Media,Politics & Policy

POLI70191 Media,Politics & Policy 15 Semester 1 Postgraduate Taught Level 6 Peter Humphreys Unit coordinator Politics 1 FHEQ level (Framework for Higher Education Qualifications) ' Masters/Integrated Masters P4 ' European Credit Transfer & Accumulation System Rating : 7.5 This module looks at the complex relationship between politics and the media.  This involves examination of both media policy and political communication.  The course starts with an introductory session, which is an orientation and preparation session. The media policy part of the module starts with a session discussing the extent of media freedom and media pluralism, and looks at the different models of media system that provide this, in the liberal democracies of North America and Europe. The second policy session looks at the threat presented by media concentration (e.g. powerful 'press barons' and 'media moguls') to democratic pluralism and discusses policies to combat it (e.g. ownership rules and press subsidies to maintain media pluralism). The third policy session looks at the commercialisation of the electronic media that accompanied multi-channel TV from the 1980s onwards (with cable, satellite and digital TV) and discusses the policy issues surrounding it. This involves looking at patterns of public regulation and control of the mass media, and the tension between market and public-service goals. The fourth policy session focuses on the impact of the Internet and discusses the policy implications for media (copyright, public service, net neutrality, etc.). The political communication part of the module first discusses the media's role in election campaigns; then a session looks at whether political communication in Western Europe is being ‘Americanised’. The next session focuses on the way the Internet has changed political communication, asking whether or it is the democratising/pluralising force as Internet celebrants that argue it is. A concluding session for the course considers whether it is possible for the media ever to be objective and balanced. This module looks at the complex relationship between politics and the media.  This involves examination of both media policy and political communication.  The course starts with an introductory session, which is an orientation and preparation session. The media policy part of the module starts with a session discussing the extent of media freedom and media pluralism, and looks at the different models of media system that provide this, in the liberal democracies of North America and Europe. The second policy session looks at the threat presented by media concentration (e.g. powerful 'press barons' and 'media moguls') to democratic pluralism and discusses policies to combat it (e.g. ownership rules and press subsidies to maintain media pluralism). The third policy session looks at the commercialisation of the electronic media that accompanied multi-channel TV from the 1980s onwards (with cable, satellite and digital TV) and discusses the policy issues surrounding it. This involves looking at patterns of public regulation and control of the mass media, and the tension between market and public-service goals. The fourth policy session focuses on the impact of the Internet and discusses the policy implications for media (copyright, public service, net neutrality, etc.). The political communication part of the module first discusses the media's role in election campaigns; then a session looks at whether political communication in Western Europe is being ‘Americanised’. The next session focuses on the way the Internet has changed political communication, asking whether or it is the democratising/pluralising force as Internet celebrants that argue it is. A concluding session for the course considers whether it is possible for the media ever to be objective and balanced. To explore the relationship between politics and the media by means of comparative investigation of media systems in North America and Europe. It aims to give students a sophisticated understanding of the regulatory structures of different mass media systems, the main policy issues relevant to the contemporary mass media, including the Internet, and the process and effects of political communication in the digital era. By the end of the module students will be both knowledgeable about, and proficient in the comparative analysis of, mass media systems in North America and Europe with regard both to media regulation and policy and to political communication. They will have the ability to identify the strengths and weaknesses of different perspectives, models and explanations applied to this particular subject. An introductory session is followed by nine substantive two-hour sessions, one of which is used for consultation on assessed work. The substantive sessions are devoted to class discussion in the form of ‘group debates’, for which course members choose, or are allocated, a ‘side’ on particular questions (specified in the course guide) and all are expected to participate in the debate on the basis of the reading they have undertaken. At a certain point in the discussion, students are freed of the constraint of arguing a particular position and can express their own viewpoint. This method has proven to be both very useful and popular. 0 Other 25% 2 Written assignment (inc essay) 75% 3,500 word essay = 75%, a 500-word book review = 15%, class participation = 10%. Y <ul> <li> D. Hallin and P. Mancini (2004) Comparing Media Systems: Three Models of Media and Politics, Cambridge: CUP (Paperback available from Blackwells).</li> <li> T. Gibbon and P. Humphreys (2012), Audiovisual Regulation Under Pressure: Comparative Cases from North America and Europe, London & New York: Routledge. (2013 Paperback available from Blackwells)</li> <li> D. Freedman (2008), The Politics of Media Policy (in USA and UK), Cambridge: Polity (Paperback available from Blackwells).</li></ul>And on the Internet:<ul> <li> R. McChesney (2013), Digital Disconnect: How Capitalism is Turning the Internet Against Democracy, New York/London: The New Press. 2 copies in High Demand. 2 copies available at Main Library High Demand High Demand (384.3 M14 ).</li></ul> Seminars 20 0 130