SCHOOL OF COMMUNICATION
CMNS 444-4

Yuezhi Zhao	Spring 2001
RCB 6155; 604-291-4916	Burnaby, Day
yzhao@sfu.ca

 

POLITICAL ECONOMY OF INTERNATIONAL COMMUNICATION

Prerequisite:

At least 75 credit hours including CMNS 240. Recommended: CMNS 345.

Overview:

This course examines the structure of world communication systems and the political and economic contexts of their operation. The course begins with a discussion of the evolution of world communication systems and Anglo-American domination in international communication. It moves on to review the rise and fall of state-centred Third World demands for equality in international communication and the emergence of a world communication order led by transnational communication corporations and dominated by market relations. The course then situates world communication within the recently accelerated process of globalization and highlights the strategic role of mass media and telecommunications in the expansion of world capitalism. In the second part of the course, we will analyze the privatization and deregulation of national communication systems and explore the complex interactions between transnational capital, supranational bodies such as the ITU and the WTO, and national and local power structures in shaping communication policies and structures. We will also discuss the contradictions of globalization and explore alternatives to or different options within the current world communication order.

Course Requirements:

Seminar participation and presentation: 30%
Mid-Term Take Home Exam: 30%
Final Research Paper: 40%

Required Texts:

Armand Mattelart, Networking the World, 1794-2000, University of Minnesota Press, 2000.
Daya Kishan Thussu, International Communication: Continuity and Change, Arnold, 2000.
In addition, students are required to purchase a courseware package from the SFU Bookstore.
Useful Reference Texts (for background reading and term paper preparation, no purchase is necessary):
William Greider, One World, Ready or Not: The Manic Logic of Global Capitalism
Richard J. Barnet & John Cavanagh, Global Dreams
Leslie Sklair, Sociology of the Global System
Manual Castells, The Rise of the Network Society
David Harvey, The Condition of Postmodernity
Don Kalb et al (eds.) The Ends of Globalization: Bringing Society Back In
Jeremy Brecher & Tim Costello, Global Village or Global Pillage
Edward Herman & Robert McChesney, The Global Media
Gerald Sussman, Communication, Technology, and Politics in the Information Age
Gerald Sussman & John Lent (eds.), Global Productions: Into the Twenty-First Century
Dan Schiller, Digital Capitalism: Networking the Global Market System
Jeremy Tunstall and David Machin, The Anglo-American Media Connection
Daya Kishan Thussu (ed.), Electronic Empires: Global Media and Local Resistance
Nick Dyer-Witheford, Cyber-Marx: Cycles and Circuits of Struggle in High-Technology Capitalism

Weekly Topics.

A detailed reading schedule will be handed out in the first week of class.

1. Introduction: Political Economy and Utopias of Universal Communication
2. The “Great Imperial Binding Force:” Capitalism, Imperialism, and Communication
3. International Communication Between the Hot and Cold Wars in the 20th Century
4. Debates on Cultural Imperialism and Globalization
5. Transnational Corporate Networks: The New Visible Hands of Digital Capitalism
6. The Privatization and Liberalization of National Telecommunication Systems
7. The WTO and the Emerging International Communications Trade Regime
8. Media Globalization: The US State, the Washington Media Lobby, and the Rest of the World
9. The Global Media Marketplace and the Global and Local Dialectic in the New International
Division of Culture Production
10. International Capital, States, and Local Elites in Communication Industries
11. The International Division of Labor in the Making of “Information Society:” Janitors in
Silicon Valley, Prison Labors in the US, and Electronic Workers in Malaysia
12. Globalization and Its Discontents: Global Techno-Apartheid, Information Control, and New
World Disorder
13. Social Movements, Global Counter Networks, and Globalization from Below

The School expects that the grades awarded in this course will bear some reasonable relation to established university-wide practices with respect to both levels and distribution of grades. In addition, the School will follow policy T10.02 with respect to “Intellectual Honesty,” and “Academic Discipline” (see current calendar, General Regulations Section).