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  2. Understanding Culture and Power [MCS1100]

School: Arts and Humanities

This unit information may be updated and amended immediately prior to semester. To ensure you have the correct outline, please check it again at the beginning of semester.

  • Unit Title

    Understanding Culture and Power

  • Unit Code

    MCS1100

  • Year

    2026

  • Enrolment Period

    1

  • Version

    1

  • Credit Points

    15

  • Full Year Unit

     N

  • Mode of Delivery

    On Campus
    Online

  • Unit Coordinator

    Mr James HALL

Description

This unit explores culture as a social construction that changes over time and between cultures. Introducing students to the key theories and analytical tools of cultural studies, students learn how to read culture as a text to expose the ways it produces and sustains identity, power and injustice. Applying these tools to a range of media and cultural texts, and by situating these texts in their historical contexts, students will develop the knowledge and skills they need to navigate cultural complexity and nuance and begin to apply these to research, community and professional challenges to help bring about positive change.

Unit Content

  1. Key concepts and theories in media and cultural studies, including culture, ideology, globalisation and power.
  2. Techniques of critical thinking used in media and cultural studies.
  3. Applications of media and cultural studies in everyday life and in professional contexts.
  4. Processes of cultural change with a focus on representation, identity, and reading positions.
  5. Media and cultural studies approaches to ethics, responsibility and social justice.
  6. Digital and information literacy skills.
  7. Academic writing skills.

Learning Experience

Students will attend on campus classes as well as engage in learning activities through ECU's LMS

City CampusJoondalupSouth West (Bunbury)
Semester 1Not Offered13 x 2 hour tutorialNot Offered

For more information see the Semester Timetable

Assessment

GS1 GRADING SCHEMA 1 Used for standard coursework units

ON CAMPUS
TypeDescriptionValue
ProjectDigital interactive project40%
EssayResearch essay40%
PresentationPresentation20%
ONLINE
TypeDescriptionValue
ProjectDigital interactive project40%
EssayResearch essay40%
PresentationPresentation20%

Disability Standards for Education (Commonwealth 2005)

For the purposes of considering a request for Reasonable Adjustments under the Disability Standards for Education (Commonwealth 2005), inherent requirements for this subject are articulated in the Unit Description, Learning Outcomes and Assessment Requirements of this entry. The University is dedicated to provide support to those with special requirements. Further details on the support for students with disabilities or medical conditions can be found at the Access and Inclusion website.

Assessment

Students please note: The marks and grades received by students on assessments may be subject to further moderation. Informal vivas may be conducted as part of an assessment task, where staff require further information to confirm the learning outcomes have been met. All marks and grades are to be considered provisional until endorsed by the relevant School Progression Panel.

Academic Integrity

Integrity is a core value at Edith Cowan University, and it is expected that ECU students complete their assessment tasks honestly and with acknowledgement of other people's work as well as any generative artificial intelligence tools that may have been used. This means that assessment tasks must be completed individually (unless it is an authorised group assessment task) and any sources used must be referenced.

Breaches of academic integrity can include:

  • Plagiarism: Copying the words, ideas or creative works of other people or generative artificial intelligence tools, without referencing in accordance with stated University requirements. Students need to seek approval from the Unit Coordinator within the first week of study if they intend to use some of their previous work in an assessment task (self-plagiarism).
  • Unauthorised collaboration (collusion): Working with other students and submitting the same or substantially similar work or portions of work when an individual submission was required. This includes students knowingly providing others with copies of their own work to use in the same or similar assessment task(s).
  • Contract cheating: Organising a friend, a family member, another student or an external person or organisation (e.g. through an online website) to complete or substantially edit or refine part or all of an assessment task(s) on their behalf.
  • Cheating in an exam: Using or having access to unauthorised materials in an exam or test.

Serious outcomes may be imposed if a student is found to have committed one of these breaches, up to and including expulsion from the University for repeated or serious acts.

ECU's policies and more information about academic integrity can be found on the student academic integrity website.

All commencing ECU students are required to complete the Academic Integrity Module.

Assessment Extension

In some circumstances, Students may apply to their Unit Coordinator to extend the due date of their Assessment Task(s) in accordance with ECU's Assessment Procedure - for more information visit https://askus2.ecu.edu.au/s/article/000001386.

Special Consideration

Students may apply for Special Consideration in respect of a final unit grade, where their achievement was affected by Exceptional Circumstances as set out in the Assessment Procedure - for more information visit https://askus2.ecu.edu.au/s/article/000003318.

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