Course Description
This course offers a comprehensive look at the trends and challenges in global media and communication. Students will learn how to use analytical tools to theorize globalization and its processes in the context of prominent historical events. Students will also focus on the shifting trends in the global media landscape in the news, film, and television industries.
Course Content
This course will cover selected key concepts from the following topics:
Globalization: Definitions and Debates
- Theorizing Globalization
- Global Transformations: Politics, Economics, and Culture
Perspectives in Global Media and Communication
- Propaganda and Realism
- The Cold War and Liberalism
- The Global Communication Order and Critical Theory
- Cultural Imperialism and Postcolonial Studies
- Global Media and Hybrid Cultures
- Cultural Influences from Around the Globe
- Canada vs the US: A Struggle for Cultural Identity
- Shifts in the Political, Economic and Cultural Landscape
Learning Activities
Some or all of the folowing methods will be used:
- Lecture/seminar
- Media (including video and documentary film)
- Discussion of class readings and materials
- Student-provided materials
Means of Assessment
Students will be assessed using a variety of evaluations, such as
Case Study – 20%
Midterm Exam – 30%
Research Paper – 30%
Research Paper Presentation – 10%
Attendance and Participation – 10%
Total - 100%
Learning Outcomes
Students who successfully complete this course will
- Develop an understanding of the major trends and challenges in global media and communication
- Identify appropriate theoretical frameworks by which to assess global media
- Apply these communication theories to an analysis of the global communication order
- Evaluate critically changes in the communication order over time as competing global media influences emerge
- Situate the changing cultural landscape within a broader shift in global power relations
Textbook Materials
An instructor-compiled coursepack and a course textbook in current edition, such as one of the following:
Daya Thussu (Ed.), International Communication: A Reader
Daya Thussu, International Communication: Continuity and Change
David Held and Anthony McGrew (Eds.), The Global Transformations Reader: An Introduction to the Globalization Debate