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YEAR 11-12

VCE Media

Subject Area

Visual Arts

VCE Units

1-4

About the Course

The media is ubiquitous. Media is deeply embedded within life and culture at a local, national and global level. It entertains, teaches, informs and shapes audiences’ perception of their lives and the world in which they live.


Stories in all their forms are at the heart of the media and its relationship with audiences. Through stories, narratives are constructed that engage, and are read by, audiences. Representations of ideas, realities and imagination are constructed and deconstructed, remixed and reimagined with ever-increasing technological sophistication, ease and speed to engage audiences.


The context of media shapes both production and the audiences’ reading. Contextual influences such as time, place, culture, societal attitudes and values may be reflected explicitly and implicitly in media products. Audiences also read and consume media through this contextual lens. The relationship between media and audience is complex. Students will interrogate notions of influence, power, audience, agency and the role that media plays in shaping views and values.


Developments in technologies have transformed media at a rapid pace. The interplay between print and broadcast media and multinational-networked database platforms has enabled creative communication opportunities and reworked notions of key media concepts including audiences, forms and products, storytelling, influence, institutions and industries.


Media audiences are no longer constrained by physical, social and political boundaries. Audiences are consumers, users, creative and participatory producers and product. This has created a dramatic increase in communicative, cultural and creative possibilities. The greater involvement of audiences has generated enormous changes in the media economy and issues of content control.


The growth of social media platforms means information is produced, distributed and consumed with increased immediacy, raising questions about accountability, regulation and influence. This growth has led to competition with traditional media forms and established media institutions. Traditional media continues to have power and influence, competing, cooperating and evolving alongside social media platforms. Through the study of Media, students gain a critical understanding of media and understand their role as both producers and consumers of media products.

Students examine how and why the media constructs and reflects reality, and how audiences engage with, consume, read, create and produce media products.

UNIT 1

Media forms, representations and Australian stories
Area of Study 1: Media representations

How do we see ourselves and our world in media products?


The media plays an important role in shaping society and the values and beliefs of the audience. The construction of media products suggests a sense of realism and naturalism that belies their nature as codified representations that reflect the values of media makers and audiences at the time, location and context of their construction. Representations rely on a shared understanding of media forms, codes and conventions and the processes of selection, omission and construction. Representations are influenced by social, industrial, economic and technological factors existing at the time, and in the location and context of their creation, production, distribution and consumption.


Students are introduced to the concept of audience. They consider different readings of media products and how meaning is suggested through the complex relationships between content creators and producers, media forms and audiences. They consider how audiences engage with the media to construct and negotiate understandings of the world and themselves through their participation in the consumption, reception, production, curation and distribution of media products. Students also gain an understanding of audiences as producers of media products, who create and share their own representations. Notions of identity and self are implicit in the ways that audiences select, create, share, engage with and read media products. Through the examination of a range of media forms and products, students consider how representations of self and identity are constructed, distributed, engaged with, consumed and read.


Area of Study 2: Media forms in production

How can we manipulate codes and conventions to create representations?


Representation, distribution, consumption and reception of the media, the construction of meaning in the media, and audience engagement with the media all provide students with the inspiration to explore ideas and develop media productions. Students work in two or more media forms to design and create media exercises or productions that represent concepts covered in Area of Study 1.

Students evaluate how the characteristics of their selected media forms, which they design and produce, influence the representations and construction of the productions.


Area of Study 3: Australian stories

How are Australian stories structured in fictional and non-fictional media narratives?


Stories have always been a pivotal part of culture. Australian media is built on fictional and non-fictional stories that reflect our local, national and global cultural histories. Media creators and producers develop an individual style through the use and crafting of narrative and structures that engage different audiences and their interests.


Audience readings of meaning are mediated through a shared understanding of the media codes and conventions used to construct narratives in media products. The creation of narratives in media is contextual. Institutions and individuals involved at each stage of production constrain and shape narrative development in response to the cultural, institutional, economic, social and political constraints in which they work.


Factors including government regulation, finance and the economic sustainability of production play a part in the development and distribution of Australian narratives. These factors are most evident in fictional works, games, photography, print and non-fictional narratives such as news and current affairs, podcasts and advertising.

The voices and perspectives of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander creators and producers are an important element in the Australian media landscape. Through engagement with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander creators and texts, students develop respect for and recognition of the world’s oldest continuous living culture and understand the significant contribution of Australia’s First Peoples to the Australian media landscape, through both contemporary and historical media narratives and voices.


Students study a range of narratives in two or more media forms, exploring the context and features of their construction and how they are consumed and read by audiences. Narratives selected for study must be by Australian media creators and producers with primarily Australian content. At least one narrative must be from an Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander creator or producer.

UNIT 2

Narrative across media forms
Area of Study 1: Narrative, style and genre

How do media creators develop their style?


In this area of study, students explore and examine how narratives construct realities and meaning for audiences. Narratives are constructed and shaped referencing a rich production history. This includes the personal and distinctive style of media professionals who play leading roles in the construction of the narrative, the selection and manipulation of media codes and conventions that stem from a range of cultures and histories, and the influence and constraints of contextual factors affecting the creation, construction and distribution of the narrative. Genre is an important concept that goes beyond the categorisation of media narratives. Students understand how genres are subject to debate and change. The definition of genres goes beyond their established use of media codes and conventions, revealing cultural assumptions about their significance, viewership and the media industry.


Notions of audience, engagement, consumption and reception play a key role in understanding how a narrative is formed. Audiences are able to articulate their personal preferences in the types of narratives they engage with, consume and read. These preferences are related to the construction of narratives.


Area of Study 2: Narratives in production

How can we use the production process to create our own media narratives?


Narratives are created through a production process that involves the conceptualisation and development of ideas through pre-production, production and post-production processes and distribution. The production and distribution of narratives involves the skilled use of media technologies, often in collaboration with others, where each individual undertakes specific roles and responsibilities required at each stage of the production. While the production of narratives is a creative process, they are produced for specific audiences and are constrained by the contexts in which they are produced, distributed, consumed and read. Students apply their theoretical learning to create and construct narratives in the form of media exercises that demonstrate one or more concepts covered in Area of Study 1, exploring how narratives are constructed and shaped by cultures, histories and contexts.


Area of Study 3: Media and change

What is the impact of new media technologies on us as individuals and as a society?


Developments in media technologies have dramatically altered the media landscape and the relationship between the media and its audiences. New media is a term that applies to contemporary technology used by media producers and audiences, and the social, cultural and economic practices that arise from these contemporary forms.

Digital technologies, interactivity, immersive content and participatory practices have become a feature of the creation, production, distribution, engagement with, consumption and reception of the media. Media industries and institutions have adopted and adapted aspects of convergence to build and maintain audience share through new forms of interaction.


All engagement with media is creatively, culturally and economically situated. Audiences are media consumers, producers and products, often simultaneously. This is particularly evident in social media where public and personal communication is combined. Such platforms facilitate convergence between communities and commercial opportunities that are developed, built and maintained through common interests and creativity.


Changes in the media have social, emotional and ethical consequences for individuals and society. New media forms, products and processes are often controversial and may be mistrusted or devalued by existing media institutions, some audiences and groups in society. Students examine the technologies, processes of production, characteristics, distribution, engagement with, consumption and reception of media products in new media forms. Students investigate the relationship between emerging and pre-existing media forms, products and institutions. They evaluate the impact of developments on individuals, society and culture.

UNIT 3

Media narratives, contexts and
pre-production
Area of Study 1: Narratives and their contexts

How does the context of a narrative influence its construction and audience readings?


Narratives are the product of creative and institutional practices that represent stories through codes and narrative conventions. The use of codes and narrative conventions influences audience engagement, consumption and reading of narratives. Students consider the use of codes and narrative conventions to structure meaning and explore how a media creator has used these tools to produce a media narrative.


Narratives are also a product of their context. In this area of study, students examine the role that context plays in the production, distribution and reading of media products. Social, historical, institutional, cultural, economic and political contexts are evident, explicitly or implicitly, through the views and values conveyed by media products. The context of a media product shapes its construction and is reflected in narratives and representations. Context also influences audience readings of media. By understanding the contextual lens through which audiences view and consume media texts, students are able to understand the contribution and role that the media has in shaping our views, values and opinions about our world.


Students examine one fictional or non-fictional narrative in the form of film and/or television and/or radio and/or audio product (that may be broadcast or streamed) and/or photographic products. For the purposes of this area of study, the media product selected for study will comprise of one of the following:


  • one feature length film product of one hour or more in length or the equivalent length in television or streaming

  • an audio product, such as a podcast or radio drama, of one hour or more

  • a photographic series with a narrative structure, such as a photojournalism essay/story or exhibition of narrative images

  • a digital product, such as a video game, of equivalent length or complexity to the above media forms.


A fictional, non-fictional or a combined fictional/non-fictional narrative may be studied. The choice of narrative must give consideration to the definition of a media narrative in the study specifications on page 13.


Area of Study 2: Research, development and experimentation

How are ideas, research, investigation and experimentation used in the development of media products?


Media production is an evolving practice. Media creators and producers frequently reference ideas and techniques that have been developed by others. Collecting, acknowledging and building upon ideas, structures, aesthetics and techniques informs the direction of media productions and an understanding of how audiences are engaged. Students investigate, research and experiment with a selected media form to inform the development of their proposed production. This research contributes to the direction of their production planning.


Students investigate aspects of the media form in which they will make their productions, developing knowledge of narrative, genre, style, media codes and conventions and aspects of the works of media practitioners relevant to their proposed production. These investigations develop the student’s style as a media creator and inform the development of their individual media product. Students also experiment with media technologies and media production processes to inform and document the plan for a media production.


Students demonstrate a clear understanding of how to inform and document the plan for a media production. They develop production skills in pre-production to inform the development, planning and production of a media product. They record their learning in documented research, annotated production activities, experiments, exercises and reflections. Through the completion of two production experiments, students have the opportunity to test, develop and refine skills and techniques in their selected media form. These experiments will be accompanied by documentation of skill development.


Area of Study 3: Pre-production planning

How do students refine their ideas and concepts to create media products?


Pre-production involves the development of written and visual planning documents for a proposed product. These documents reflect both creative vision and thorough planning. The media industry has specific methodologies, conventions and workflows for documenting media production in different media forms. These methods vary from form to form and within forms according to the style and/or genre of the proposed product.


Audience engagement, consumption and reception is at the heart of media production. A feature common to pre-production across media forms is a clear understanding of the proposed audiences. Audiences may be delineated by demographic or social factors, identified by their interests and experience in media products, forms, genres or styles, or created by media institutions or individual producers for a particular purpose. Detailed articulation of audiences and how they will be engaged underpins all aspects of pre-production planning.


Informed by their learning in Area of Study 2, students use industry specific planning, using both written and visual documentation, to complete a pre-production plan. The plan incorporates a clear fictional, non-fictional or fictional/non-fictional narrative for a specified audience in a selected media form as outlined below. Students consider the relevant media codes and conventions of the selected media form. The pre-production plan is developed for one of the following media forms:

  • a video or film production of 3–10 minutes in length, including title and credit sequences

  • an animated production of no more than 10 minutes in length, including title and credit sequences

  • a radio or audio production of a minimum of 8 minutes in length, including title and credit sequences

  • a digital or analogue photographic presentation, sequence or series of a minimum of 10 original sourced images shot, processed and edited by the student

  • a digital or traditional print production of a minimum of 8 pages, produced and edited by the student


  •  a digital and/or an online production that demonstrates comparable complexity consistent with the other media forms

  • a convergent or hybridised media production that incorporates aspects of a range of media forms and is consistent with product durations and the descriptors listed.

UNIT 4

Media production; agency and control in and of the media
Area of Study 1: Media production

How do students realise their intention through their media productions?


The production, post-production and distribution stages of a media product are a natural progression from the pre-production stage of the media production process. Students move from production into post-production, where the manipulation, arrangement or layering of the ideas and material generated in pre-production and production leads to the realisation of their pre-production plans.


Media creators and producers reflect on and work with others to gain insight into whether their products communicate their planned intent, refining their products in the production and post-production stages. Students undertake personal reflection and seek feedback on their work, developing, refining and resolving their product as a result. They document iterations of their production after considering the factors that have influenced the development and refinement of materials, technologies and processes, the resolution of ideas and the effect these factors have had on the final product.


The creation and production of the media product is an individual undertaking. In some cases, the implementation of the production plans may require the student to work with others. Throughout both the production and post-production stages, the student should be the key principal in the production process. All work undertaken by any cast or crew, or external assistance, must be under the direction of the student and documented along with the pre-production plans.


Area of Study 2: Agency and control in the media

Who holds the power and influence – the media or audiences?


The relationship between the media and audiences has never been more complex. The contemporary media landscape poses issues and challenges for the way that academics and commentators have traditionally theorised the nature of communication. The media has always been considered to have the capacity to influence, but now the balance of power is changing and arguments around who influences whom have become highly contested. The media and its audiences are now both thought to exercise agency; the capacity to act and exert power.


Media platforms have led to new modes of production, distribution, consumption and reception that rely on sharing commercial and user-generated content. These platforms commodify personal data by harvesting information from social media engagement. The rise of social media and surveillance capitalism has raised questions about privacy.


Laws and policies of the Australian government and self-regulation by media institutions define and maintain standards through regulatory bodies and codes of conduct, but individual interaction with other media users, as in social networks, is not subject to these constraints. As the media increasingly crosses national borders, governments struggle to maintain control over the laws and policies created for their jurisdictions. These issues pose challenges for managing and regulating the use of the media by globalised media institutions, governments and the individual.

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