COMS225-18SU1 (C) Summer Jan 2018 start

Politics and New Media

15 points

Details:
Start Date: Monday, 1 January 2018
End Date: Sunday, 11 February 2018
Withdrawal Dates
Last Day to withdraw from this course:
  • Without financial penalty (full fee refund): Friday, 5 January 2018
  • Without academic penalty (including no fee refund): Friday, 26 January 2018

Description

A Facebook profile is required to take part in this course. This course is being offered at two universities at once in Finland and Aotearoa New Zealand. Students will take part in discussions with students from the other university and will be taught by academics from each university, with a tutor and lecturer at Canterbury coordinating the local version of the course. The course studies the latest developments on how public life and politics are being shaped by web-based communication. You will be asked to think critically about the globalisation of politics online, about the divisions between haves and have nots and about the ways different groups pursue their agendas online.

The aim is to convey knowledge about the implications of new media and the Internet within different subfields of communication and political science. The course provide students with insights into the theoretical points of departure for this development with reference to various empirical studies of the transformation of media and politics online. More specifically the course aims at exploring the complex relationship between new ICTs (information and communication technologies), globalisation, and a multitude of issues ranging from citizen participation to democratic deliberation to minority rights.

There are several central dimensions of politics that have been affected on a global scale by the revolution in ICTs: e.g. political participation, governance, political communication, citizenship, and indeed democracy encompassing the plurality of ethnic, religious, local, national and global identities. These are studied within the framework of postmodern politics as in the greater fragmentation of political, economic and social actors into autonomous networks as part and parcel of the network society. This development involves both democratic challenges and potential with respect to crucial factors of the ‘inclusive society’ such as cultural and social diversity, equal public opportunities, and access to informed knowledge. The coverage and analysis of the multiple issues at stake takes a Nordic/New Zealand comparative perspective while simultaneously taking into account the plural voices communicating across differences within the global span in between.

Learning Outcomes

On completion of the course you should be able to:
a) to demonstrate knowledge and capacity to make effective usage of the academic literature in the fields of politics, communication/journalism and policy studies with a specific insight into online democracy, governance, communication, media and public participation.
b) to demonstrate an ability to comparatively discuss and analyse social and political issues in a clear, concise and rigorous way making effective use of the conventions of scholarly presentation as well as online facilities such as social media.
c) to collaborate constructively with fellow participants in an international setting combining individual skills and group dynamics along with face-to-face and online interaction.
d) to demonstrate a critical awareness of the political implications of global communication, and ability to apply theory based knowledge on observed case findings of the relationship between digital communication technologies, democracy and inclusive society.

University Graduate Attributes

This course will provide students with an opportunity to develop the Graduate Attributes specified below:

Critically competent in a core academic discipline of their award

Students know and can critically evaluate and, where applicable, apply this knowledge to topics/issues within their majoring subject.

Employable, innovative and enterprising

Students will develop key skills and attributes sought by employers that can be used in a range of applications.

Engaged with the community

Students will have observed and understood a culture within a community by reflecting on their own performance and experiences within that community.

Globally aware

Students will comprehend the influence of global conditions on their discipline and will be competent in engaging with global and multi-cultural contexts.

Prerequisites

60 points at 100 level

Course Coordinator

Donald Matheson

Tutor

Suvo Bandopadhyaya

Partner institutions
The courses ‘Politics and New Media’ (UC) and ‘Governing Online Communication’ (UH) make up a combined international course in political science and communication hosted by the Swedish School of Social Science at the University of Helsinki (UH) in cooperation with the School of Language, Social & Political Sciences at the University of Canterbury (UH). The shared online facilities are complemented by the UH coordinators’ visits at UC ensuring live interaction with the participating students and local contributions to the lectures by guest lecturers at each participating institution. The collaboration has been developed within the educational mobility project Inclusive Journalism Initiative: Reporting Europe and the Asia-Pacific funded under the ICI Education Co-Operation Programme 2013-17.

Lecturers
Suvo Bandopadhyaya - Researcher, School of Language, Social and Political Sciences, UC
Karin Creutz  - Researcher, Centre for Research on Ethnic Relations and Nationalism (CEREN), Swedish School of Social Science, UH
Niilo Kauppi -  Academy of Finland Distinguished Professor, University of Jyväskylä; Docent, Department of Political and Economic Studies, UH; Directeur de recherche (on leave), Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS)
Kanerva Kuokkanen - Researcher, Institute of Criminology and Legal Policy (KRIMO), Department of Social Research, UH
Donald Matheson -  Associate Professor, School of Language, Social and Political Sciences, UC
Tom Moring -  Professor, Swedish School of Social Science, UH
Mikko Rask  - Docent, Senior Researcher, Consumer Society Research Centre, Department of Political and Economic Studies, UH
Petteri Repo -  Docent, Senior Researcher, Consumer Society Research Centre, Department of Political and Economic Studies, UH
Kim Zilliacus -  Senior Lecturer, Swedish School of Social Science, UH

Textbooks / Resources

All readings will be accessed electronically via the course learning environment on
Facebook (‘Main Site’).

Indicative Fees

Domestic fee $746.00

International fee $3,038.00

* All fees are inclusive of NZ GST or any equivalent overseas tax, and do not include any programme level discount or additional course-related expenses.

For further information see Language, Social and Political Sciences .

All COMS225 Occurrences

  • COMS225-18SU1 (C) Summer Jan 2018 start