Courses - Faculty of Arts
Communication
Stage I
Communication, Technology and Culture
Explores the past, present and future of communication media. Examines communication media within their social context, and provides a particular focus on the interplay between technology and culture. Key concepts in the study of communication are introduced and various communication media are studied via specific case studies, with particular emphasis placed on new digital platforms including social and mobile media as well as older forms such as television and cinema.
Understanding Communication in Māori and Pacific Worlds
Introduces principles and practices of communication relevant to the unique cultural landscape of Aotearoa. Students will explore communication in the context of te ao Māori and Pacific cultures, ethical issues related to bicultural communication, and the significance of Te Tiriti o Waitangi for communication practitioners.
Communication and Social Change
Examines how public communication shapes and is shaped by broader changes in society. Explores the evolution of language, media narratives and public understanding over time in relation to social issues such as: the representation of marginalised groups in society; environmental challenges; the changing nature of Aotearoa New Zealand society; and global societal trends.
Digital Communication and Practice
Offers a practical and creative approach to digital communication within the critical context of platform studies. Students will navigate the capacities, affordances and limitations of a variety of digital platforms by developing the skills to create platform-specific outputs, such as podcasts, gifs, vlogs, mobile films and digital storytelling shorts.
Restriction: COMMS 301
Advertising and Society
A critical examination of advertising and advertisements focusing on the role advertising plays in consumer culture. Advertisements from a diverse range of media are studied in order to analyse how advertisements construct and disseminate meaning. The course investigates how advertising engages with the logic of wider cultural and global transformations with consideration given to both consumer and industry perspectives.
Introduction to Communication and Leadership
Introduces key concepts and theories of leadership with an emphasis on the fundamental role of communication. Explores the diverse contexts in which leadership operates: from complex and hierarchical organisations to small start-up enterprises; and from large public institutions to community groups. Considers the strengths and weaknesses of different styles and practices of leadership communication in light of real-world examples.
Stage II
Writing in the Workplace
Addresses written communication in the workplace across a range of discourses, environments, strategies and audiences. Focusing on different kinds of writing used in contexts such as government, community organisations, consultancy, professions, NGOs and private business, students will analyse and produce key workplace text-types within a critical framework of workplace analysis and scholarship on labour and organisations.
Prerequisite: 60 points at Stage I in BA courses
Journalism Studies
Explores journalism and the news media, examining their histories and contemporary state. Students gain knowledge about how the news media influences culture and society and will examine how recent social, political, and technological shifts have impacted on journalism. This course is primarily theoretical but has a practical component that involves news writing.
Prerequisite: 60 points at Stage I in BA courses
Audiences and Users
Examines the ways that audiences have been conceived, addressed, measured and empowered in the context of the history and technologies of communication media. Theories of reception to be studied include uses and gratifications models, consumer behaviourism, passive versus active audiences, the rise of the ‘prosumer’, modes of engagement and fan discourses. Students will also learn about audience research methods.
Prerequisite: 60 points at Stage I in BA courses
Television Journalism
A practical course where students explore the production of current affairs journalism. Students learn to write, video, present and edit short news items in the field and integrate these into a multi-camera production recorded as live in the television studio. Studio skills include directing, production management, multi-cam scripting, vision switching, presenting and interviewing within a framework of current industry practice.
Prerequisite: 60 points at Stage I in BA courses
Writing: Concept and Craft
An exploration of written communication which connects writing as an object of analysis and critique to writing as a multi-faceted craft. Since writing systems, materials and tools create the worlds we live in, the course conceptualises the relation between world and word, image and text, technology and body, and addresses cultural, critical and digital literacies that organise lived experience.
Prerequisite: 60 points at Stage I in BA courses
Restriction: ENGLISH 105, 257, 363
Special Topic: Persuasion and Power
Prerequisite: 60 points at Stage I in BA courses
Communication Research Methods
Introduces students to a variety of research methods in communication studies. Students learn about the foundations of, and approaches to qualitative and quantitative methods and acquire an array of techniques to collect data, such as individual and focus group interviews, participant observation, and surveys, as well as different forms of data analysis.
Prerequisite: 60 points at Stage I in BA or BC courses
Digital Communication Ethics
Addresses applied ethical issues arising in digital journalism, social media, “big data” surveillance and privacy, algorithmic bias, and software design. As digital media expand beyond the personal computer, there is an increase of ethical issues pertaining to mobile devices, GPS navigation, biometric modelling, artificial intelligence, and the ever-expanding range of wired devices tracking us through the so-called ‘internet of things’.
Prerequisite: 60 points passed
Practicing Communication in Māori and Pacific Worlds
Builds on COMMS 101 to develop students’ cultural competencies and understanding of tikanga Māori and Pacific cultures. Particular emphasis is given to the concept of whakawhanaungatanga and protocols surrounding engagement, consultation and partnership with Māori and Pacific communities.
Prerequisite: COMMS 101 and 45 points at Stage I in BA or BC courses
Narratives of Social Change
Investigates how the presentation of information shapes public attitudes and behaviours. Explores how public communication via news, social media and public awareness campaigns influence public understanding, engagement and behaviour. Key ideas explored in this course include: discourse; framing; rhetoric; and the interplay of words, images and sounds in multimodal communication.
Prerequisite: COMMS 102 and 45 points at Stage I in BA or BC courses
Communication and Persuasion
Explores theories and practices of persuasive communication. Students will develop competencies through practical exercises and case study investigations. The course will also emphasise the ethics of persuasive communication, exploring themes such as the difference between persuasion and manipulation, and the relationship between persuasion and power.
Prerequisite: 60 points at Stage I in BA or BC courses
Communication and Inclusive Leadership
Explores principles and practices of inclusive leadership and communication in the context of diverse organisations. The course investigates key causes and consequences of inequalities and barriers to inclusion within organisations, including overt and covert biases and forms of discrimination based on gender, ethnicity and disabilities. It also explores leadership strategies and best practices for building and sustaining inclusive organisations.
Prerequisite: 60 points at Stage I in BA or BC courses
Stage III
Sports Media
Examines the relationship between sport and the media. Topics include sports journalism; industry practice; the mediated game event; online communities of fandom; commentary; issues of race and gender; and sports law. Students may have the opportunity to experience televised studio production at the University’s television studio.
Prerequisite: 15 points from COMMS 200-208 and 15 points in BA courses
Gender, Politics and the Media
Addresses the theory, practice and representation of politics in the media from a gendered perspective. Analyses the relationship between the media and women and men in the public sphere.
Prerequisite: 15 points from COMMS 200-208, GENDER 208, and 15 points in BA courses
Special Topic
Prerequisite: 15 points from COMMS 200-208 and 15 points in BA courses
Communication Internship
Provides experiential learning opportunities in media, public relations, advertising, and corporate communication industries.
Prerequisite: Approval of Academic Head or nominee
Restriction: ARTSGEN 301, CAREER 300
Problems and Issues in Contemporary Communication
A seminar exploring a major theme or issue in contemporary communication to be determined by the convenor.
Prerequisite: 60 points at Stage II in BA or BC courses
Documentary and Social Change
Investigates the close alignment between documentary film and social and political transformation. The course will explore documentaries associated with political movements from anti-fascism to LGBTI issues. Students will produce a ‘mini-documentary’ as part of their coursework.
Prerequisite: 60 points at Stage II in BA or BC courses
Restriction: COMMS 306
Principles and Practices of Social Communication
Develops students’ skills in communicating effectively and ethically to promote positive social change. Students will produce communication relating to real-world social issues, where possible in partnership with an external organisation working to promote social change. The course also looks at processes for carrying out stakeholder consultation and audience testing.
Prerequisite: COMMS 212 and 45 points at Stage II in BA or BC courses
Risk, Crisis and Disaster Communication
Explores how governmental and non-governmental organisations communicate in the context of social risks such as environmental hazards and public health emergencies. The course also investigates communication in the wake of disasters. Concepts explored in the course include: mis- and disinformation; public engagement and risk perceptions; framings and narratives of disaster and risk.
Prerequisite: 60 points passed at Stage II
Environmental Communication
Investigates how environmental challenges and policies are communicated in contemporary society. Particular emphasis is given to the relationship between science communication and popular media narratives.
Prerequisite: 60 points passed at Stage II
Decolonising Technology and Data
Explores Indigenous perspectives on technology and data. Policy, activism and design are explored in relation to decolonisation, equity and rangatiratanga (sovereignty).
Prerequisite: 60 points passed at Stage II
Design for Equity, Accessibility and Justice
Examines principles and practices of inclusive technology design. Considers how technologies can be designed to empower rather than disadvantage members of socially marginalised communities.
Prerequisite: COMMS 208 and 45 points passed at Stage II
Technology Futures
Considers the place of digital technologies in diverse and contested visions of the future, from Silicon Valley futurism to surveillance dystopias, and from ecological critiques of high-technology to projects for building a digital commons.
Prerequisite: 60 points passed at Stage II
Restriction: COMMS 300
Communication Strategies in the Workplace
Addresses principles and best practices for effective communication within workplaces and organisations. Focuses on students’ skills in key areas including: professionalism in communication; listening skills; conflict resolution; and negotiation skills. Particular emphasis is given to the skills required for developing coherent and consistent communication strategies.
Prerequisite: COMMS 214 and 45 points passed at Stage II
Communication Project
Students complete a practical or academic project, involving individual or group-based work.
Prerequisite: 60 points at Stage II in BC courses
News and Journalism in the Digital Age
Examines the changing nature of news and journalism in the digital age. Themes covered include: news values and news cycles; journalistic principles and practices; the interface between journalism and news sources, including public relations industries; journalism’s ‘fourth estate’ role and the evolving relationship between news and public opinion in the digital age; and the political economy of contemporary journalism.
Prerequisite: 60 points passed at Stage II
Postgraduate 700 Level Courses
Digital Futures
Considers emerging communication and media technologies and potential future consequences for individuals, societies, and the world at large. Key areas of interest include robotics and AI; ubiquitous computing and the Internet of Things (IoT); 3D printing; virtual, augmented and mixed reality technologies. Issues examined include automation; future of employment; surveillance; new modes of experience; transformed human relationships; and ecological consequences.
Restriction: MEDIA 717
Communication and Data
Explores the implications for communication in an age of big data, where code and algorithms curate, evaluate, and profile users’ data. The course addresses issues such as archives, clouds, privacy, identity, algorithmic bias and discrimination, complexity, informational capitalism, and affective labour, while also considering possibilities for rethinking the past and predicting the future through the analysis and visualisation of data.
Communication Excess and Avoidance
Silences and absences make communication possible. Each medium, whether spoken or printed, projected or computed, has peculiar silences ranging from elegant to tragic, comic to painful, fleeting to eternal. Superabundant digital media raise acute questions about communicative excess and possible needs to disconnect. Such questions will be addressed alongside the cultural and technological history of communication excess and absence.
Restriction: MEDIA 745
Popular Communication and Politics
Explores popular communication across a range of media, genres, texts and technologies to consider the political nature of the cultures, patterns of use, and modes of interpretation that emerge around them. The course will examine the cultural appropriation, adoption, adaptation and distribution of communicative media as well as the political economy of communication, consumer culture and varying forms of fandom.
Communication and Culture
Explores the mutually constitutive relationship between communication and culture through analyses of the cultural forms and meanings of social interaction. Acquaints students with classic and contemporary readings and introduces students to ways in which they can adopt a cultural approach toward communication phenomena in interpersonal, organisational, and intercultural settings.
Communication Perspectives
Critical review of key debates and perspectives in the Communication field, with a particular emphasis on social change communication. Balances broad coverage of dominant approaches in the field with the study of under-represented perspectives including through studies of Indigenous scholarship and research from the Global South.
Communication Case Studies
Explores how research in the Communication field can be applied to address complex challenges of the contemporary world and contribute to the development of solutions. Themes and topics will vary from year to year in line with changing societal issues and the research projects of contributing staff.
Research Methods and Design
Critical survey of methodological approaches in the Communication field, including Indigenous and other non-Western methodologies. Students will also be guided through a process for defining their own research problem and establishing an appropriate methodological design. Prepares students to undertake a dissertation as well as covering skills transferable to professional contexts.
Communication Internship
Provides experiential learning opportunities within professional communication organisations, such as media, public relations, advertising, non-governmental organisations and corporate communication industries.