History and Philosophy of Media

This subject has the following teaching availabilities in 2009:

For the purposes of considering request for Reasonable Adjustments under the Disability Standards for Education (Cwth 2005), and Student Support and Engagement Policy, academic requirements for this subject are articulated in the Subject Overview, Learning Outcomes, Assessment and Generic Skills sections of this entry.

It is University policy to take all reasonable steps to minimise the impact of disability upon academic study, and reasonable adjustments will be made to enhance a student's participation in the University's programs. Students who feel their disability may impact on meeting the requirements of this subject are encouraged to discuss this matter with a Faculty Student Adviser and Student Equity and Disability Support: http://services.unimelb.edu.au/disability

A subject reader will be available including selections from the Recommended Reading and documentation on specific cases.

• Adorno, Theodor W (1998), Critical Models: Interventions and Catchwords, trans Henry W Pickford, Columbia Univerity Press, New York.
• Agamben, Giorgio (2002), The Open: Man and Animal, trans Kevin Attell, Stanford University Press, Stanford.
• Baudrillard, Jean (2005), The Intelligence of Evil or The Lucidity Pact, trans Chris Turner, Verso, London.
• Benjamin, Walter (2003), Selected Writings, vol 4, 1938-1940, ed Howard Eiland and Michael W Jennings, Bellknap Press / Harvard University Press, Cambridge MA.
• Cubitt, Sean (2004), The Cinema Effect, MIT Press, Cambridge MA.
• Debray, Régis (1996), Media Manifestos: On the Technological Transmission of Cultural Forms, trans. Eric Rauth, Verso, London.
• Gitelman, Lisa and Geoffrey B Pingree (eds) (2003), New Media 1740-1915, MIT Press, Cambridge MA.
• Hassan, Robert (2003), The Chronoscopic Society: Globalization, Time and Knowledge in the Networked Economy New York: Lang
• Flusser, Vilém (2000), Towards a Philosophy of Photography, trans Anthony Matthews, intro Hubertus Von Amelunxen, Reaktion Books, London.
• Harindranath, Ramaswami (2008, in press), Audience-citizens: the Media, Public Knowledge, and Interpretive Practice. New Delhi and London: Sage
• Kittler, Friedrich A (1999a), Gramophone, Film, Typewriter, trans and intro Geoffrey Winthrop-Young and Michael Wutz, Stanford University Press, Stanford.
• Marvin, Carolyn (1988), When Old Technologies Were New: Thinking About Electric Communication in the Late Nineteenth Century, Oxford University Press, New York.
• Mattelart, Armand (2000), Networking the World 1794-2000, trans Liz Carey-Liebrecht and James Cohen, University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis.
• McQuire, Scott (1998), Visions of Modernity: Representation, Memory, Time and Space in the Age of the Cinema, Sage, London.
• McLuhan, Marshall (1964), Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man, Sphere, London.
• Mosco, Vincent (1996), The Political Economy of Communication: Rethinking and Renewal, Sage, London.
• Papastergiadis, Nikos (2005), 'Mobility and the Nation: Skins, Machines and Complex Systems', Willy Brandt Series of Working Papers on International Migration and Ethnic Relations 3/05, Malmö University, Malmö.
• Volkmer, Ingrid (2006), News in Public Memory.An International Study of Media Memories Across Generations New York: Peter Lang
• Williams, Raymond (1974), Television: Technology and Cultural Form, Fontana, London.
• Young, Sally (ed), (2007), Government Communication in Australia, Melbourne: Cambridge University Press
• Zielinski, Siegfried (2006), Deep Time of the Media: Toward an Archaeology of Hearing and Seeing by Technical Means, trans. Gloria Custance. Foreword Timothy Druckrey. MIT Press, Cambridge MA.

This subject is not available as a breadth subject.

Students who complete this subject should be able to:

• Demonstrate knowledge of key problems in media historiography;
• Recognise and explain differing methodologies for undertaking media historical research;
• Identify and critically engage with the history of media theory;
• Demonstrate a capacity for critical thinking in relation to the the history and philosophy of media understand processes of change in the media.