Critical Political Economy of Media

Master 2023/2024

Type: Compulsory course (Critical Media Studies)

Area of studies: Media Communications

Delivered by: Institute of Media

Where: Faculty of Creative Industries

When: 1 year, 3, 4 module

Mode of studies: offline

Open to: students of one campus

Instructors: Костопулос Кристос, Marco Briziarelli

Master’s programme: Критические медиаисследования

Language: English

ECTS credits: 6

Contact hours: 96

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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

To be able to discuss the difference in modern and post-modern media propaganda.
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
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
Gives the main definition of power
Identify main proponents of the positivistic vision of the media globalism (De Sola Pool, Lerner)
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
Understand the political economic dimension of so called "Russiagate"
Reflect on actual events and hybrid wars between countries in multipolar context
Knows the key authors and different currents that have shaped this field of analysis, and the philosophical/political projects that have underpinned their research (J.M.).
Understands the relevance of both seminal/early theoretical and empirical contributions, and recent research, for the understanding of key contemporary phenomena in the media and culture industries (J.M.).
Engages with specific elements from these theoretical and empirical contributions, in relation to his or her own experiences as both early-stage media scholar and media user, producer, broad/narrowcaster, etc. (J.M.).
Offers compelling evidence of this understanding and engagement in oral seminar exchanges and in the written work expected for the two term papers (J.M.).

Course Contents

Critical political economy of media among other theories
Media and power assymmetries
Basics of the Marxist dialectics for media studies
Critical theory and Frankfurt School as early form of critical political economy
Critical political Economy of media and critic of commodification
Critical political economy of media capital concentration
Political economy, propaganda and media imperialism (Oliver Boyd Barrett - 1)
Mass-media and international propaganda in times of war (Oliver Boyd-Barrett 2)
Humanitarian interventionnism and media wars (Oliver Boyd-Barrett - 3)
Russiagate and propaganda (Oliver Boyd-Barrett - 4)
Close Encounters: The Media and Communication as/and Capitalist Forms (Marco Briziarelli)
Critical political economy and world media domination critique
Political economy of cultural counterflows: chineese, indian, turkish and other counter-power.
Political economy of Google and technological platforms (N.S.)
Media industrialisation: modernity and the genesis of a “new culture” (1840 – 1920) (J.M.)
Contributions of the Frankfurt school to a Critical Political Economy of Media (1920 – 1960) (J.M.)
Key approaches and evolutions in Critical Political Economy of Media (1960-1995). Part 1. (J.M.)
Key approaches and evolutions in Critical Political Economy of Media (1960-1995) Part 2. (J.M.)
Continuity and development of research on communication and cultural industries; toward the creative industries (1995-2010) (J.M.)
Renewed critique of media and culture industries (since 2010) (J.M.)
Web3 or blockchain-enabled platforms: glimpses of the future of the digital media? (J.M.)

Assessment Elements

Attendance on seminars (Briziarelli)
Abstract submission (Briziarelli)
Seminar Facillitation (Briziarelli)
Essay (Briziarelli)
Attendance and participation (Kostopoulos)
Essay (Kostopoulos)
Discussion/participation (Matthews)
Beyond the theoretical presentations that will be offered at the outset of each session, by mode of lectures, slide presentations and with the support of audiovisual documents, this seminar aspires to be a communicative space for collaborative and critical inquiry.
First paper (Matthews)
Final paper (Matthews)

Interim Assessment

2023/2024 4th module
0.08 * Abstract submission (Briziarelli) + 0.08 * Abstract submission (Briziarelli) + 0.03 * Attendance and participation (Kostopoulos) + 0.03 * Attendance and participation (Kostopoulos) + 0.2 * Attendance on seminars (Briziarelli) + 0.2 * Attendance on seminars (Briziarelli) + 0.28 * Essay (Briziarelli) + 0.28 * Essay (Briziarelli) + 0.27 * Essay (Kostopoulos) + 0.27 * Essay (Kostopoulos) + 0.14 * Seminar Facillitation (Briziarelli) + 0.14 * Seminar Facillitation (Briziarelli)
2024/2025 2nd module
0.2 * Discussion/participation (Matthews) + 0.2 * Discussion/participation (Matthews) + 0.5 * Final paper (Matthews) + 0.5 * Final paper (Matthews) + 0.3 * First paper (Matthews) + 0.3 * First paper (Matthews)

Bibliography

Recommended Core Bibliography

9781617508301 - Debord, Guy - Society Of The Spectacle - 2012 - INscribe Digital - https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=nlebk&AN=1149446 - nlebk - 1149446
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. (2014). Social Media : A Critical Introduction. SAGE Publications Ltd.
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.
Ilya Yablokov. (2018). Fortress Russia : Conspiracy Theories in the Post-Soviet World (Vol. 1). Polity.
Ithiel de Sola POOL. (1983). Technologies of Freedom. Harvard University Press.
Johan Galtung. (1990). Cultural Violence. Journal of Peace Research, 3, 291.
John B. Thompson. (2013). Media and Modernity : A Social Theory of the Media. Polity.
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
Rosalind Gill, & Andy Pratt. (n.d.). 2008 “In the social factory? Immaterial labour, precariousness and cultural work” Theory, Culture.
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
Sillito, J. R. (1989). A Gramsci Reader: Selected Writings 1916-1935. Library Journal, 114(8), 90.
Western mainstream media and the Ukraine crisis : a study in conflict propaganda, Boyd-Barrett, O., 2018

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
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
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

Authors

PEREIASLOV ALEKSEI DENISOVICH
Kiriia Ilia VADIMOVICH

Course Syllabus