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Unit Summary
Unit type
UG Coursework Unit
Credit points
12
AQF level
Level of learning
Intermediate
Former School/College
Unit aim
Introduces students to news writing, research and interviewing techniques that may be applied broadly across news media formats. Students gain a critical appreciation of professional, legal and ethical issues in contemporary journalism. Practical activities and assessments give students exposure to professional journalism standards and practices.
Unit content
Understanding journalism:
- journalism as a cultural and media industry practice
- news values: filtering and selection
- interrogating objectivity: balance, fairness and multiple perspectives
- news organisations, news sites and newsworkers.
Introduction to journalistic practice:
- distinguishing news from news comment (editorials, opinion pieces, features)
- forms, styles and techniques of news writing for print and online
- news-gathering, research and information routines
- interviewing skills.
Professional issues in journalism:
- ethical journalism: a contradiction in terms?
- introduction to legal issues
- cultural representation and cross-cultural communications
- journalist's relationship to public relations and issues management professionals.
Learning outcomes
Unit Learning Outcomes express learning achievement in terms of what a student should know, understand and be able to do on completion of a unit. These outcomes are aligned with the graduate attributes. The unit learning outcomes and graduate attributes are also the basis of evaluating prior learning.
| On completion of this unit, students should be able to: | GA1 | GA2 | GA3 | GA4 | GA5 | GA6 | GA7 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | discuss the roles that news journalism can play in contemporary societies | |||||||
| 2 | define news and distinguish its characteristics from feature and opinion writing | |||||||
| 3 | explain how news is produced and published for different readerships | |||||||
| 4 | apply journalistic techniques and conventions to the accurate research and writing of news stories | |||||||
| 5 | critically discuss representational, legal and ethical issues in contemporary journalism | |||||||
On completion of this unit, students should be able to:
-
discuss the roles that news journalism can play in contemporary societies
- GA1:
- GA3:
- GA4:
-
define news and distinguish its characteristics from feature and opinion writing
- GA1:
- GA3:
- GA4:
-
explain how news is produced and published for different readerships
- GA4:
- GA5:
- GA6:
-
apply journalistic techniques and conventions to the accurate research and writing of news stories
- GA2:
- GA3:
- GA4:
- GA6:
-
critically discuss representational, legal and ethical issues in contemporary journalism
- GA1:
- GA3:
- GA4:
- GA7:
Prescribed texts
- Lamble, S, 2016, News As It Happens: An Introduction to Journalism, 3rd edn, Oxford University Press, South Melbourne, Vic. ISBN: 9780190303747.