• HSC Subjects

  Bonus UAI Points Scheme

  Bonus UAI Points for HSC subjects that are relevant to your preferred Communication degree programs

  > Click here for more info
• 

Communication

What is Communication?

Those studying communication look at the production, exchange and reception of symbol systems that carry meaning in particular contexts. At the recent World Summit on the Information Society it was declared that 'communication is a fundamental social process, a basic human need and the foundation of all social organisation' (WSIS 2004:online). DEST states simply that communication and media studies is 'the study of the creation, production, dissemination and evaluation of messages' (UoN 2005:online). Communication is thus concerned with the breadth of human communicative experience and it is observable as an object of study at various points. These can be identified as intrapersonal, interpersonal, intragroup, intergroup or association, institutional or organisational, mass and intercultural communication which may occur at the local or global level.

What will I study?

For the Bachelor of Communication degree program at the University of Newcastle, the teaching and research emphasis tends to be placed at the level of mass communication. This subfield of the broader discipline of communication is concerned with the creation, production, dissemination and evaluation of various forms of media within specific social and cultural contexts. The media, in this case, can be categorised as broadcast media or non-broadcast media, with the recent addition of a third category, i.e. narrowcast media. The broadcast media includes television and radio. Non-broadcast media includes the press, film, advertising, book publishing and recorded music. Narrowcast media includes new or multimedia delivered via the internet, online or through mobile cultures, as well as computer games. Each of these media categories delivers media content of one form or another. It is the creation, production, dissemination and evaluation of journalism, public relations and various forms of media production for broadcast, non-broadcast and narrowcast media, along with an analysis of these processes through media studies, that are particularly concentrated on in the Bachelor of Communication program.