MEDIA AND INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
Prof. Harold Piper
011-9888-3037

Office: Room 519, 2123-6297
Hours: Thursday and Friday, 2-4, or by appointment
TA: Bae Soo-jeong, soopoo82@gmail, 018-257-6706
Course focus: How do news media operate in the world? How do nations, businesses and nongovernmental organizations respond to a “media-mediated” world? Does the world deserve a better information regime than it gets? What would be the characteristics of such a regime?
Week 1 Introduction; a Quick Tour of Medium and Message from Ibis- headed Thoth via Marshall McLuhan to Janet Jackson’s Breast
Assignment: e-mail self-introduction.
Week 2 Information Criminal: the Subversive Power of Media
Readings: Course book.
Assignment due: Watch three television news programs (one foreign) and read three newspapers (one foreign). Pick one story and observe how the different media cover it.
Week 3 The Ideal Global Information Regime: Producers, Consumers, Resources
Readings: Course book, De Beer, Chapters 1,2.
Assignment due: In a page or two, write your idea of the Ideal Global Information Regime.
Week 4 Where News Comes From: Reporters, Editors, Sources
Readings: Course book, De Beer chapters 11, 12.
Assignment: Spot a news story that appears to be based on a leak. Suggest who may have been the leaker, and what motives might have prompted the leak and the publication.
Week 5 Ownership Structures: Faceless Corporations and Arrogant Tycoons
Readings: Course book.
Assignment: Pick one media corporation and explain how it might find “Synergy.” (Don’t know what synergy means? Look it up.)
Week 6 Public Opinion, and Those Who Seek to Mould It
Readings: Course book.
Seminar: Comparison of U.S. and South Korean reporting on North Korea.
Week 7 Public Diplomacy – How Nations Tell Their Stories (Guest lecturer: Public Affairs Officer, U.S. Embassy)
Readings: Course book.
Seminar: How the Iraq War was sold.
Week 8 Advertising and Entertainment Media: You’re Never Alone
Readings: Course book, De Beer, chapter 7.
Seminar: Is the information culture a threat to informed democracy?
NO MIDTERM EXAM
Week 9 The Changing Nature of News: Everyman His Own Editor on the Internet
Readings: Course book.
Seminar: How to overcome the digital divide?
Week 10 What’s So Bad About Cultural Imperialism?
Readings: Course book, De Beer, chapter 4
Seminar: Should trade in media products be deregulated?
Week 11 Media in Asia and the Middle East: Who’s Dominating Whom?
Readings: Course book, De Beer, chapters 15,17.
Seminar: China and Internet regulation
Week 12 Professional and Ethical Standards: Who Gets to Be a Journalist? Guest lecturer: Charles Sherman, Arirang TV.
Readings: Course book, De Beer, chapter 6
Seminar: Should journalists be licensed?
Week 13 Making Media Behave: Regulation and Self-Regulation
Readings: Course book, De Beer chapters 5,8.
Seminar: Press censorship in Korea, Past and Present.
Week 14 The Practical Global Information Regime: How to Reconcile Conflicting Public, Private and Global Interests
Readings: Course book.
Assignment: Paper due, “The Practical Global Information Regime.”
Week 15 “You Shall Know the Truth, and Truth Will Set You Free”
Week 16 Exam week
Each student will lead a seminar discussion at least once during the semester, and will submit a research paper arising from the seminar topic. Seminar topics listed above are illustrative; students may propose other topics.
Your grade will be computed as follows:
Final exam: 20 percent
Research paper and seminar leadership: 40 percent
Term paper: 20 percent
Classroom contribution: 20 percent