seminars, or workshops. There is an expectation that students attend lectures, in person or via online delivery. All pieces of assessment must be submitted to pass this subject. For the purposes of meeting this hurdle requirement, each submitted assessment must be complete and constitute a genuine attempt to address the requirements of the task. (Complete not less than 50% of word count) | Throughout the teaching period | N/A |
Additional details
Assessment submitted late without an approved extension will be penalised at 2% per working day.
Last updated: 8 August 2023
Dates & times
- Semester 1
Coordinator Ben Gook Mode of delivery Dual-Delivery (Parkville) Contact hours 12 x 1.5 hour Lecture, and 12 x 1 hour Tutorial per week Total time commitment 170 hours Teaching period 28 February 2022 to 29 May 2022 Last self-enrol date 11 March 2022 Census date 31 March 2022 Last date to withdraw without fail 6 May 2022 Assessment period ends 24 June 2022 Semester 1 contact information
Time commitment details
140
Last updated: 8 August 2023
Further information
- Texts
Prescribed texts
There are no specifically prescribed or recommended texts for this subject.
- Breadth options
This subject is available as breadth in the following courses:
- Bachelor of Biomedicine
- Bachelor of Commerce
- Bachelor of Design
- Bachelor of Fine Arts (Acting)
- Bachelor of Fine Arts (Animation)
- Bachelor of Fine Arts (Dance)
- Bachelor of Fine Arts (Film and Television)
- Bachelor of Fine Arts (Music Theatre)
- Bachelor of Fine Arts (Production)
- Bachelor of Fine Arts (Screenwriting)
- Bachelor of Fine Arts (Theatre)
- Bachelor of Fine Arts (Visual Art)
- Bachelor of Music
- Bachelor of Science
- Available through the Community Access Program
About the Community Access Program (CAP)
This subject is available through the Community Access Program (also called Single Subject Studies) which allows you to enrol in single subjects offered by the University of Melbourne, without the commitment required to complete a whole degree.
Entry requirements including prerequisites may apply. Please refer to the CAP applications page for further information.
- Available to Study Abroad and/or Study Exchange Students
This subject is available to students studying at the University from eligible overseas institutions on exchange and study abroad. Students are required to satisfy any listed requirements, such as pre- and co-requisites, for enrolment in the subject.
Last updated: 8 August 2023