Screen and Cultural Studies is a dynamic, rapidly evolving field characterised by a dual concern with contemporary screen media on the one hand, and critical approaches to interpreting everyday culture, on the other. As a program, our aim is to help students master the critical tools necessary to gain a sophisticated understanding of the hyper-mediatised, globally interconnected world of the early twenty-first century. Key foci include the study of global popular media and screen culture; Australian, Asian, Hollywood and art house cinema; social theory for the analysis of everyday life in contemporary commodity culture; television and computer games; internet cultures and the impact of entertainment media on the urban environment.

The major offers individual subjects that examine media histories; gender, sexuality and identity; narrative structure in film and other related media; social texts from subcultures to raves and Mardi Gras; screen aesthetics; media spectatorship; and critical theories about class, ideology, and social power. Students will study a variety of everyday cultures and screen media, including net-based media encountering their cultural significance as well as theories that help make sense of how they relate to power, economics and lived culture today. Through innovative teaching including a range of interactive web-based learning tools, students encounter new ways of interpreting and analysing contemporary media and culture. Subjects offered reflect the theoretical and interpretive approaches to screen media and contemporary cultures that are essential to students in applying knowledge in practical and professional frameworks beyond their degrees.

Academic staff in the discipline are internationally recognized specialists in Australian film and media histories; Hollywood and global entertainment cultures; Asian screen cultures especially those of China, Hong Kong and Taiwan and Korea; European cinema with a focus on British and Italian directors; horror films; documentary and ethnographic cinema; international television; internet and gaming cultures; critical studies of gender and sexuality; colonialism and postcolonialism; studies in cultural policy and new media technologies.