52698 Communicating Difference

Warning: The information on this page is indicative. The subject outline for a particular session, location and mode of offering is the authoritative source of all information about the subject for that offering. Required texts, recommended texts and references in particular are likely to change. Students will be provided with a subject outline once they enrol in the subject.

Subject handbook information prior to 2025 is available in the Archives.

Description

This subject brings together a range of disciplines within communication to examine cultural difference, social identity, frameworks for promoting diversity, and contemporary community formation. In particular, case studies from contemporary Australian society are used to explore themes of racialisation, multiculturalism, gender, sexuality, and class-based inequalities, with a particular focus on Indigenous Australian and settler colonial identities. Case studies are drawn from a variety of cultural sites that engage with diversity and difference, from popular culture (such as film and television) to institutional diversity policies and social activism. This includes an opportunity to examine Sydney-based initiatives that seek to address marginalisation, promote activism, encourage community participation or extract commercial value from diversity. Through developing original ideas and projects for engaging with diversity and difference, students are invited to reflect upon their own identities from a cultural perspective. The subject also familiarises students with relevant theories and concepts, critical media studies, critical race and feminist theory, cultural geography, critical diversity studies and organisational studies. In developing frameworks for understanding inequalities, the subject equips students to evaluate the ethical dimensions of contemporary professional practices in diverse working environments.

Subject learning objectives (SLOs)

Course intended learning outcomes (CILOs)

This subject engages with the following Course Intended Learning Outcomes (CILOs), which are tailored to the Graduate Attributes set for all graduates of the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences:

• Demonstrate a high level of craft and production value across multiple methods, aesthetics and techniques of the animation process (1.2)
• Deploy literacy skills to undertake primary and secondary research, exploring a wide range of visual and textual materials, and connect research process to final outcomes (2.1)
• Demonstrate reflexive critical thinking as creative practitioners who are intellectually curious, imaginative, and innovative, with an ability to evaluate their own and others' work with candour. (2.2)
• Employ professional skills responsibly and respectfully demonstrating sensitivity as a global citizen and being open to cultural exchange, inclusion and dialogue. (3.1)
• Apply a critical and responsible understanding of Indigenous peoples, cultures and protocols to creative practice (4.1)
• Act with transparency and exhibit personal and professional ethical integrity and broad social responsibility. (5.1)
• Possess well-developed skills and proficiencies to present and communicate narrative, complexity and abstract ideas with precision. (6.1)

Teaching and learning strategies

Face-to-face classes will incorporate a range of teaching and learning strategies, including audiovisual material from communication media, critical discussions of case studies, and small-group discussions and activites. These will be complemented by formative tasks and independent student engagement with online learning materials, which may include videos, quizzes, newsmedia and online activist projects. Compulsory scholarly readings for each week will be made available through Canvas (there is no required textbook) and discussed during lectures, and in collaborative group activities during tutorials. Students will also be invited to participate in online activities that link directly to their social identities and everyday cultural experiences (further information about this will be provided through Canvas).

Content (topics)

Communicating Difference focuses on the ways in which social identities and differences are experienced, represented, and contested across Australian news media and everyday culture. Lectures and readings focus on the ways that these differences are communicated across a range of media platforms and institutions, and foreground issues affecting Indigenous communities, debates and activism around gender and sexuality, social disadvantages shaped by class and geography, and the role of arts and communication industries in leading social transformations. The subject also situates communication practices within a tangible professional context through a grant proposal assessment, in which small groups put together cultural, creative and/or community projects supported by templates from community organisations and councils.

Assessment

Assessment task 1: Media Analysis

Assessment task 2: Critical/Creative Response

Assessment task 3: Participation

Minimum requirements

Attendance at classes is essential in this subject. Classes are based on a collaborative approach that involves essential workshopping and interchange of ideas with other students and the tutor to build capacities towards meeting the subject learning objectives. A roll will be taken at each class (whether on campus or online). Students who have more than two absences from class will be refused marking of their final assessment (see Rule 3.8).

Students must undertake the OPELA (online post enrolment language assessment) screening tool as part of this subject to ascertain their level of Academic English. Students are expected to complete OPELA during Orientation and Preparation Week(s). Academic staff will review OPELA completions and students who do not undertake the screening tool by the end of Week 3 will be ineligible to have their assignments assessed (in accordance with Rule 3.8).

It is a requirement of this subject that all students complete OPELA. Students who receive a Basic grade in the OPELA are required to attend 80% of the Language Development Tutorials in order to pass the subject. Students who do not complete the OPELA and/or do not attend 80% of the Language Development Tutorials will receive a Fail X grade.

Required texts

There are no required texts for this subject. Recommended readings will be available via UTS Library and through the subject site.

References

Abdel-Fattah, R. (2017). When the other otherizes. In Islamophobia and everyday multiculturalism in Australia (pp. 159-178). Routledge.

Abidin, C., & Zeng, J. (2020). Feeling Asian together: Coping with #covidracism on subtle Asian traits. Social Media+Society, 6(3), 1-5.

Alcoff, L. M. (2015). An analytic of whiteness (excerpt). In The future of whiteness (pp. 39-61). Polity.

Alcoff, L. M. (1991). The problem of speaking for others. Cultural Critique (20), 5-32.

Allen, A. M., & Hoenig, R. (2018). The shadow other: Representations of the Manus Island riots in two Australian newspapers. Australian Journalism Review, 40(1), 109-124.

Baldwin, C., & Stafford, L. (2019). The role of social infrastructure in achieving inclusive liveable communities: Voices from regional Australia. Planning Practice & Research, 34(1), 18-46.

Elias, A., Ben, J., Mansouri, F., & Paradies, Y. (2020). Racism and nationalism during and beyond the COVID-19 pandemic. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 1-11.

Hall, S. (1997). Why does difference matter? In Representation: Cultural representations and signifying practices (pp. 234-259). Sage.

Khan, R. (2020). Why we need to talk about race in the arts, or the limits of aspirational diversity. In T. Bennett, D. Stevenson, F. Myers, & T. Winikoff (Eds.), The Australian art field: Practices, policies, institutions (pp. 158-169). Routledge.

Loney-Howes, R. (2019). The politics of the personal: The evolution of anti-rape activism from second-wave feminism to #metoo. In B. Fileborn & R. Loney-Howes (Eds.), #metoo and the politics of social change (pp. 21-36). Palgrave Macmillan.

Moreton-Robinson, A. (2015). I still call Australia home: Indigenous belonging and place in a postcolonizing society. In The white possessive: Property, power, and Indigenous sovereignty (pp. 23-40). University of Minnesota Press.

Neill, A. (2015). Laughing with us: 'Black Comedy' and Aboriginal humour. Metro Magazine: Media & Education Magazine(185), 40-45.

Nicoll, F. (2008). Consuming pathologies: The Australian against Indigenous sovereignties. In A. Moreton-Robinson, M. Casey, & F. Nicoll (Eds.), Transnational whiteness matters (pp. 57-79). Lexington Books.

Sloan, L., Joyner, M., Stakeman, C., & Schmitz, C. (2018). Intersectionality: Positioning privilege and marginalization. In Critical multiculturalism and intersectionality in a complex world (Second ed., pp. 97-113). Oxford University Press.

Thomas, A., Jakubowicz, A., & Norman, H. (2019). From recognition to reform: The Uluru statement from the Heart. In Does the media fail Aboriginal political aspirations? 45 years of news media reporting of key political moments (pp. 216-231). Aboriginal Studies Press.