Learning outcomes

To introduce the students to the various phenomena of mediatisation of contemporary politics.

Contents

The course focuses on the crucial role of the media for politics. How media represents politics and public opinion? What is the role of opinion polls in modern media democracy? How politicians use media and vice versa? The media have been moved away from issue-based to personality based political reporting. The boundaries of private sphere and public sphere are changing. The private life of politicians, for instance, is now regularly revealed and scrutinized by the media. The media are highlighting the soap opera style aspects of political life. Is this negative tabloidisation, celebritisation, entertainmentisation, trivialisation, dumbing down, that we should think pessimistically? Or is this part of the postmodern turn of societies, in which all central organising dinstictions of the Western modernity are shattered and new optimistic views are opening?

Teaching methods

Teaching method	Contact	Online
Lectures	10 h	0 h

Teaching language

English

Evaluation

Numeric 1-5.

Recommended year of study

The course is organised only once, in the autumn term 2007.

Study materials

One of the following books: -Corner & Pels, Media and the Restyling of Politics: Consumerism, Celebrity and Cynicism. Sage 2003. -Franklin, Packaging Politics. Political Communication in Britain's Media Democracy. Edward Arnold 1994. -Hacker (ed.), Presidential Candidate Images. Rowman & Littlefield 2004. -Jones, Soundbites and Spin Doctors. How Politicians Manipulate the Media - and Vice Versa. Indigo 1996. -Meyer, Media Democracy. How the Media Colonize Politics. Polity 2002. -Van Zoonen, Entertaining the Citizen. When Politics and Popular Culture Converge. Rowman & Littlefield 2005. -Ross, Women, Politics, Media. Uneasy Relations in Comparative Perspective. Hampton Press, 2002. -Splichal (ed.), Public Opinion & Democracy: Vox Populi - Vox Dei?. Hampton 2001. -Young, The Persuaders. Inside the Hidden Machine of Political Advertising. Pluto Press 2004.

Belongs to following study modules