School of Media,

Communication and
Sociology

MS7086 – Global Media: Structures

and Representations

Module Leader: Dr Idil Osman io52@le.ac.uk

Lectures: To be accessed on Blackboard via Learning

Materials
Seminars: Fridays 3-4pm and 4-5pm via Collaborate
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Introduction
At a time of dynamic political, economic, environmental, technological, and social change, understanding global
media, its structures, processes and its influences on representations and voice, is crucial for understanding our
contemporary society. How are media structures changing, and how are changes in media structures in turn
changing the centres of power, boundaries and information flows of an increasingly globalised world? How do
we need to rethink text and audiences? These are central questions addressed by the module, which critically
examines the political, economic and cultural dynamics of global media and communication.

Module Aims and Objectives

This module provides an introduction to key theories in contemporary media studies, and applies those to
understand pressing debates and themes in the global media context.

For the Module Specification see page 43 of

https://www2.le.ac.uk/offices/sas2/courses/documents/reports/MSPG1819.pdf

Learning Outcomes
By the end of this module all students should be able to:

1) Identify key aspects of the global media and communication system (e.g., aspects connected to political
economy, but also the working of specific global media events).     

2) Explain and discuss the particular 'global' nature of today's media ecology

3) Criticise developments in this media ecology by drawing on a variety of theoretical sources.

4) Compare different cases of global media structures and texts (e.g. different types of industries or
appropriations of particular media texts)

Teaching and Learning on the Module

Lectures and seminars: There will be a 50min virtual lecture each week, recorded in advance and accessible on
Blackboard at the beginning of the week. Students should virtually attend the lecture prior to attending the
seminars as these will unpack the key features of the lecture. The lectures focus on one or more core theories or
concepts. This will be followed by an interactive live 50min seminar via Blackboard Collaborate, which includes
peer-teaching and group discussions to engage and apply the themes. To get the most out of the lectures and
seminars, students are strongly encouraged to read the relevant key readings and a selection of the further
readings and resources according to interest. Where possible, rich resources, such as videos and media articles,
have been included.

The main aim of seminars will be to make as many connections as possible across the academic literature
covered, and to apply and unpack the concepts in relation to actual cases. All students are expected to
participate actively in the seminars on the basis of advance reading, viewing and thought expression. This is seen
as an important dimension of sharing knowledge and experience as part of the seminars. Students are
encouraged to bring associated items they have discovered, for example from journal articles, websites or
practical experience, to these sessions to help widen consideration of specific topics.

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You Said : We Did
This is a new core module in the degree, which we hope will offer you a stronger foundation in core media
theories with a focus on global media perspectives, so that you can approach other modules with more
confidence. In putting this module together, we have taken note of what students in other modules have told us
and have, for example, diversified the assessment, and included more industry facing content.

Assessment
The module is assessed by:

 A 15 minutes (max) virtually recorded individual presentation (20%)

 A 2,500 word (excluding reference list) essay (80%)

Deadlines

 Presentation deadline 22 December 2021

 2,500 word essay deadline 7 January 2022

Assignment Questions / Details

Please choose and answer any ONE of the following essay questions:

1. Critically discuss the relationship between power and global media structures with reference to
theories and examples. Choose one aspect of global media to focus on (i.e. television, film industries etc.
or one company).

2. Critically discuss, with reference to theories and examples, how and to what extent new media
developments are challenging global media structures. You may choose one or more of the themes
covered in lectures to focus on.

3. Critically discuss a media technology and its social and material context, and its implications for global
media. Discuss with reference to theories and examples.

4. Choose one theme discussed in the lectures (political economy, policy/regulation, materiality, voice
and public sphere, access, inequality and global media systems, global media texts and flows, OR
audiences) and discuss three key issues that will be significant for the future of global media . Critically
discuss with reference to theories, histories and examples.

Read your chosen question carefully. The essay questions allow some flexibility for you to choose how you would
like to narrow the focus of your essay, and to draw on topics and readings across lectures. Be sure to explicitly
state how you have chosen to address the selected essay question in the introduction to your essay. Select your
main readings from the key and further readings lists and build further on them drawing on other directly
relevant sources. Plan your reading and preparation of the essay effectively to ensure that you have access to the
material. Please make individual or group appointments to discuss any aspect of the essay or course work in
general. Essays should always refer to the appropriate theoretical topics covered in the course and include
illustrations where possible and relevant.

Please refer to the Media, Communication and Sociology PGT Student Handbook for instructions on how your
essay should be submitted.

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Assignment Project Details: Presentation

Students will individually submit a 15-minute virtual presentation to be uploaded on TurnitIn. The presentation
will be in response to one article or chapter listed in the readings. The presentation will be assessed by the
module leader.

Key areas to pay attention to:

 Evidence of understanding the article/chapter: Explain core arguments of article/chapter in your own
words
 Demonstrate contextual understanding: what is the discipline context, key issues and debates within
which the article/chapter is situating its arguments?
 Evidence of wider relevant reading: what are other readings you can link this chapter/article's
arguments to?
 Fluency of delivery/pacing: Be clear in your delivery and pace yourself
 Structure and coherence of argument: Be sure to have an organisational approach that is clear to follow
 Illustration of analytical engagement: adopt a critical approach to the article/chapter and present your
own thoughts and ideas about it
 Be reflective: what have you learned from the article/chapter?

Plagiarism and Referencing

It is very important that you understand what plagiarism is and means. Please read this section carefully.
Podcasts are also available on Blackboard to help you but most students who plagiarise do it out of
misunderstanding the extent to which a) referencing is required and b) using text from other writings without
signalling the text which is used as a quote and c) they should paraphrase ideas and not just rephrase the
concepts out of a lack of confidence in their ability to explain something. Remember that work which is primarily
your own (including the correct presentation of secondary material) is inherently better than an essay which
does little other than present lots of things that other people have written (even when presented accurately as a
series of quotes or rephrases) uncritically. We want to know what you think about a topic in relationship to what
other reading you have done and not just what others have said. If you read the marking criteria in the
Programme Handbook, you will see that the presence of your own authorial voice, having an argument and
achieving originality are at the heart of improving marks for assessments.

Plagiarism
Plagiarism is to take the work of another person and use it as if it were one’s own in such a way as to mislead the
reader. This can apply to whole pieces of work (for example, if a student put his or her name on another
student’s essay), or part pieces, where chapters or extracts are lifted from other sources, including the Internet,
without acknowledgement. Any plagiarism in assessments which contribute to the final degree class are likely to
lead, at the very least, to the down-grading of the degree class by one division or at Master’s degree level to a
downgrading of the award to Diploma level. In the worst cases, expulsion from the University is a possibility.

The severity of the penalties imposed for plagiarism stems from the University’s view that learning is a search for
truth and that falsehood and deception have no place in this search. The emphasis placed on avoiding plagiarism
sometimes worries students, who believe that they will find it impossible to avoid using someone else’s thoughts
when they spend all their time reading critical works, commentaries and other secondary sources and are
required to show in their work that they have studied such material. Sometimes problems arise from poor
working practices, where students muddle up their own notes with extracts or notes taken from published
sources. In the light of all that has been said above, the question you should ask yourself about any piece of

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MODULE HANDBOOK 2020-21 5 MS7086 Global Media: Structures and Representations
academic work is ‘Will the marker be able to distinguish between my own ideas and those I have obtained from
others?’. What markers fundamentally want to see is that students have read widely around the subject, that
the sources used have been acknowledged, and that the conclusions that arise from the study are the student’s
own.

If you are in any doubt about what constitutes plagiarism, please seek the assistance of your lecturer.

You can also refer to the Student Support and Development Service’s leaflets Avoiding Plagiarism and
Referencing and Bibliographies, available free from the SSDS Information Room in the David Wilson Library and
from the Student Development Centre Website (http://www2.le.ac.uk/offices/ssds) in the Writing Skills section.

Referencing
As already stated above, whenever drawing on the ideas of others, there must be an acknowledgement of this in
coursework. If you are paraphrasing someone else’s ideas you need to reference the relevant work(s) you are
using. Please also note that direct quotations must be enclosed in quotation marks.

The purpose of proper citing and referencing is to (a) appropriately acknowledge others for ideas that you have
found useful, (b) allow readers to follow up on points that they may find useful, (c) allow critical readers to check
your use of ideas, data, etc., for accuracy and fairness and, perhaps most importantly, (d) avoid charges of
plagiarism. Please remember that a reference at the bottom of a paragraph or page is not a sufficient reference
for the whole paragraph or page and that you should reference following each idea or quote which you have
included. This may necessarily lead to some repetition in references but it leads little room for doubt and will
help you recognise places where you are too reliant on somebody else’s text. When referencing on the first
occasion, you should provide the author’s surname, date of publication and, if the idea or quotation has a
specific page or range of pages, the page number(s) relevant. If the subsequent reference or quotation is from
the same text, you should put the latin term ibid (which means from the same source) and, if different pages are
used, the new page number(s) required.

For additional information on referencing, please see PGT Student Handbook or seek advice from the Student
Support and Development Services staff in the David Wilson library.

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Lecture Schedule
Week Date TOPIC

1 01/10/2021 Welcome week – no teaching

2 08/10/2021 Introduction to Global Media Studies: Our Global Media World

3 15/10/2021 The Materiality of Global Media and Communication

4 Understanding the Political Economy of Contemporary Global

22/10/2021 Media

5 29/10/2021 Global Media Policy and Regulation

6 05/11/2021 Audiences in the Global World

7 12/11/2021 Reading Week- no teaching

8 19/11/2021 Digital Networks and Cultures

9 26/11/2021 Voice and Public Sphere - Guest Lecture: Dr Bernhard Forchtner

10 03/12/2021 Global Media Texts and Flows: Centres and Peripheries

11 10/12/2021 Access, Inequality and Global Media Systems

12 17/12/2021 Media Futures

Week 2: Introduction to Global Media Studies: Our Global Media World

This lecture introduces the foundational concepts (media texts, global media studies, political
economy, semiotics) for approaching our study of global media over the semester. We will go over the
overview of this module (context, aims, assessment, themes/structure, key texts, and tips) and explore
what scholars mean when discussing global media, its structures and representations and highlight
expected learning outcomes.

Key Reading

Watch these series of short videos from Al Jazeera to understand key concepts, such as political economy and
semiotics that will be used throughout this module: https://interactive.aljazeera.com/aje/2017/the-listening-
post-media-theorised/index.html

Miller, T., & Kraidy, M. M. (2016) Global Media Studies. John Wiley & Sons. (Chapter 1)

Ott, Brian L., and Mack, R. L. (2013) Critical Media Studies: An Introduction. John Wiley & Sons. (Chapter
1) Available at https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/leicester/detail.action?docID=1557284.

Further reading/resources:

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Said, E. (2003) Orientalism. Penguin Books (Chapter 1)

Chandler, D. (2017) Semiotics: The Basics. Routledge (Chapter 2 and 5)

Kraidy, M. (2018) ‘Global Media Studies: A critical agenda’, Journal of Communication, 68(2), pp. 337-
346 https://doi.org/10.1093/joc/jqx024

UCL (2018) Why we post: social media through the eyes of the world. Available at
http://www.ucl.ac.uk/why-we-post - see also introductory video: https://youtu.be/0jA5B32MP98

Mills, B., & Barlow, D. M. (2013) Reading Media Theory: Thinkers, Approaches and Contexts. Abingdon:
Routledge. (Chapter 2 and 3)

Week 3: The Materiality of Global Media

As media scholars, we typically spend most of our time analysing content: its production, meaning, and
reception by audiences. We spend less time thinking about the material and social aspects of our global
technological ecologies: the deep sea cables, the data centres that house ‘the cloud’, the code, the
factories, the corporations, through to the social and material dimensions of the technologies in our
homes and pockets. This lecture introduces theories of materiality, setting the foundation for the
interactions between structures, processes and representations of global media and how materiality
underpins these interactions.

Key Reading

Lievrouw, L. A (2014) ‘Materiality and Media in Communication and Technology Studies: An Unfinished
Project’. In Gillespie, T., Boczkowski, P.J., & Foot, K. A (eds.) Media Technologies : Essays on
Communication, Materiality, and Society. Cambridge MA: MIT Press. Available from:
https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/leicester/detail.action?docID=3339732.

Star, S. L., & Bowker, G. C. (2006) ‘How to infrastructure’ in Lievrouw, L.A. & Livingstone, S. (eds.)
Handbook of new media: Social shaping and social consequences of ICTs London: Sage, pp. 230-245

Further Reading:
Silverstone, R (2014). Television And Everyday Life. Taylor & Francis Group. Available from
https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/leicester/detail.action?docID=167770. (Chapter 4 – The Tele-
Technological System)

Qiu, J. L., Gregg, M, Crawford, K. (2014) ‘Circuits of Labour: A Labour Theory of the iPhone Era’, tripleC
12(2), pp.564–581 https://doi.org/10.31269/triplec.v12i2.540

Starosielsk (2015) ‘Fixed Flow: Undersea cables as media infrastructures. In Lisa Parks and Nicole
Starosielski (eds.) Signal Traffic: Critical Studies of Media Infrastructures. Urbana; Chicago; Springfield:
University of Illinois Press, pp. 53-70

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Holt, J., & Vonderau, P. (2015) ‘Where the internet lives’: Data centers as cloud infrastructure’. In Lisa
Parks and Nicole Starosielski (eds.) Signal Traffic: Critical Studies of Media Infrastructures, Urbana;
Chicago; Springfield: University of Illinois Press, pp. 71-93.

Gillespie, T., Boczkowski, P.J., & Foot, K. A. (2014) Media Technologies : Essays on Communication,
Materiality, and Society. Cambridge MA: MIT Press. Available from:
https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/leicester/detail.action?docID=3339732.

Du Gay, P., Hall, S., Janes, L., McKay, H. and Negus, K. (2013) Doing cultural studies : the story of the
Sony Walkman. London: Open University Press.

Allen-Robertson, J. (2015) ‘The materiality of digital media: The hard disk drive, phonograph, magnetic
tape and optical media in technical close-up’ New Media & Society. 19(3) pp. 455 – 470
https://doi-org.ezproxy3.lib.le.ac.uk/10.1177/1461444815606368

Qiu, J. L. (2009) Working-Class Network Society: Communication Technology and the Information Have-
Less in Urban China. Cambridge MA: MIT Press. Available from
https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/leicester/detail.action?docID=3338988. (Chapters 1-3)

Watt, L. (2017) ‘Why the Study of Infrastructure? The Case of Veidogo Informal Settlement, Suva, Fiji’ in
J. Noske-Turner (ed.), Wumen Bagung: Communication for Development and Social Change Bulletin.
RMIT University, Melbourne p 5-7 https://digital-ethnography.com/wp-
content/uploads/2016/07/wumen-bagung-2.pdf

Nguyen, L. U. (2016) ‘Infrastructural action in Vietnam: Inverting the techno-politics of hacking in the
global South.’ New Media and Society. 18(4) pp. 637-652 https://doi.org/10.1177/1461444816629475

Week 4: Understanding the Political Economy of Contemporary Global Media

Political Economy is an important theoretical perspective in the study of global media. Political
economists in media studies pay attention to patterns of media ownership including concentration,
conglomeration, and profit-making, and how this affects issues of class, power and politics. This lecture
introduces the concept and will go into detail in terms of its relevance to the global media field and
how it can be applied to understand the interplay of media power and profit in the contemporary
landscape.

Key Reading

Noam, E. M. (2016) Who owns the world's media?: media concentration and ownership around the
world. Oxford University Press. (Introduction)

Mansell, R. (2004) ‘Political economy, power and new media’, New Media & Society, 6(1), 96-105.

Further Reading:
Birkinbine, B. J., Gómez, R. and Wasko, J. (eds) (2016) Global Media Giants. New York; London:
Routledge. (Select 1-2 chapters)

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MODULE HANDBOOK 2020-21 9 MS7086 Global Media: Structures and Representations
Miller, T., & Kraidy, M. M. (2016). Global Media Studies. John Wiley & Sons. (Chapter 3)

Ott, Brian L., and Mack, R. L. (2013) Critical Media Studies: An Introduction. John Wiley & Sons. (Chapter
2) Available at https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/leicester/detail.action?docID=1557284.

Wasko, J. (2014) ‘The study of the political economy of the media in the twenty-first century.’
International Journal of Media & Cultural Politics, 10(3), 259-271. doi:10.1386/macp.10.3.259_1

Fuchs, C. (2012) ‘Google Capitalism’ Triple C 10(1) pp 42-48

Zhao, Y. (2008) Communication in China : political economy, power, and conflict. Rowman and
Littlefield. (Especially Chapter 3: Dancing with Wolves)
https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/leicester/detail.action?docID=1342704

Christian Fuchs (2015) Baidu, Weibo and Renren: the global political economy of social media in China.
Asian Journal of Communication. https://doi-
org.ezproxy3.lib.le.ac.uk/10.1080/01292986.2015.1041537

Week 5: Global Media Policy and Regulation

The significant social, economic, political and cultural implications of media and communication mean
there is an imperative to understand and engage with issues of policy and regulation. Where once
nation-states could be the primary influence on their national media policy and regulation,
globalisation and transnational communications mean a global perspective has seemingly become
unavoidable. This lecture points to some of the key global media and communication policy ‘moments’,
some of the traditional concerns about media ownership and content regulation, to some of the
pressing policy areas today, such as notions of the information society, surveillance/privacy, and net
neutrality.

Key Reading

Miller, T., & Kraidy, M. M. (2016). Global Media Studies. John Wiley & Sons. (Chapter 4)

Iosifidis, P. (2011) Global Media and Communication Policy; An International Perspective. Palgrave
(Introduction)

Further Reading:
Mansell R, Nordenstreng K. (2007) ‘Great Media and Communication Debates: WSIS and the MacBride
Report’, Information Technologies & International Development 3(4) pp. 15-36

Mansell, R. & Raboy, M. (2011) ‘Introduction: Foundations of the Theory and Practice of Global Media
and Communication Policy’ in Mansell, R. and Raboy, M. (eds.) The Handbook of Global Media and
Communication Policy. Oxford: Wiley, 2011. Available from
https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/leicester/detail.action?docID=4042010.

Mansell, R. (2011) ‘New visions, old practices: Policy and regulation in the Internet era’, Continuum:
Journal of Media & Cultural Studies. 25(1) pp 19-32 https://doi.org/10.1080/10304312.2011.538369

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Puppis, M. (2008) ‘National Media Regulation in the Era of Free Trade: The Role of Global Media
Governance’, European Journal of Communication 23(4): 405-424.

Hintz, A. & Dencik, L. (2016) ‘The politics of surveillance policy: UK regulatory dynamics after Snowden’,
Internet Policy Review, 5(3) DOI 10.14763/2016.3.424

Roach, C. (1987) ‘The U.S. Position on the New World Information and Communication Order.’ Journal
of Communication, 37: 36–51. doi:10.1111/j.1460-2466.1987.tb01007.x

MacBride, S. (1980). ‘Many voices, One World: Towards a new, more just, and more efficient world
information and communication order’. Rowman & Littlefield.

Shen, H. (2016) ‘China and global internet governance: toward an alternative analytical framework.’
Chinese Journal of Communication. 9(3) pp. 304-324 https://doi.org/10.1080/17544750.2016.1206028

Muella, M. (2014) ‘China and Global Internet Governance: A tiger by the tail’, in Deibert, R. et al (eds.)
Access Contested : Security, Identity, and Resistance in Asian Cyberspace, Cambridge MA: MIT Press
Available from: https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/leicester/detail.action?docID=3339362.

Hintz, A. & Milan, S. (2009) ‘At the margins of Internet governance: grassroots tech groups and
communication policy’, International Journal of Media and Cultural Politics. 5(1&2) doi:
10.1386/macp.5.1&2.23/1

Prasad, R. (2018) ‘Ascendant India, digital India: how net neutrality advocates defeated Facebook’s
Free Basics’, Media, Culture and Society. 40(3) 415–431 DOI: 10.1177/0163443717736117

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/audio/2018/apr/20/google-vs-the-right-to-be-forgotten-
chips-with-everything-podcast

Week 6: Audience in the Global World

How are media texts received and interpreted in globalised media contexts? How do we need to
rethink our assumptions about ‘audiences’ in the context of networked, global media? This lecture will
discuss how audience are shaped and the different kinds of audiences in the global media landscape.
The lecture will conclude with an exploration of new technologies that are shifting the way we
understand ‘the people formerly known as the audiences’ (Rosen 2006).

Key Reading

Ott, B. L., and Robert L. M. (2013) Critical Media Studies: An Introduction, John Wiley & Sons,
Incorporated. Available from https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/leicester/detail.action?
docID=1557284 (Chapter 10 Reception analysis).

Madianou, M. and Miller, D. (2012) ‘Polymedia: Towards a new theory of digital media in interpersonal
communication’, International Journal of Cultural Studies, 16(2) pp. 169 – 187
https://doi.org/10.1177/1367877912452486

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Further Reading:
Miller, T., & Kraidy, M. M. (2016). Global Media Studies. John Wiley & Sons. (Chapter 9)

Rosen, J. (2006) ‘The People Formerly Known as the Audiences...’ PressThink. Available at
http://archive.pressthink.org/2006/06/27/ppl_frmr.html (accessed 15 February, 2016).

Livingstone, S. (2013) ‘The Participation Paradigm in Audience Research’ The Communication Review’
16(1-2) pp 21-30 https://doi.org/10.1080/10714421.2013.757174

Bird, S. E. (2011) ‘Are we all Produsers now? Convergence and media audience practices.’ Cultural
Studies. Volume 25 (4-5) https://doi-org.ezproxy4.lib.le.ac.uk/10.1080/09502386.2011.600532

Phalen, P. F., & Ducey, R. V. (2012) Audience behaviour in the multi-screen “video-verse”. International
Journal on Media Management, 14(2), 141-156.

Shola Adenekan and Helen Cousins. (2014) Class Online: Digital Representations of African Middle-
Class Identity. Postcolonial Text 9(3) http://postcolonial.org/index. php/pct/article/viewArticle/1779 -

Meijer, I. C., & Kormelink, T. G. (2015) Checking, sharing, clicking and linking. Digital Journalism, 3(5),
664-679.

Osman, I. (2017), Media, Diaspora and the Somali Conflict. Palgrave Macmillan (Chapter 7 pp119-135)

Marwick, A. E. & boyd, d. (2010) ‘I tweet honestly, I tweet passionately: Twitter users, context collapse,
and the imagined’ New Media & Society 13(1) 114–133 DOI: 10.1177/1461444810365313

Abidin, C. (2014) ‘#In$tagLam: Instagram as a Repository of Taste, a Burgeoning Marketplace, a War of

Eyeballs.’ In Berry M and Schleser, M. (eds.), Mobile Media Making in an Age of Smartphones. New
York: Palgrave Pivot.

The Filter Bubble: What The Internet Is Hiding From You https://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=Dua_UvR5mtI

Week 8: Digital Networks and Cultures

This lecture takes a deep dive into digital cultures that have formed since the growth in technological
infrastructure and online communication platforms. It unpacks what’s academically known as the network,
which relates to the social, political, economic and cultural changes caused by the spread of networked, digital
information and communications technologies. Network society indicates a society that is connected by mass-
and telecommunication networks, a society in which a combination of social and media networks shape its
prime mode of organisation. These networks give birth to online cultures that reverberate across the globe;
cultures ranging from fandom-inspired ones such as Kawaii and K-pop to those that are shaped by mutual
solidarities for particular causes. We will explore a number of global events that have risen out of these
networked societies such as the Arab Spring in summer 2011, which saw stunning speed of succession across
many countries, but also the different ways in which media and communications became inextricably infused
inside them. In that same year, we saw a similar communication-enabled uprising, the London Riots that turned
into riots across major cities in the UK. This lecture sets out to capture something of the broader, overlapping

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and interpenetrating ways in which media systems and communication networks have complexly conditioned
and facilitated these remarkable historical events and the enabling role that social media has played.

Key Reading

Castells, M. (2010), The Rise of the Network Society, Wiley-Blackwell (2nd edition) (Introduction)

Aouragh, M. and Alexander, A. (2011) The Arab Spring: The Egyptian Experience: Sense and Nonsense of the
Internet Revolution, International Journal of Communication
https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/1191/610

Further Reading:
Castells, M. (2004), The Power of Identity, Blackwell (Chapter 1)

Fuchs, C., (2012) Social media, riots, and revolutions. Capital & Class, 36(3)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0309816812453613

Creeber, G., Royston, M. (2009), Digital Cultures. Open University Press

Cottle, S. (2011) ‘Cell Phones, Camels and the Global Call for Democracy‘, pp.196210 in J. Mair and R. Keeble
(Eds) Mirage in the Desert?: Reporting the Arab Spring. Bury St Edmunds: Arima Publishing. Summary version of
the above found here: Cottle, S. (2011) ‘Cell Phones, Camels and the Global Call for Democracy‘ (summary Open
Democracy, 27 September. (http://www.opendemocracy.net)

Osman, I. (2017), Media, Diaspora and the Somali Conflict. Palgrave Macmillan (Chapter 3 pp35-51)

Gillmor, D. (2006), We the Media: Grassroots journalism by the people, for the people, Sebastopol, CA: O’Reilly

Sreberny, A, (2000) ‘The Global and the Local in International Communication’ pp. 155-173 in J. Curran and M.
Gurevitch (Eds) Mass Media and Society. London: Arnold

Alexander, J. (2011) Performative Revolution in Egypt: An Essay in Cultural Power. London: Bloomsbury
Academic.

Annett, S. (2014), Anime Fan Communities; Transcultural Flows and Frictions. Palgrave Macmillan

Week 9: Voice and Public Sphere – Guest Lecture by Dr Bernhard Forchtner

The notion of a ‘public sphere’, first described by Habermas in his 1962 book, Structural
Transformations of the Public Sphere, is a key concept in studies of media and communication,
especially as it relates to democratic communication and citizenship. The concept is one which has
inspired rethinking in the contemporary digital and increasingly global context. This lecture introduces
the original concept and new incarnations such as ‘global public sphere’, ‘networked public sphere’,
and ‘sphericules’. We will also critically engage with the idea of ‘voice’ in media and communication.

Key Reading

Habermas, J. (1989) The structural transformation of the public sphere : an inquiry into a category of
bourgeois society. MIT Press:  Cambridge, Mass. (Introduction)

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Manuel Castells (2008) ‘The New Public Sphere: Global Civil Society, Communication Networks, and
Global Governance’, The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 616(1), pp.
78 – 93. https://doi.org/10.1177/0002716207311877

Further Reading:
Gitlin, T. (1998) ‘Public Sphere or Public Sphericules?’ in Curran, J. and Liebes, T. (eds.) Media, Ritual
and Identity. London: Routledge, pp. 168-174. Available from:
https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/leicester/detail.action?docID=169411.

Silverstone, Roger. (2013) Media and Morality : On the Rise of the Mediapolis. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Available from: https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/leicester/detail.action?docID=1174309.
(Chapter 2)

Couldry, N. (2010). Why voice matters: Culture and politics after neoliberalism. London: Sage
Publications.

Mills, B., & Barlow, D. M. (2013). Reading Media Theory : Thinkers, Approaches and Contexts.
Abingdon: Routledge. (Chapter 13)

Waisbord, S. (2013) Reinventing Professionalism: Journalism and News in Global Perspective. Hoboken:
Wiley, Available from: https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/leicester/detail.action?docID=1174342.
(Chapter 8)

Bennett, W. L. & Pfetsch, B. (2018) ‘Rethinking Political Communication in a Time of Disrupted Public
Spheres’. Journal of Communication, 68(2) pp. 243–253, https://doi.org/10.1093/joc/jqx017

Rauchfleisch, A. & Schäfer, M. S. (2015) ‘Multiple public spheres of Weibo: a typology of forms and
potentials of online public spheres in China’, Information, Communication & Society 18(2)
https://doi.org/10.1080/1369118X.2014.940364 pp. 139-155

Week 10: Global Media Texts and Flows: Centres and Peripheries

This lecture focuses on media content or ‘texts’ and their flows across platforms and across regional
and international borders as well as how global availability of content defies ‘borders’. Historically the
concerns of Americanisation and ‘media imperialism’ defined the debates in this area. In this lecture
we consider other centres of cultural production and the ‘careers’ of texts such as telenovelas, Turkish
TV, Asian cinema and culture, and news. We will also discuss the implications of transmedia and
convergence on texts.

Key Reading

Miller, T., & Kraidy, M. M. (2016). Global Media Studies. John Wiley & Sons. (Chapter 6 and 7)

Thussu, D. K. (2006). ‘Mapping global media flow and contra-flow.’ In Thussu, D. K. (ed.) Media on the
Move: Global flow and contra-flow. London & New York: Routledge. pp10-29

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Further Reading:
Huang, E., Davison, K., Shreve, S., Davis, T., Bettendorf, E., & Nair, A. (2006). ‘Facing the challenges of
convergence: Media professionals’ concerns of working across media platforms’ Convergence, 12(1),
83-98.

Lobato, R. (2017) ‘Rethinking International TV Flows Research in the Age of Netflix’. Television & New
Media, 19(3) pp. 241 - 256 https://doi.org/10.1177/1527476417708245

Yano, C. R. (2013) Pink Globalization: Hello Kitty's Trek across the Pacific. North Carolina: Duke
University Press. (especially Chapter 3: Global Kitty: Here, There, Nearly Everywhere).

MacBride, S. (1980). ‘Many voices, one world: Towards a new, more just, and more efficient world
information and communication order’. Rowman & Littlefield.

Doyle, G. (2013) ‘Re-Invention and Survival: Newspapers in the Era of Digital Multiplatform Delivery’,
Journal of Media Business Studies, 10(4) pp. 1-20, DOI: 10.1080/16522354.2013.11073569

Iwabuchi, K. (2010) ‘Globalization, East Asian media cultures and their publics’, Asian Journal of
Communication. 20(2), pp. 197-212 https://doi.org/10.1080/01292981003693385

el-Nawawy , M. and Powers, S. (2010) ‘Al-Jazeera English A conciliatory medium in a conflict-driven

environment?’ Global Media and Communication. 6(1) pp. 61–84 https://doi-
org.ezproxy4.lib.le.ac.uk/10.1177/1742766510362019

Week 11: Access, Inequality and Global Media systems

Professor Ron Eglash wrote back in 2006 how “First world consumers, especially those from the white middle
class, rarely realise the extent to which their technological access is ensured simply by their status as “the users”
foremost in so many designers’ minds.” Access to technology has conventionally favoured the Western world,
which has exasperated the technological inequality that exists around the world, which also has implications on
widening social and economic inequality. This ‘order of accesses’ has gradually been shifting in recent years with
access to technology, particularly internet access, becoming widely available in Asia, Africa and Latin America.
This lecture will explore the accessibility of digital technologies across the world and the online/offline
implications that arise. It will introduce concepts such as digital divides, social stratification and familiarise
students with exploring beyond ‘user/non-user’ binary.

Key Reading

Rogers, E. (2003) The Diffusion of Innovations. New York: The Free Press (Introduction)

Wilson, K. R., Wallin, J. S., & Reiser, C. (2003). Social Stratification and the Digital Divide. Social Science Computer
Review, 21(2), 133–143. https://doi.org/10.1177/0894439303021002001

Further Reading:
Eric P.S. Baumer, Morgan G. Ames, Jenna Burrell, Jed R. Brubaker, Paul Dourish. 2015. “Why study technology
non-use?” First Monday, 20(11) http:// rstmonday.org/ ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/6310/5137 -

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Donner, J. (2015). After Access: Inclusion, Development and a more Mobile Internet. MIT Press:
file://uol.le.ac.uk/root/staff/home/i/io52/Downloads/6593-23695-1-PB.pdf

Boyd-Barrett, O. (1977). Media Imperialism: Toward an International Framework for the Analysis of Media
Systems in J. Curran, M. Gurevitch and J. Woolacott (Eds.), Mass Communication and Society. London: Edward
Arnold.

Boyd-Barrett, O. (2010) Media Imperialism Reformulated (pp.139-153) in D.K. Thussu (Ed) International
Communications: A Reader. London: Routledge.

Ghosh, A. (2006) Communication Technology and Human Development: Recent Experiences in the Indian Social
Sector New Delhi : Sage Publications

Heeks, R. (1999) Information and Communication Technologies, Poverty and Development Manchester: IDPM.

Nielinger, O. (2006) Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) for Development in Africa: an
Assessment of ICT Strategies and ICT Utilisation in Tanzania. New York: Peter Lang.

Lecture 12: Media Futures: Algorithms, Automation, and the Anthropocene

In our final lecture we will recap key concepts and events discussed in previous lectures followed by an
examination and speculation on emerging media futures. Artificial Intelligence (AI) and automation are
already part of our daily lives. As we know from previous lectures, our current and historical social
contexts shape the future of media technologies. So what does our knowledge about contemporary
global media suggest about the future?

Key Reading

Carlson, M. (2015) ‘The robotic reporter: Automated journalism and the redefinition of labor,
compositional forms, and journalistic authority’, Digital Journalism, 3(3), 416-431.

Parikka, J. (2015). ‘The Anthropocene has been shaped by the media and our digital lives.’ The
Conversation. Available at: https://theconversation.com/the-anthropocene-has-been-shaped-by-the-
media-and-our-digital-lives-37124 (accessed 12 February 2018)

Further Reading:
Heikkilä, H. & Kunelius, R. (2017) ‘Surveillance and the Structural Transformation of Privacy: Mapping
the conceptual landscape of journalism in the post-Snowden era’. Digital Journalism. 5(3)
https://doi.org/10.1080/21670811.2016.1256226

Hardey, M. and Atkinson, R. (2018) ‘Disconnected: Non-Users of Information Communication

Technologies’. Sociological Research Online  0(0) 1-19 https://doi.org/10.1177/1360780418764736

Newman, N. (2018) Journalism, Media, and Technology Trends and Predictions 2018. Oxford: Reuters Institute
for the Study of Journalism. Available at https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/sites/default/files/2018-
01/RISJ%20Trends%20and%20Predictions%202018%20NN.pdf

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Van Alstyne, Greg and Richards, Lenore and Logan, Robert K. and Stein, Suzanne and Lyman, Peter and
Roberts, Kristian and Webb, Kathleen (2011) 2020 Media Futures. OCAD University
http://openresearch.ocadu.ca/id/eprint/333/1/VanAlstyne_2011_2020MediaFutures_OCADU.pdf

Clerwall, C. (2014) ‘Enter the robot journalist: Users' perceptions of automated content’, Journalism
Practice, 8(5), 519-531.

Wu, T. (2015) ‘Netflix’s Secret Special Algorithm Is a Human.’ The New Yorker. Available at:

https://www.newyorker.com/business/currency/hollywoods-big-data-big-deal (accessed 12 February,

2017).

Dewey, C. (2015) ‘You don’t know it, but you’re working for Facebook. For free.’. The Washington Post.
Available at: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-intersect/wp/2015/07/22/you-dont-know-
it-but-youre-working-for-facebook-for-free/?utm_term=.87c000b8ef20

Bell, G (2017) ‘04: Fast, smart and connected: How to build our digital future’ [2017 Boyer Lectures
podcast and transcript] Sydney: ABC
http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/boyerlectures/genevieve-bell-fast-smart-connected-
how-build-digital-future/9062060

Cirucci, A. M. and Vacker, B. (forthcoming) Black Mirror and Critical Media Theory. Rowman &
Littlefield. https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781498573535/Black-Mirror-and-Critical-Media-Theory#

SCHOOL OF MEDIA, COMMUNICATION AND SOCIOLOGY UNIVERSITY OF LEICESTER