MGC3/S14/A9c Current Issues in Journalism 5 cr

40 students at the most will be accepted to the course. Preregistration in WebOodi is required: 8.-14.10.2009.

Content

This course will tackle the current state and landscape of contemporary journalism and media in the Finnish, European as well as global context. We will examine issues and cases which have been topical or problematic in the current age of globalisation. These include journalism's role in sustaining citizenship and democracy, journalism practice and new media technologies, journalism ethics and standards in a global era and news coverage of science. The course consists of lectures by nationally and internationally recognized media scholars.

Course material: following articles

• Bakker, Piet (2008). The simultaneous rise and fall of free and paid newspapers in Europe (Journalism Practice, 2, 427-443.)
• Heikkilä, Heikki (2007): EU News in European News Cultures: A Transnational Analysis
• Juntunen, Laura (2009): Explaining the need for speed. How Increasing Competition Causes New Ethical Dilemmas in Journalism.
• Kivikuru, Ullamaija (2006): Top-down or bottom-up?: radio in the service of democracy: experiences from South Africa and Namibia.
• Kunelius, Risto (2008): Transnational Media Events. The Mohammed Cartoons and the Imagined Clash of Cilivizations .
• Uskali, Turo (2009): Weak Signals in Innovation Journalism – Cases Google, Facebook and Twitter.
• Väliverronen, Esa (2004): Stories of the "medicine cow": representations of future promises in media discourse.

And also 2-3 additional articles to be announced (by Piet Backer and Karin Wahl-Jörgensen).

Please find more information about the course from: http://www.helsinki.fi/globalmedia/courses09-10/Current.html

Grading

Assessment scale: 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.