Youth and Popular Culture

This subject has the following teaching availabilities in 2015:

170 hours

For the purposes of considering request for Reasonable Adjustments under the Disability Standards for Education (Cwth 2005), and Students Experiencing Academic Disadvantage Policy, academic requirements for this subject are articulated in the Subject Overview, Learning Outcomes and Assessment Requirements of this entry.

The University is dedicated to provide support to those with special requirements. Further details on the disability support scheme can be found at the Disability Liaison website: http://www.services.unimelb.edu.au/disability

This subject explores how children and young people construct and reconstruct their sense of selves against the backdrop of pervasive contemporary popular cultures. It examines contrasting approaches to identity (e.g. developmental, sociological, feminist, post-structuralist) and contemporary debates about the place of popular culture and the media and entertainment industries in children and young people's lives.

The subject analyses the ways in which children and young people appropriate and colonise symbols, meanings, images and styles from different popular cultural media. Popular cultures provide resources for identity construction, for meaning-making and for political uses. The subject explores the ways in which popular cultures draw on global images in local settings.

An indicative list of topics in this subject is: the uses of cultural commodities in children and young people's construction of gendered, classed and racialised identity/ies; childhoods, global capital and multinational companies; the role of the Internet; children and young people as cultural consumers and as cultural producers.

On completing this subject, students should be able to:

• Demonstrate an in-depth understanding of the inter-relationships between children’s and young people's identity formation and popular culture
• Critically evaluate different theoretical perspectives on the role of popular culture in the making of childhood and youth cultures
• Clearly identify the place of global capital and the media and entertainment industries in the commodification of childhood
• Understand the impact of new technologies on popular youth cultures
• Clearly identify the place of global forms of popular culture and how these are appropriated by youth to frame local cultures.

Essays and assignments comprising 4000 words or equivalent. Report mid-semester, Essay (2500 words) end of Semester.

Attendance at all classes (tutorial/seminars/practical classes/lectures/labs/online classes) is obligatory. Failure to attend 80% of classes will normally result in failure in the subject.

None

This subject potentially can be taken as a breadth subject component for the following courses:

• Bachelor of Arts
• Bachelor of Biomedicine
• Bachelor of Commerce
• Bachelor of Environments
• Bachelor of Music
• Bachelor of Science
• Bachelor of Engineering

You should visit learn more about breadth subjects and read the breadth requirements for your degree, and should discuss your choice with your student adviser, before deciding on your subjects.

On completing this subject, students should be able to:

• Sharpen their analytical skills by identifying and analyse theoretical perspectives on the role of popular culture in children’s and young people's lives;
• Enhance their skills of scholarly critique through reading widely in diverse journals and texts;
• Become more confident in planning their own work by engaging in analysis and presentation of case-studies of specific popular culture icons and iconography in the construction of children’s identities;
• Gain enhanced skills in written communication through deepening their understanding of how discourses construct meaning in daily life.