Delivered at:: Institute of Media

Course type:: Compulsory course

When:: 2 year, 1, 2 module

Abstract

This course is focused on providing students main competences and approaches to critically analyze media structures, media power and relationship between media and empowered agents, such as policymakers, media corporations, international global organizations etc. The course is based on the political economic tradition of analysis of media and cultural industries, critic of their globalization, commercialization (commodification), (pseudo) neutrality etc. During the course we will refer to such names of scholars as Herbert Schiller, Vincent Mosco, Graham Murdock, Nicolas Garnham, Armand Mattelart, Robert McChesney, Ben Bagdikian. The course will be based on reading texts, writing essays and reflections on texts, making some politico-economic analysis of contemporary problems (such as power of social media, fake news, populist politics etc.)

Learning Objectives

To provide students the critical reasoning in field of analysis of media structures
To teach students main theoretical framework in field of media domination and commodification
To make students able to critically assess media business, media companies in terms of their power relations
To provide students the political economic critique of media technologies and technological determinism

Expected Learning Outcomes

Able to analyze the concentration in cross-sectoral fields (such as telecommunications, IT, software etc.) and their power relations
Able to analyze the ideology of Google
Able to classify and define models of the media capital accumulation
Able to define main concepts of marxian dialectics and their relevance for media studies
Able to distinguish critical theory from uncritical
Able to separate critical reflects from uncritical reflections on media industries
Able to use anti-commercial critique in studying media
Able to use main CPEM arguments against notion of network power, network society, participatory culture and network activism
Characterizes media as public good
Classify different directions in cultural domination theories
Critically assess the way media affects other forms of power
Define different approaches to critique from the Frankfurt School
Defines main risks of the pure commercialization
Defines the notion of cultural imperialism
Defines the notion of the Google solutionnism
Defines the place of critical political economy among other political economic approaches to media.
Defines the role of media as symbolic power
Distinguish between theory of cultural industries and theory of creative industries
Gives the main definition of power
Identify and classify main models of functionning
Identify main proponents of the positivistic vision of the media globalism (De Sola Pool, Lerner)
Identify main structural peculiarity of value in cultural industries
Knows main concepts of critique from Horckheimer, Marcuse and Habermas
Makes the definition of the political economy of media
To be able to assess the role played by communication and media practices in producing and reproducing capitalist hegemony.
To be able to critically de-construct the rhetoric on media technology
Understanding of different logics and aims of the concentration process
Use main political economy tools to analyze Google and technological platforms

Course Contents

Critical political economy of media among other theories
Critical political economy and world media domination critique
Media and power assymmetries
Theory of cultural industries
Basics of the Marxist dialectics for media studies
Political economy critique of technological positivism
Critical theory and Frankfurt School as early form of critical political economy
Political economy of Google and technological platforms (Nikos Smyrnaios)
Critical political Economy of media and critic of commodification
Critical political economy of media capital concentration
Close Encounters: The Media and Communication as/and Capitalist Forms (Marco Briziarelli)

Assessment Elements

Debates between political economy of media and cultural studies
Reflection 1
Collective discussion on power and counter power
Debates on "Blindspot" in western marxism and audience commodity
Reflection 2
Reflection 3
Reflection 4
Reflection 5
Reflection 6
Collective discussion on critical theory
collective discussion on ideologies in global media production
Collective mapping of cultural industries
Essay 1
Essay 2
Attendance
collective discussion on ideologies in global media production
Collective mapping of cultural industries
Essay 2
Attendance

Interim Assessment

2020/2021 2nd module
0.4 * Essay 1 + 0.2 * Attendance + 0.2 * Reflection 2 + 0.2 * Reflection 1
2020/2021 4th module
0.1 * Reflection 4 + 0.4 * Essay 2 + 0.1 * collective discussion on ideologies in global media production + 0.1 * Reflection 6 + 0.05 * Debates on "Blindspot" in western marxism and audience commodity + 0.1 * Reflection 5 + 0.05 * Collective mapping of cultural industries + 0.1 * Reflection 3
2021/2022 2nd module
0.5 * Essay 2 + 0.25 * collective discussion on ideologies in global media production + 0.25 * Collective mapping of cultural industries

Bibliography

Recommended Core Bibliography

Bellavoine, C., Bouquillion, P., & Wiart, L. (2018). Digital Platforms and Performing Arts: Communication of Theatrical Institutions, Audience Development, and Platform Strategies of Industrial Players.
Castells, M. (2013). Communication Power (Vol. 2nd edition). Oxford: OUP Oxford. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&site=eds-live&db=edsebk&AN=620218
Cinzia Bianchi. (2015). Ferruccio Rossi-Landi: language, society and semiotics. https://doi.org/10.12977/ocula44
Fuchs, C. (2019). Rereading Marx in the Age of Digital Capitalism. Pluto Press.
Graham Murdock, & Peter Golding. (n.d.). For a Political Economy of Mass Communications.
Graham Murdock. (2006). Blindspots about Western Marxism. A Reply to Dallas Smythe.
GUY DEBORD. (2012). Society Of The Spectacle. [S.l.]: Bread and Circuses. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&site=eds-live&db=nlebk&AN=1149446
Hesmondhalgh, D., Kiely, R., & Marfleet, P. (1998). chapter 7: Globalisation and cultural imperialism: a case study of the music industry. In Globalisation & the Third World (pp. 163–183). Taylor & Francis Ltd / Books. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&site=eds-live&db=sih&AN=17444536
Ithiel de Sola POOL. (1983). Technologies of Freedom. Harvard University Press.
Johan Galtung. (1990). Cultural Violence. Journal of Peace Research, 3, 291.
Liebes, T., & Katz, E. (1986). Dallas and Genesis: Primordiality and Seriality in Popular Culture.
Marx, K., & Engels, F. (2001). Capital : A Critique of Political Economy. Electric Book Co.
McChesney, R. W., & Recorded Books, I. (2015). Rich Media, Poor Democracy : Communication Politics in Dubious Times. New York: The New Press. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&site=eds-live&db=edsebk&AN=1015632
Nicholas Garnham, & Céline Morin. (2015). Political Economy and Cultural Studies: Reconciliation or Divorce? Réseaux, 192(4), 45–65. https://doi.org/10.3917/res.192.0045
Rickman, H. P. (1976). The Positivist Dispute in German Sociology (Book). British Journal of Sociology, 27(4), 509–510. https://doi.org/10.2307/590190
Rosalind Gill, & Andy Pratt. (n.d.). 2008 “In the social factory? Immaterial labour, precariousness and cultural work” Theory, Culture.
Schiller, H. I. (1993). Transnational media: Creating consumers worldwide. Journal of International Affairs, 47(1), 47. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&site=eds-live&db=f5h&AN=9402082494
Sillito, J. R. (1989). A Gramsci Reader: Selected Writings 1916-1935. Library Journal, 114(8), 90.

Recommended Additional Bibliography

Armand Mattelart, & Michael Palmer. (1993). Shaping the European Advertising Scene. Commercial free speech in search of legitimacy. Réseaux. The French Journal of Communication, 1(1), 9–26. https://doi.org/10.3406/reso.1993.3268
Garnham, N. (1983). Public Service versus the Market. https://doi.org/10.1093/screen/24.1.6
Marcuse, H. (2011). Negations: essays in critical theory. London : MayFlyBooks, 2009.
Nicholas Garnham, & Christian Fuchs. (2014). Revisiting the Political Economy of Communication. https://doi.org/10.31269/triplec.v12i1.553
Patrice Flichy. (2007). Understanding Technological Innovation. Edward Elgar Publishing. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&site=eds-live&db=edsrep&AN=edsrep.b.elg.eebook.12803
Peter Golding, & Graham Murdock. (2015). Ideology and the Mass Media: The Question of Determination. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&site=eds-live&db=edsbas&AN=edsbas.5BD12B07
Schiller, H. I. (1967). Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 23(4), 4. https://doi.org/10.1080/00963402.1967.11455050
Schiller, H. I. (1991). Culture, Inc : The Corporate Takeover of Public Expression. New York: Oxford University Press. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&site=eds-live&db=edsebk&AN=169118

Master’s Programme 'Critical Media Studies'

Critical Political Economy of Media

Course Syllabus