Beacon is an online multimedia journal that showcases the work of current undergraduate students at the University of British Columbia who explore and study the subject of Media.
Jayden Dreher
Being In Time (dancing with David) is an experimental short film which considers temporal specificity and its effects on the queer body.
Fred Oliver Beeby
Using the example of YouTubers’ responses to Bridgerton and its approach to representing race in its fantastical regency setting, this essay explores audience reception in our “new media”-saturated world and argues that the affordances of platforms that host discussions about media texts and the willingness of the original content to be renegotiated through audience involvement catalyzes audiences’ ability to respond to and radically alter the source material.
Hui Wong
In this paper, I read Larissa Lai’s Salt Fish Girl as a critique of capitalism’s deployment of media technologies as a “solution” to the climate crisis, also termed “geoengineering.” Lai’s text demonstrates the incommensurability of capitalism and climate justice, tracing the outlines of another way out.
Bryan Huang
Written within the speculative narrative of the Blade Runner films, reflections of contemporary information policy issues including privacy, personal data usage, and commodification of memory are investigated in this fictional policy briefing.
Kay Snell
To better explain the transfer between analog and digital technologies, I make the case for a model of history that emphasizes the technological foundations already present in the development of “new” inventions.
Claire Lin
This essay investigates the operation of a broken music box to examine how malfunctioning objects contribute to our understanding of media history and what it means for technology to be “obsolete”.
Jiayin Luo
Conspiracy theories are gaining more prominence than ever in our political discourses. In this paper, I explore that phenomenon by examining the spaces our political discourses take place on.
Colby Payne
This paper explores the role of popular culture in Lolita, as well as how perceptions of the text’s protagonists may shift based on the reader and time period.
Who We Are
The University of British Columbia’s Beacon: Journal of Media Studies is a student-led academic journal that publishes a volume of peer- and faculty-reviewed work each school year. Though our journal is directly affiliated with the Bachelor of Media Studies program at UBC, our goal is to celebrate and showcase academic and creative work made by all undergraduate students at UBC who study Media Studies, Creative Writing, Art History, and beyond. Visit our About + Contact page to learn more.
How To Submit
Current undergraduate UBC students from the Vancouver and Okanagan campuses are eligible to submit up to 4 original pieces each school year. Students do not have to be a Bachelor of Media Studies student to submit, as long as the work submitted is related to the subject of Media Studies. All submissions must follow UBC’s Procedures regarding Academic Integrity. Visit our Submit page to learn more.
Land Acknowledgement
This journal is created at UBC Vancouver, which sits on the unceded, ancestral territories of the hən̓q̓əmin̓əm speaking xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam) peoples.