Shane Gunster Spring
2005
RCB 6155; 604-268-6916
Email: sgunster@sfu.ca
Prerequisites: CMNS 110 and
130.
Outline: This course provides an introduction to the political economy of
communication as a method of studying the relationship between media, culture,
economics and politics. In particular,
we will explore competing conceptions of the mass media as, on the one hand, an
economic enterprise driven by profit and, on the other, a political institution
fulfilling key functions in a democratic society. What are the tensions and contradictions that
arise out of these competing functions?
How have they shaped the historical evolution of the communication
industries? How have recent political
and economic trends such as convergence, privatization, deregulation and
globalization affected culture and communication? What are the principal social, technological,
economic and political forces – on both a national and a global level – that
will likely define and influence the mass media in the future? How do these forces affect the production of
particular types of media such as news and entertainment? What alternative possibilities exist for
organizing communication in different ways?
In addition to investigating broad social-historical processes and
macro-structural issues, our objective will be to deploy and assess political
economic analysis in the context of our daily experience as consumers and
citizens in a media and commodity-saturated society.
Weekly Course Themes:
Introduction to the Course
Democracy, Capitalism and the Media:
Tensions and Contradictions
Political Economy as a Framework for
Analysis
The Origins of the Commercial Media
System
Changing Patterns of Ownership and
Control in the Communication Industries
Changing Patterns of State
Regulation in the Communication Industries
Globalization and the Media
Commercial Culture and the Public
Sphere
The Political Economy of News
Media Bias?
New Media and Intellectual Property
Alternative Media and the Struggle
for Democratic Communication
Course Format: The course is organized around a series of
weekly themes that will be explored in lectures, readings and tutorial
discussion. While there will be some
overlap between the lectures, readings and tutorials, there will also be
important material that is only covered in one or the other. In other words, you are expected to do the
readings, attend the lectures and the tutorials to cover all the material that
you will be tested upon and which you will have to draw upon in your research
essays.
Course Texts:
Robert McChesney, The
Problem of the Media:
A courseware package will be available
from the bookstore.
Assignments:
Tutorial: 20%
Midterm: 25%
Research
essay: 30%
Final
Exam: 25%
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 the
current Calendar, General Regulations Section).