Politics, Power, and the Media
Academic Year 2004/05
Teachers - Location - Time Table - Aims - Assessement -Sessions & Readings - Download Syllabus
Teachers
Module Leader: Professor John Keane
Some of the seminars will be conducted by: Professor Lord Parekh, Dr Simon Joss, and Mr. Giovanni Navarria
Location
Centre for the Study of Democracy,
100 Park Village East,
London.
Monday, 6 pm-9pm, First Semester
Time Table 2004
27 September
Welcome; Communicative Abundance?
4 October
Gutenberg's World
11 October
The Internet World
(Mr. Giovanni Navarria)
18 October
The Rise of the Public Sphere
25 October
Risk and Public Accountability
(Dr. Simon Joss)
1 November
Democracy : New Approaches
8 November
Journalism Across Borders
15 November
The 'Informed Citizen'
(Mr. Giovanni Navarria)
22 November
Freedom of Speech
29 November
Multiculturalism and the Media
(Prof. Lord Bhikhu Parekh)
6 December
Course summary
Aims
The aim of this course of seminars and discussions is to familiarise students with the growing political role in modern times of communications media such as newspapers, books, radio, television, and computers. Drawing upon Tönnies's thesis that the struggle to create a public sphere and to define and influence public opinion is a distinctive feature of modern European societies, the course highlights several different interpretations of the way in which communications media have partially replaced such bodies as governments, churches and political parties as means of forming and representing citizens' opinions and distributing power. The course looks at the historical development of the means of human communication, from the advent of print culture through to today's digital and multi-media revolution. The course raises questions about why we study communications media and it introduces students to the works of such leading scholars as Marshall McLuhan, Jürgen Habermas, Stanley Fish and Manuel Castells. Special emphasis will be given to the twin concepts of the public sphere and democracy, and to the actual and potential roles played by communications media in nurturing and sustaining - and undermining - democratic institutions.
Particular topics covered include the effects of print culture; early modern criticisms of absolute monarchy; the revival of 'freedom of choice' as a central theme of contemporary market liberalism; the decline of public service broadcasting; old and new forms of state censorship; the Internet and the 'globalisation' of networked communications; communicative abundance; new types of journalism and the public sphere (encompassing the internet and the talk show); the meanings of 'freedom of expression'; and the need for a new understanding of the tense relationship between the media and power in democratic societies.
Assessement
Students are required to write one essay of around 5,000 words in length. The essay should be typed, with footnotes and a bibliography. It is worth 80% of the final mark. The deadline for the essay is Thursday 6 January, 2005 . Attendance and active participation in the course are worth 20% of the final mark.
Sessions & Readings
Introduction : The World of Communicative Abundance
- Seminar/Essay Topic : To what extent do we live in a world of 'communicative abundance'? What are its effects?
Readings :
* Manuel Castells, 'The Culture of Real Virtuality', in The Rise of The Network Society (Blackwell, 1996), pp. 327-375.
* John Keane, On Communicative Abundance (photocopy)
John Keane, Whatever Happened to Democracy?
Horace Newcomb and Paul M. Hirsch, 'Television as a Cultural Forum', in Horace Newcomb (ed.), Television : The Critical View, 5th edition (Oxford University Press) pp. 503-515
Ben Bagdikian, The Media Monopoly
Lincoln Dahlberg, 'Democracy via cyberspace. Mapping the rhetorics and practices of three prominent camps', New Media and Society 3, 2 (2001), pp. 187-207
Nicholas Negroponte, Being Digital
James Slevin, The Internet and Society
Joshua Gamson, 'Why I Love Trash', Freaks Talk Back (The University of Chicago Press, 1998), pp. 3-26
Michael X. Delli Carpini and Bruce A. Williams, 'Let Us Infotain You : Politics in the New Media Environment', from W. Lance Bennett and Robert M. Entman (eds.), Mediated Politics. Communication in the Future of Democracy (Cambridge University Press, 2001), pp. 160-181
Kalle Lasn, 'Introduction : Culture Jamming', Culture Jam (Quill, 1999), pp. xi-xvii
John Durham Peters, 'A Squeeze of the Hand', Speaking Into The Air. A History of the Idea of Communication (The University of Chicago Press, 1999), pp. 263-271
W.J.T. Mitchell, 'Representation', from Critical Terms for Literary Study (University of Chicago Press 1995), pp. 11-21
Gutenberg's World
- Seminar/Essay Topic : Did the printing press transform the world, as many claim? In which ways?
Readings :
* Elizabeth Eisenstein, 'Some Features of Print Culture' in The Printing Revolution in Early Modern Europe (Cambridge 1983), pp. 41-64, 78-91
Patrick Collinson, The Reformation, chapter 3
Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel, 'The Journalism of Assertion', Warp Speed (The Century Foundation Press, 1999), pp. 1-9
Michael Schudson, 'Three Hundred Years of the American Newspaper', from The Power of the News (Harvard University Press, 1995), pp. 37-52
George Steiner, 'After the Book?', in On Difficulty and Other Essays (Oxford University Press 1978), pp. 186-203
John Keane, Tom Paine. A Political Life (Little Brown 1995), pp. 101-119
Henri-Jean Martin, The History and Power of Writing
The Internet World
- Seminar/Essay Topic: How convincing is the claim that we are living in the Internet Galaxy? And what are its implications for the future of democracy?
Readings :
*Manuel Castells, The Internet Galaxy, Oxford University Press, 2001, pp. 1-63; 116-187; 275-282
* Barry M. Leiner et Al. A Brief History of the Internet, (Internet Society 2001) available online at www.isoc.org/internet/history/brief.shtml.
Manuel Castells, 'The Information Technology Revolution' (pp 29-64) and 'The Culture of Real Virtuality' (pp. 327-375), in The Rise of The Network Society (Blackwell, 1996).
Martin Heidegger, 'The Question Concerning Technology' in The Question Concerning Technology and Other Essays.
Phil Agre, 'Real-Time Politics: The Internet and the Political Process', in The Information Society, 18: 3111-331, 2002
Michael Margolis and David Resnick, 'The Internet, Mass Media, and Public Opinion' (pp. 99-116) and 'Democracy and Cyberspace: A Peek into the Future' (pp. 205-224) in Politics As Usual - The Cyberspace "Revolution" (Sage Publications Inc. 2000)
Sara Bentivegna, 'Politics and New Media' from Leah A. Lievrouw and Sonia Livingston (Eds.) Handbook of New Media (Sage Publications Inc. 2000) pp. 50-61.
Pippa Norris, 'The Democratic Divide' in Digital Divide. Civic Engagement, Information Poverty, and the Internet Worldwide (Cambridge University Press 2001) pp. 193-240
Robert D. Putman, 'Against the Tide? Small Groups, Social Movements, and the Net' in Bowling Alone (Simon & Schuster, 2000) pp. 148-180
Stephen Coleman and John Gotze, Bowling Together: Online Public Engagement in Policy Deliberation, Hansard Society 2001, (the printed version is no longer available, but the report is available online at www.bowlingtogether.net.
Michael Cornfield, Politics Moves Online, (The Century Foundation Press) Especially pp. 1-22 and 97-122
James Slevin, The Internet and Society
Anthony Wilhem, Democracy in the Digital Age. Challenges to Political Life in Cyberspace
Katie Hafner and Matthew Lyon, Where Wizards Stay Up Late. The Origins of the Internet.
The Rise of the Public Sphere
- Seminar/Essay Topic : To what extent is the early Habermas's theory of the rise and decline of the public sphere plausible?
Readings :
* Jürgen Habermas, 'The Public Sphere', New German Critique, 3 (1974).
John Keane, 'Structural Transformations of the Public Sphere', The Communication Review, volume 1, 1 (1995), pp 1-22 (and the following debate)
* John B. Thompson, 'The Theory of the Public Sphere : A Preliminary Assessment', from The Media and Modernity (Polity Press, 1995), pp. 69-75
Calhoun, Craig (ed.), Habermas and the Public Sphere
Keane, J., The Media and Democracy
Keane, J., Whatever Happened to Democracy?
Habermas, J., Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere
Lippmann, Walter, The Phantom Public
Hartley, John, The Politics of Pictures. The Creation of the Public in the Age of Popular Media
Herman, E and McChesney, R, The Global Media
Twentieth-Century Public Service Broadcasting
Readings:
Scannell, Paddy, 'Public Service Broadcasting: History of a Concept', in A Goodwin and G Whannel (eds.) Understanding Television.
* Scannell, Paddy 'Public Service Broadcasting and modern public life', Media, Culture and Society, 11, 2, (1989), pp135-166.
Mulgan, Geoff, 'Television's Holy Grail: Seven Types of Quality.' in G. Mulgan (ed.) The Question of Quality. (pp 4-32).
Carey, J., Communication as Culture: Essays on Media and Society
Keane, John, The Media and Democracy, pp 116-127
Scannell, P., 'Music for the Multitude? The Dilemmas of the BBC's Music Policy, 1923-1946'. Media Culture and Society, 3 (1082), 263-60.
Scannell, P and, A Social History of British Broadcasting. Cardiff, D.
Meyrowitz, Joshua , No Sense of Place (Parts 1 and 5)
Lippmann, Walter The Phantom Public
Blumler, Jay (ed) Television and the Public Interest: Vulnerable Values in West European Broadcasting
Garnham, Nicholas 'Media and the Public Sphere', in Peter Golding et.al. (eds.), Communicating Politics
Bondheim, Menahem News Over the Wires. The Telegraph and the Flow of Public Information in America, 1844-1897
BBC, The Future of Public Service Broadcasting (London, 2004)
Risk and Public Accountability
- Seminar/Essay Topic: How have science and technology contributed to the 'third historic transformation' of democracy; and how might the public sphere perspective address the problem of 'public accountability of (technological) risk'?
Readings :
*Dahl, R. 1994. "A Democratic Dilemma. System Effectiveness versus Citizen Participation." in Political Science Quarterly, 10 (1): pp 23-34.
*Joss, S. 2004. "Between Policy and Politics. Or: whatever do Weapons of Mass Destruction Have to Do with GM Crops? The UK's GM Nation Public Debate as an Example of Participatory Governance." In Maasen, S., and Weingart, P (eds), The 2003 Yearbook of the Sociology of Science. Kluwer Academic Publishers. [Available in CSD library].
Grote, J.R. and Gbikpi, B (eds). 2002. Participatory Governance. Political and Societal Implications. Opladen: Leske & Budrich. [Available in CSD library]
European Commission. 2001. European Governance - A White Paper. Brussels: European Commission. [Available in CSD library]
European Commission. 2001 Towards A European Research Area. Brussels: European Commission. [Available in CSD library]
Grove-White, R. Macnaghten, P. and Wynne, B. 200. Wising Up. The Public and New Technologies. A research report by the Centre for the Study of Environmental Change. Lancaster: Lancaster University. [Available in CSD library]
Irwin, A. 1995. Citizen Science. A Study of People, Expertise and Sustainable Development. London/New York: Routledge.
Sclove, R. 1995. Democracy and Technology. New York/London: The Guildford Press.
Democracy : New Approaches
- Seminar/Essay Topic : Is the idea of democracy, understood as the 'government of the people, by the people, for the people', still viable in practice? Why?
Readings:
* John Keane, Democracy : The Rule of Nobody? (download here)
Robert Dahl, On Democracy
John Durham Peters, 'A Squeeze of the Hand', Speaking Into The Air. A History of the Idea of Communication (The University of Chicago Press, 1999), pp. 263-271
Schudson, Michael,'Why Conversation is Not the Soul of Democracy', Critical Studies in Mass Communication, 14 (1997), pp 1-13
Schudson, Michael , The Good Citizen
Linz, Juan and A. Stepan (eds), The Breakdown of Democratic Regimes: Europe pp 162-215
Huntington, Samuel P, 'Will More Countries Become Democratic?' Political Science Quarterly, 99 (Summer 1984), pp 209-214.
Friedland, Lewis, 'Electronic democracy and the new citizenship', Media, Culture and Society, volume 18 (1996), pp185-212
Dahl, Robert A, Dilemmas of Pluralist Democracy.
Held, David , Models of Democracy.
Fishkin, James, The Voice of the People: Public Opinion and Democracy
Bobbio, Norberto, The Future of Democracy, especially pp 79-97 (on invisible power)
*Keane, John, 'Democracy, Risks and Reversals' in The Media and Democracy. (Part 5).
Lippmann, Walter, The Phantom Public
Dahl, Robert, Democracy and its Critics.
Macpherson, C B, The Life and Times of Liberal Democracy.
McLaughlin, Lisa, 'Feminism, the public sphere, media and democracy', Media, Culture and Society, volume 15, number 4 (October 1993)
Elshtain, Jean Bethke, Democracy on Trial
Journalism Across Borders
- Seminar/Essay Topic : 'The globalisation of communications works mainly in favour of American-dominated capitalism'. Discuss.
Readings:
* John Keane, Journalism and Democracy Across Borders (download from the web)
Claude Fischer, 'Personal Calls, Personal Meanings', from America Calling : A Social History of the Telephone to 1940 (University of California Press 1992)
* Manuel Castells, 'The Culture of Real Virtuality', in The Rise of The Network Society (Blackwell, 1996), pp. 327-375.
John B. Thompson, 'The Globalization of Communication', The Media and Modernity (Polity Press, 1995), pp. 149-178
Michael Ignatieff, 'Is Nothing Sacred? The Ethics of Television', from The Warrior's Honor (Chatto and Windus1998), pp.9-33
Peter Golding, 'Worldwide Wedge : Division and Contradiction in the Global Information Infrastructure', in Daya Kishan Thussu (ed.), Electronic Empires (Arnold Press 1998), pp. 135-148
Meyrowitz, Joshua , No Sense of Place (Oxford University Press, 1985)
De Sola Pool, I., Technologies of Freedom (Harvard University Press, London 1983)
De Sola Pool, I.(ed), Technologies without boundaries: on Telecommunications in a global age (Harvard University Press, 1990)
Hallin, Daniel, We Keep America on Top of the World: Television Journalism and the Public Sphere
McLuhan, Marshall, The Global Village: transformations in World life and Media
The 'Informed Citizen'
- Seminar/Essay Topic : Is it still meaningful to speak of the informed citizen? Why?
Readings :
* Michael Schudson, The Good Citizen, especially final sections (photocopy)
W. Lance Bennet and Robert M Entman (eds.), Mediated Politics - Communication in the Future of Democracy<
Bob Franklin, Packaging Politics
Nicholas Garnham, 'The Media and the Public Sphere', in Peter Golding et. al. (eds.), Communicating Politics : mass communications and the political process
Cass Sunstein, Republic.com
+ screened video
Free Speech : A Brief History
- Seminar/ Essay Topic: Why is Stanley Fish so hostile to the principle of freedom of speech? Are his objections coherent?
Readings:
Fish, Stanley, 'There's No Such Thing as Free Speech ... and it's a Good Thing Too', introduction
Fish, Stanley, 'Boutique Multiculturalism, or why Liberals are Incapable of thinking about Hate and Speech', in Critical Inquiry 23 (Winter 1997)
Schauer, Frederick , 'The First Amendment as Ideology' William and Mary Law Review, 33, 3 (1992)
Dworkin, Ronald, 'The Coming Battles over Free Speech' New York Review of Books, June 11 1992, p 56
* Stanley Fish, 'There is No Such Thing as Free Speech : An Interview with Stanley Fish', from the Australian Humanities Review, February, 1998 available online at www.lib.latrobe.edu.au/AHR/archive/Issue-February-1998/fish.html
John Keane, Vaclav Havel: A Political Tragedy in Six Acts (Basic Books, 2000), pp. 427 - 436
Kent Greenawalt, Fighting Words: Individuals, Communities, and Liberties of Speech (Princeton University Press 1995), pp. 47-64
Media and Democracy in a Multicultural Society
- Seminar/Essay Topic : Do journalists and broadcasters have special responsibilities in a multicultural society? Why?
Readings :
Bhikhu Parekh, Rethinking Multiculturalism
Course Summary
Download Syllabus
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