10946 Rivals or Allies? Democracy and Mass Media 1

Credits: 6 advanced credits in Communication

Prerequisites: 36 credits, including Introduction to Mass Media. Students must also fulfill all English requirements and take bibliographic instruction in the Library.

The course is based on a reader (in English and Hebrew), edited by Anat First, Paul Frosh and David Levin.

The course deals with relations between democratic theory and the media through a dual prism: first, studying variables taken from definitions of democracy, and second, examining how these same variables explain the communication process. The aim is not to settle the dispute between the two approaches but to present various points of view.

The student is initially exposed to complexities that arise from the definitions of democracy in general and in the Israeli context in particular. Additional topics include the varied and contradictory roles of the media in a democratic society; the interface between the media and other institutions in democratic societies: the public space, democracy and the press, and interrelationships between economics-politics-media in an era when private corporations own the media. The final unit deals with the relationship between the media and democracy, in a world of globalization.

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1Students may write a seminar paper in this course, although it is not required.

There is some overlap in the content of this and other courses. For details, see Overlapping Courses.