Postgraduate Students

We are currently in the process of developing the Postgraduate Program. If you are interested in undertaking a Masters or Ph.D by Research, please contact the Head of Discipline.

Sukhmani Khorana

"Mehta’s Film Trilogy: Theorising Transnational Production and Reception; Practising Diasporic Creativity."

Coming to a reading of Deepa Mehta’s film trilogy comprising Fire, Earth and Water from the situated perspective of a young Indian woman living in the West, I aim to not only analyse these films from a hybrid feminist-postcolonial-poststructural theoretical position, but also utilise them as a springboard for my own diasporic filmmaking practice. Through planned filmed interviews with the director, and with randomly selected audience members from the Indian diaspora and the ‘liberal’ west, the creative work will raise questions about the politics of meaning-making as observed in the production and reception studies. While the exegesis may arrive at a re-mediated reading of these complex, transnationally produced and consumed texts, it is also likely to highlight the need for wider awareness and acceptance of homeland-critiquing diasporic films beyond the exclusive international film festival circuit.

Ying Jiang

"Western Media and Chinese Bloggers. "

Analysis of the antipathy from Chinese bloggers towards Western media; the Internet censorship in China and Chinese blogosphere; the accuracy and objectivity of the Western coverage of Chinese censorship issues. Key question: why Chinese bloggers hate Western media if Western media is working towards a freer way of speech for Chinese citizens. This project opens up the debate and questions the accuracy of Western coverage on Chinese censorship issues. Argument: findings and analysis have significance for the controversy on the necessity of China's Great Firewall, and may have wider implications for future development of the cultural relationship between China and the Western world.

Jeanette Carroll

"New Media and Activism" (working title)

I am interested in 'virtual activism' and the ways in which agents for social change make use of new technologies. New media and other new tools for mobilisation have changed the oppportunities for social action groups and I wish to conduct some empirical research on the ways that these technologies are incorporated into activism.  I am also interested in how the lack of access to such technologies might disadvantage certain social groups.  I wish to explore what new social cleavages arise and how projects like the 'digital bridge' might address the gap. 

Awan Ismail

"An analysis of 'Development Journalism' and its Alternatives in Malaysia: The Forces which shape Malaysian News Coverage of Malaysia/Singapore Relations"

This research aims to examine the ways in which national ideologies, colonial rule, media organizations, political individual and economy and social values may have affected Malaysian news coverage in general and development journalism practices in particular. Focus on these subtle forces that can be detrimental to accurate and diverse news reporting in Malaysia. Identifying how development journalism practices have contributed in modernizing Malaysia and her relationship with Singapore and what are the real factors that shape the media thus far.   On the other hand, to analyse to what extent do Malaysia journalists practice the values of harmony & supportiveness reporting (development journalism) by keeping conflict out of their news report on issues with Singapore? Is there any difference between development journalism and free press and the potential future of both practices?  It is also argued that the complexities of external forces such as economy, need to be studied within and as part of wider processes of society which, in turn, are principally by-products of, and driven by, capitalism, and are full of contradictions and inequities.

Further Information:

Dr Sal Humphreys
Postgraduate Coordinator
Napier 903
North Terrace Campus 
Email: sal.humphreys@adelaide.edu.au