Informed by a conviction that writing is thinking, this paper presents a model for developing stu... more Informed by a conviction that writing is thinking, this paper presents a model for developing student writing within disciplinary curriculum by linking writing practice explicitly to reading non-fiction and critical thinking as co-constructive practices of disciplinary discourse. The challenge of developing students’ written communication is here focalised through reading and enacted through formative exercises that emphasise writing as a discursive practice and iterative process. This pedagogy aims to reveal to students the conventions and codes of disciplinary discourse through shared reading and writing exercises that focus on reading comprehension. Rather than an empirical study, I offer a practitioner’s perspective informed by several years of reflective practice and training in the approaches associated with Writing Across the Curriculum. The goal of describing this pedagogy is to demonstrate how writing practice and development can be integrated with existing curriculum witho...
Plotting New Media Frontiers: Myst and Narrative Pleasure
Visual Anthropology Review, 1997
Page 1. PLOTTING NEW MEDIA FRONTIERS: MYST AND NARRATIVE PLEASURE KAREN ORR VERED Myst! Myst cont... more Page 1. PLOTTING NEW MEDIA FRONTIERS: MYST AND NARRATIVE PLEASURE KAREN ORR VERED Myst! Myst continues to be mentioned whenever a new adventure game is evaluated and game sales and success are ...
Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies, 2002
This article considers how the emergent commercial televisual aesthetic of a 'windows interfa... more This article considers how the emergent commercial televisual aesthetic of a 'windows interface' is linked to changes in programming and the institutional structures of television. The new look of television, the windows aesthetic, strongly resembles the graphical user interface of the now domesticated personal computer, suggesting an interface instead of a surface. Through an examination of relationships between formal elements of television, concepts of interactivity, and modes of address, this essay demonstrates how this new commercial aesthetic is linked to an increasing commodification of television's supertext and a commodification of viewers through their participation in the text. Among the many texts and textual elements analysed are The Eurovision Song Contest, WebTV, station idents, watermarks, and the use of computer graphics in news.
The Emperor's New Clothes: The Logie Awards, Australian National Identity, TV and Popular Culture
Continuum, 2003
In July 2002, two of Australia’s most prominent media owners, Kerry Packer and Kerry Stokes, were... more In July 2002, two of Australia’s most prominent media owners, Kerry Packer and Kerry Stokes, were involved in a buy-out for TV Week, the only national, weekly television guide in Australia at the time. The deal resulted in Packer’s PBL securing sole ownership of TV Week. Pacific Publications, controlled by Stokes, responded by launching another national guide/magazine, What’s On Weekly (aka WOW!). One piece of this deal still, however, remains contested: ownership of the Logies, Australia’s premier television awards. The Logie Awards (the Logies) have been affiliated with TV Week since their inception when the magazine launched them as the ‘TV Week Awards’ in 1959. When the magazine was sold recently to PBL, rights to use the Logie trademark were, arguably, not included in the deal. Former co-owner of the magazine, Pacific Publications claims that the Logie trademark remains with them, despite the fact they had relinquished the masthead. The two companies have spent four months in court, fighting over what is clearly a valuable prize—ownership of the Logies. Given that such a court battle is expensive and time consuming, it is only logical to ask, then, what is so important about the Logies? To many viewers, the Logie Awards Show is kitsch and tawdry, but it also performs a serious function by contributing to discourses on television and national identity. The show and its trademark also are clearly valuable commercial assets. The annual awards show is an ‘event’. It is a festival of cross-promotion for the magazine, the TV shows, and the Logies themselves. As such, the Logie Awards Show makes important comment on Australian culture that warrants analysis. Television shows about television, because they are self-reflective, narrate what otherwise remains implicit: the cultural work of television as an industry and an object. What television has to say about itself contributes to the general public discourse about the medium but does so from an exceptionally informed position and in an especially performative style. This essay demonstrates how the Logie Awards Show articulates a series of tensions and contradictions that exist in the Australian broadcasting environment and which shape the ways in which television is able to contribute to a sense of national identity. The Logie Awards Show runs up against, rather than avoids, the contradictions and tensions that characterize a small to medium television industry within a global market (O’Regan, 1996). The awards assist us in nominating and recalling television’s highlights and the annual broadcast contributes to what Alan McKee (2001) has called the ‘public archive’
Center or Margin? The Place of Media Play in Children’s Leisure: Case Studies in Sweden and Australia
Copyright 2011 Peter Lang Publishing Inc. Published version of the paper reproduced here with per... more Copyright 2011 Peter Lang Publishing Inc. Published version of the paper reproduced here with permission from the publisher.
Karen Orr Vered teaches and publishes across the intersections of feminism, film, television stud... more Karen Orr Vered teaches and publishes across the intersections of feminism, film, television studies and children's media practices. Her essays have appeared in Camera Obscura, Continuum, Convergence, Screening the Past, The Velvet Lighttrap and several anthologies. Sal Humphreys' research focuses on digital and online media with a special interest in digital games and social networking sites. She has published in Continuum, Convergence, European
It is commonly accepted in the academy that developing a critical thinking capacity and related c... more It is commonly accepted in the academy that developing a critical thinking capacity and related capabilities will make students more effective thinkers and writers, and that these are desirable traits for graduates to have no matter what path they take after graduation. While most academics agree that critical thinking is an essential component of university education, they are less clear about what constitutes critical thinking and how it is, or can be, incorporated within their own teaching and assessment practices without displacing disciplinary content (Moore, 2011). This article discusses how the Shared Inquiry (SI) discussion method can be deployed to teach disciplinary content and critical thinking simultaneously. Qualitative evidence from the method’s application in a Screen & Media Studies subject taught at Flinders University, South Australia, is presented to demonstrate the benefits of SI in developing critical thinking among undergraduate student cohorts.
Intermediary Space and Media Competency: Children's Media Play in “Out of School Hours Care” Facilities in Australia
Simile Studies in Media Information Literacy Education, 2001
Page 1. Intermediary Space and Media Competency: Children's Media Play in Out of School Hou... more Page 1. Intermediary Space and Media Competency: Children's Media Play in Out of School Hours Care Facilities in Australia Karen Orr Vered Flinders University ABSTRACT To understand how children acquire their overall ...
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