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2018-03-08
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Lesson Plan
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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
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Researching media reality: Using experience and theory to explain how media make our world
Andy D Ruddock, Dr.
Monash University
Keywords: Media Literacy, Media Industries
Abstract
The key to research training in media studies is getting students to appreciate the power they hold, as key informants on what it has felt like to experience mediatization. This lesson plan provides a method to unlock this potential, by updating the familiar industries/texts/audiences convention. The process has three stages. First, students are sensitized to the significance of experience in research. Second, they are introduced to topics of causations and ethics. Finally, they experiment with research methods associated with five research scenes; media people, media places, media content (as defined in relation to paratextuality), media (big) data and media audiences. Students emerge with an understanding of the value of small scale qualitative approaches to the ‘big’ questions about media power that mediatization raises.
Keywords: Mediatization. Media effects. Research Method. Autoethnography. Tourism. Policy. Paratextuality.
Author Biography
Andy D Ruddock, Dr., Monash University
Andy Ruddock teaches at Monash University, Australia. He is the author of four books, and his latest title, Exploring Media Research, will be published in September 2017.
