57236 Experiential Media

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 explores the ways in which contemporary media projects are increasingly activating audiences through expanded modes of engagement and participation across diverse platforms. Students analyse audience experience for interactive, participatory, transmedia and emerging experiential media. The subject explores major influences on these media forms, such as the emergence of key digital, interactive and social platforms, the role of user experience (UX) design in digital and product design, and the rise of the 'experience economy' and its impacts on cultural events at festivals, galleries and museums. Students examine online documentary, transmedia, augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR), fandoms and media artworks to develop a critical and conceptual understanding of experiential media.

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:

• Reflect critically on trends in emerging media (1.2)
• Analyse, develop or produce creative media projects for a range of platforms and experiences (2.3)
• Be respectful of diverse cultural contexts (3.1)
• Evaluate how communication works in a professional creative media context (6.1)
• Demonstrate high-level abilities and self-awareness as an oral, written and visual communicator (6.2)

Teaching and learning strategies

This subject is delivered in through face-to-face and online seminars incorporating a range of teaching and learning strategies; including lectures, in-class discussions, experiential activities, case study analyses, software demonstrations and project-based learning. These are complemented by preparatory work using a range of resources provided through the online UTS site, and out-of-class development activities. Students are expected to regularly check and engage with subject materials on the online UTS site in order to effectively manage their learning experience in this subject.

Students will receive both formative and summative feedback within this subject. They will gain early formative feedback, normally verbal, at several points in the session, initially in response to in-class learning activities and later in-class during the development phases of their experiential strategy and support materials.

Content (topics)

The subject considers the shift from a narrative focus to user experience, examining how media practitioners can create spaces of engagement that involve the audience as consumers, producers, responders and citizens. Content is delivered over five modules that equip students with a solid theoretical basis, explore leading media examples, provide opportunities to get hands-on with experiential media iterative tools and undertake activities to apply practical strategies for planning, visualising and project prototyping.

Assessment

Assessment task 1: Experiential Media Study

Assessment task 2: Experiential Media Project Concept Proposal – Stage 1

Assessment task 3: Experiential Media Project Concept Proposal – Stage 2

Minimum requirements

Submission

In this subject assessment tasks are cumulative so that each task builds understanding and/or skills, informed by formative feedback. Consequently, all assessments must be submitted in order for students to receive feedback. Students who do not submit all assessments will not pass the subject.

Required texts

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

References

Atkinson, S. & Kennedy, H.W. [eds] 2018, Live Cinema: Cultures, Economies, Aesthetics, Bloomsbury, New York.

Baldwin, J.R. & Levy, S. 2014, Intercultural communication for everyday life, Wiley-Blackwell, Chichester, England.

Bellour, R. 2018. ‘The Quarrel of the Dispositifs: Reprise’, Senses of Cinema, issue 86, viewed 5 April, 2019, <http://sensesofcinema.com/2018/cinema-and-the-museum/the-quarrel-of-the-dispositifs/>.

Budge, K. & Burness, A. 2018, ‘Museum objects and Instagram: agency and communication in digital engagement’, Continuum, vol. 32, no. 2, pp. 137-50.

Calvi, L., Sabiescu, A. & Vermeeren, A. 2018, Museum experience design: crowds, ecosystems and novel technologies, Springer, Cham, Switzerland.

Chen, L. 2017, Intercultural Communication, De Gruyter Mouton, Boston, MA.

de Bolla, Peter. 2002, ‘Toward the materiality of aesthetic experience’, Diacritics, vol. 32, no. 1, pp.19-37.

Develotte, C. & Kern, R. 2017, Screens and scenes: multimodal communication in online intercultural encounters, Routledge, New York.

Drumm, J., White, N., Swiegers, M. & Davey, M. 2017, ‘Smart everything, everywhere’, Mobile Consumer Survey 2017 (The Australian Cut), Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited, Sydney, viewed 5 April 2019, < https://www2.deloitte.com/au/mobile-consumer-survey-2017>.

Farman, J. [ed.] 2016, Foundations of mobile media studies: essential texts on the formation of a field, Routledge, Abingdon/New York.

Garrett, J.J. 2003, The Elements of User Experience, New Riders, San Francisco, CA.

Goodman, E., Kuniavsky, M. & Moed, A. 2012, Observing the User Experience, Elsevier Science, Burlington, MA.

Hergenrader, Trent. 2019, Collaborative worldbuilding for writers and gamers, Bloomsbury Academic, New York.

Hjorth, L. 2016, ‘Mobile Art: Rethinking the Intersections Between Art, User Created Content (UCC) and the Quotidian’, Mobile Media & Communication, vol. 4, no. 2, pp. 169–185.

Kuniavsky, M. 2010, Smart Things: Ubiquitous Computing User Experience Design, Morgan Kaufmann, Burlington, MA.

Levin, M. 2014, Designing Multi Device Experiences : an ecosystem approach to creating user experiences across devices, O'Reilly, Sebastopol, CA.

Murray, J.H. 2012, Inventing the medium: principles of interaction design as a cultural practice, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA.

Norman, D.A. 2013, The Design of Everyday Things Revised and expanded edition, Basic Books, a member of the Perseus Books Group, New York.

O'Sullivan, Simon. 2001, ‘The aesthetics of affect: thinking art beyond representation’, Angelaki, vol. 6, no. 3, pp. 125-135.

Pine, J.B. and Gilmore, J.H. 1999, The Experience Economy: Work is Theatre & Every Business a Stage, Harvard Business Review Press, Brighton, MA.

Ricardo, F.J. 2013, The Engagement Aesthetic: Experiencing New Media Art through Critique, Bloomsbury Academic, New York.

Sharp, J. and Macklin, C. 2019, Iterate: Ten Lessons in Design and Failure, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA.

Sullivan, J. L. 2013, Media audiences: Effects, Users, Institutions, Power, Sage, Thousand Oaks, CA.

Turkle, S. 2008, ‘Always On/Always On You: The Tethered Self’ in Katz. J.E [ed.], Handbook of Mobile Communication Studies, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA.