MECM20010 Unit syllabus and readings
MECM20010 Comparing Media Systems 2021 (updated - August 2021)
Assessments:
1. Short essay: issues with media system (1500 words), due on 12 April 2021 (11:59pm) - 30%
2. Essay 2: case study research essay (2500 words), due to 7 June 2021 (09:00am) - 60%
3. Participation – 10%
PART 1 of subject: overview – competing models
Lecture 1 – March 2, 2021
Introduction: what are ‘media systems’
The introduction will outline the structure of the subject as well as expectations and discuss assignments. We will start the conversation about media system Although the term has been developed decades ago, ‘media systems’ and especially national media systems seem to gain a new relevance in today’s advanced globalized digital spheres where states are beginning to reclaim sovereignty regulating digital communication.
This lecture highlights the origins of the term ‘media systems’, however, we will move beyond these traditional meanings and identify new dimensions of the interplay between the ‘state’ ,'local community' and the globalized ‘spatial’ digital landscape.
Readings:
Jakubowicz, K. (2010). Introduction Media Systems Research: An Overview. In Comparative Media Systems: European and Global Perspectives (pp. 1–19). Central European University Press.
Hallin, CDM & Paolo 2011, ‘Conclusion’, in CDM Hallin & Paolo (eds), Comparing Media Systems Beyond the Western World, Cambridge University, pp. 278–304.
Lecture 2 – March 9, 2021
The market orientated corporate media system, from legacy to digital
This lecture focusses on the key commercial media market worldwide. The lecture will address the dimensions of ‘liberalism’ in the traditions of the US society and will discuss the historical phases of neoliberal media structures. US is focused because its media system exemplifies many essences of a free market-led, corporate dominated logics. We will highlight the key issues of the ‘local dimension’ of the US in digital landscapes:’ freedom of expression’ and ‘antitrust’ policies as the key components of the national communication structures.
The second part of the lecture will examine how these values have become the building blocks of the Californian Ideology, a set of value system that has defined expectations and perception about digital media around the world.
Readings:
McChesney, R. W. (2001). Global Media, Neoliberalism, and Imperialism. Monthly Review, 52(10), 1.
Marwick, AE 2013, ‘A Cultural History of Web 2.0’, in Status Update : Celebrity, Publicity, and Branding in the Social Media Age, Yale University Press, pp. 21–72.
Further Reading:
Mayer-Schoenberger, Victor & Ramge, Thomas (2018) 'A Big Choice for Big Tech Share Data or Suffer the Consequences,' Foreign Affairs, September/October, 48-52
Lecture 3 - March 16, 2021
The role of the state – public service vs. state media
This week considers the different roles of ‘the state’. The conceptual difference between public service media (PSM) and government media has been conflated, partly because the visible involvement of the state in both cases, and partly because the cultural war against PSM in countries like Australia. The aim of this week is to clarify the conceptual differences between the state media and the PMS on the one hand and learning to use ‘the state’ as an analytical framework in evaluating media/
Readings:
Wang, WYL & Ramon 2019, ‘Chinese video streaming services in the context of global platform studies’, Chinese Journal of Communication, vol. 12, no. 3, pp. 356–371.
Freedman, D. (2019). “Public Service” and the Journalism Crisis: Is the BBC the Answer? Television & New Media, 20(3), 203–218.
Jin, DY 2014, ‘The Power of the Nation-state amid Neoliberal Reform: Shifting Cultural Politics in the New Korean Wave’, Pacific Affairs, vol. 87, no. 1, pp. 71–92.
Further readings:
Flew, T., & Waisbord, S. (2015). The ongoing significance of national media systems in the context of media globalization. Media, Culture & Society, 37(4), 620–636.
Lecture 4 – March 23, 2021
TV is dead? The rise of global content distribution system
Content ‘distribution’ are in the focus of this lecture. The way media content is produced and distributed often determine the structural logic of a media system. Earlier globalized communication spheres emerged in times of underwater cable lines which led to telegraph, satellites and to today's networked structures. Earlier forms were specifically used to build colonial political and economic power, enabling the delivery of trade and services from colonial centers to colonies. These are first types of globalized landscapes of content flows which we address today in contexts of Netflix and other online content distribution platforms and portals. It is important to understand these current phenomena in historical contexts.
Readings:
Lotz, A 2014, ‘Revolutionizing Distribution: Breaking Open the Network Bottleneck’, in The Television Will Be Revolutionized, NYU Press, pp. 131–166.
Lobato, R 2019, ‘What is Netflix’, in Netflix Nations The Geography of Digital Distribution, New York University Press, pp. 19–46.
Further reading:
Lampe, Markus & Kloeckl, Florian (2014) 'Spanning the globe: The rise of global communications systems and the first globalisation,' Australian Economic History Review, 54(3) 242-261
PART 2 of subject: identifying regional 'media systems' across the world
Lecture 5 – March 30, 2021
Australia - its dual systems and into the digital future
The Australian media system is a mixed of the European traditions of public media model and the American model of a market-orientated corporate media system. Australia’s ‘dual-systems’, which sees the co-existence of public services of ABC and SBS, and commercial media such as News Corporation, Fairfax Nine, and Seven West Media. The dual systems have led to vibrant and interesting policy environment and public expectations with our media system. Indeed, the ideological divergent has become an underlining current that defines the public conversations, debates and imagination of policy setting, cultural identity, and social values in Australia. However, with the advent of new media technologies and industries, questions about the relevancy of such a dual model system has frequently appeared in the public , policy and scholarly conversations. Indeed, players in both camps have been greatly challenged, and observing how they have adapted differently and similarly can shed lights on the current and future development of media industries in Australia.
Readings
Muller, TDD 2016, ‘FactCheck: is Australia’s level of media ownership concentration one of the highest in the world?’, The Conversation, accessed February 3, 2020
Flew, T 2011, ‘Rethinking public service media and citizenship : digital strategies for news and current affairs at Australia’s Special Broadcasting Service (SBS)’, International Journal of Communication, vol. 5, pp. 215–232,
(SEMESTER BREAK, 2-11 APRIL)
Lecture 6 – April 13, 2021
Africa – into the digital future
In this lecture, we will focus on two diverse media systems: on Kenya as a young
democracy in a conflict region of East Africa, and on South Africa as one of the most developed African nations. To compare these quite different media systems is important for the understanding of the transformation process into the new media era in African context.
Readings
Hadland, A 2012, ‘Africanizing three models of media and politics: the South African experience’, in DCHP Mancini (ed), Comparing Meida Systems Beyong the Western World, Cambridge University Press, pp. 96–118
Ogola, G 2011, ‘The Political Economy of the Media in Kenya: From Kenyatta’s Nation-Building Press to Kibaki’s Local-Language FM Radio’, Africa Today, vol. 57, no. 3, pp. 77–95.
Lecture 7 – April 20, 2021
Indonesia – media at the crossroad between religion and politics
Guest Lecture by Mr Harry, RMIT University
Indonesia is the world’s biggest Muslim populated country and also the third largest democratic country in the world. It is widely known as the example of how democracy and Islam go hand in hand—with the existence of a strong moderate middle-class Muslim often attributed for this success. However, in recent years, there are growing concerns about the rise of a more conservative Islamic groups in Indonesia--a trend captured by Martin Van Bruinessen when he coins the notion of “conservative turn.’
This lecture will introduce and discuss these three major reasons, looking at the Indonesian case as an ‘ideal laboratory’ to provide insights into the intersection of digital media, politics, and religion.
Readings:
Heryanto, A. (2014). Identity and pleasure: The politics of Indonesian screen culture. NUS Press.
Van Bruinessen, M. (Ed.). (2013). Contemporary Developments in Indonesian Islam: Explaining the" Conservative Turn". Institute of Southeast Asian Studies.
Lecture 8 – April 27, 2021
Japan – digital civic space during crisis
Guest Lecture by Dr Sonja Petrovic, the University of Melbourne
The 3.11 disaster in Japan is an epitome of an unexpected, highly complex and intrinsically disruptive media event, and remains an ongoing concern even after eight years. This lecture examines the role of online media in disaster communication and challenges they impose on traditional mass media use. It also considers changes in individual perceptions of media credibility in a disaster context and present day, elaborating how shifting trust in media intersects with the changes in the way individuals use and rely on media.
Readings:
Okumura, N., Hayashi, K., Igarashi, K., & Tanaka, A. (2019). Japan’s media fails its watchdog role: Lessons learned and unlearned from the 2011 earthquake and the Fukushima disaster. Journalism. https://doi.org/10.1177/1464884919891270
Kindstrand, L., Nishimura, K., & Slater, D. H. (2016). Mobilizing discontent: social media and networked activism since the Great East Japan Earthquake. In L. Hjorth & O. Khoo (Eds.), Routledge Handbook of New Media in Asia (pp. 53–65). New York: Routledge.
PART 3: Issues of the contemporary digital systems
Lecture 9 – May 4, 2021
Platform economies – new mode of production and governance
Platform media have become ubiquitous in the everyday lives of our world. While the term platform has been used widely by marketer, policy maker, and ordinary users, its conceptual implication and meaning are of great significance to understand the broader social, economic and cultural changes. This week considers the critical conceptaulisations of ‘digital platforms’ with particular attention to the economic (production) and political (governance) aspects. The lecture will argue that digital platforms do not just produce economic opportunities and outputs, they govern the way society operates and us, how we live our lives.
Readings:
Gillespie, T. (2010). The politics of ‘platforms.’ New Media & Society, 12(3), 347–364. https://doi.org/10.1177/1461444809342738.
Gorwa, R. (2019). What is platform governance? Information, Communication & Society, 22(6), 854-871. doi:10.1080/1369118x.2019.1573914
Lecture 10 – May 11, 2021
The rise of surveillance capitalism
Guest lecture by Mr Alex Griffin, the University of Melbourne
Digital media signifies a new mode of capitalism, which relies on automated data collection, content personalization, and algorithmic-centric socialisation. This week’s lecture moves into the age of ‘surveillance’, which arguably, defines our sense of being and belonging at this very moment. Key question to look at is how does this type of capitalism differs with the traditional media capitalism discussed earlier in the semester? How does surveillance capitalism differs but also build on ‘digital capitalism’, which has been the more familiar term across the scholarly and popular discourse. More importantly, can there be a role for the state? And what does the rise of surveillance capitalism say about the new, digital media landscape of today?
Readings:
Zuboff, S 2018, ‘August 9, 2011: Setting the stage for surveillance capitalism’, in The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power, INGRAM PUBLISHER SERVICES US, pp. 27–62.
Andrejevic, M 2019, ‘Automating surveillance’, Surveillance and Society, vol. 17, no. 1–2, pp. 7–13.
Lecture 11- May 18, 2021
Digital labor and the expansion of digital capitalism
Labor is often the factor that has gone missing the political economy of media. While the unit so far have focused on the techno-social infrastructures (such as government, corporation, technology, and monetary capital) the new form of media economy and the system it operates on relies on us, the media users to sustain its financial, social and cultural operations. This lecture turns to the attention of ‘human capital’ in producing new media system. In other words, this lecture argues that (to challenge our thinking), it is the users, us, who sustains the viability of the surveillance media system; and we do so actively.
Readings:
Cirucci, AM 2018, ‘A New Women’s Work: Digital Interactions, Gender, and Social Network Sites’, International Journal of Communication, vol. 12, pp. 2948–2970, accessed from <https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/8348/2409>.
Sun, P 2019, ‘Your order, their labor: An exploration of algorithms and laboring on food delivery platforms in China’, Chinese Journal of Communication, vol. 12, no. 3, pp. 308–323.
Lecture 12 – May 25, 2021
The Role of Global inter-governmental Organizations: policy, governing and reflections
Public sector governance of globalized media structures, for example through United Nations agencies, is an increasingly important sphere of media regulation. A focus of our discussion will be on UNESCO (Paris) policy frameworks before moving on to discussions of the role of intergovernmental agencies, such as the WTO and ITU in global media regulation. As this is the final week, the lecture will also review and bring together the main themes and debates of this semester.
Readings:
Helberger, Natali; Pierson, Jo & Poell, Thomas (2018) 'Governing online platforms: from contested to cooperative responsibility', The Information Society 34:1, 1-14
Suzor, Nicolas & van Geelen, Tess (2018) 'Evaluating the legitimacy of platform governance: A review of research and a shared research agenda,' The International Communication Gazette, 80(4) 385-400