Course Title: Introduction to Pop Culture

Part A: Course Overview

Course Title: Introduction to Pop Culture

Credit Points: 12.00

Terms

Course Code	Campus	Career	School	Learning Mode	Teaching Period(s)
COMM2633	City Campus	Undergraduate	345H Media and Communication	Face-to-Face	Sem 1 2017, Sem 1 2018, Sem 1 2019, Sem 1 2020, Sem 1 2021, Sem 1 2022, Sem 1 2023, Sem 1 2024, Sem 1 2025

Course Coordinator: Dr Sebastian Diaz-Gasca

Course Coordinator Phone: + 61 3 9925 1089

Course Coordinator Email: sebastian.diaz-gasca@rmit.edu.au

Course Coordinator Location: Building 9, Level 4

Course Coordinator Availability: By appointment

Pre-requisite Courses and Assumed Knowledge and Capabilities

None

Course Description

In this introductory course, you will explore the historical, economic, and political environments that produce popular culture products and practices. You will learn to identify specific popular culture phenomena and artifacts—whether written, visual, audiovisual, or embodied—and discuss their role in constructing social values and identities. The course introduces key theories in the field of popular culture and familiarizes you with relevant the professional groups, networks, and associations associated with pop culture. You will also develop skills to critically discuss aspects of popular culture as seen in global settings. This foundation course establishes core theoretical frameworks, connecting everyday cultural experiences with academic approaches from media studies, cultural theory, music studies and more. Through examining contemporary examples and historical developments, you will be introduced to the analytical tools to understand how popular culture both reflects and shapes our social world.

In this course, you will also undertake Career Development Learning (CDL) activities/assessment to support your career development.

Objectives/Learning Outcomes/Capability Development

This is an option cours and will complement the learning outcomes of your program

Course Learning Outcomes

Upon successful completion of this course, you will be able to:

CLO1: Describe the historical, economic and political environments that produce popular culture products and practices.

CLO2: Analyse specific popular culture phenomena or artefacts (written, visual, audiovisual, embodied) and discuss their role in constructing social values and identities.

CLO3: Understand key theories in the field of popular culture and the professional groups, networks and associations

CLO4: Critically discuss aspects of popular culture in global settings.

Overview of Learning Activities

You will be actively engaged in learning that involves a range of activities such as lectures, tutorial class discussion, individual and group activities. Delivery of this course will be face to face on campus. Please check Canvas regularly for changes in location or in case a particular class needs to move online for a specific week.

Overview of Learning Resources

RMIT will provide you with resources and tools for learning in this course through our online systems.

A list of weekly learning resources (such as books, journal articles and web resources) will be provided by your lecturer via Canvas. You will also be expected to seek further resources relevant to the focus of your own learning.

There are services and resources available to support your learning through the University Library. The Library provides guides on academic referencing and subject specialist help as well as a range of study support services. For further information, please visit the Library page on the RMIT University website and the RMIT student website.

Overview of Assessment

You will be assessed on how well you meet the course’s learning outcomes.

Assessment Tasks

Assessment Task 1: Pop Culture Artifact Justification: Written (Individual 20%) [CLOs 1, 2 & 3]

Assessment Task 2: Application of Pop Culture Concept: Video (Individual 40%) [CLOs; 2 & 4]

Assessment Task 3: Evaluation of Pop Culture Professions and Academic Scholarship : Presentation (Group 40%) [CLOs; 1, 2, 3 & 4]

Feedback will be given on all assessment tasks.

If you have a long term medical condition and/or disability it may be possible to negotiate to vary aspects of the learning or assessment methods. You can contact the program coordinator or Equitable Learning Services if you would like to find out more.

Your course assessment conforms to RMIT assessment principles, regulations, policies, procedures and instructions.