Department of Public & International Affairs
Semester A (2025/26)
PIA3120: Politics and Media
Course objective:
This course aims to investigate the complex relationship between politics and media in modern society. We explore how politics is represented in media and how the latter impacts on the policy process, how the role of media is conceived differently under the different understanding of politics as compared with the collective understanding, and how new information and communication technology (ICT) may affect political development. Students are expected to learn and reflect on freedom of the press, the political economy of mass media, the interaction among power, the press and society, and the theory and public diplomacy in global contexts.
Upon successful completion of this course, students should be able to:
1. Understand the relationship among the state, the media, and society in different regime types.
2. Identify the effects of new media technology on political participation and development.
3. Evaluate the role of the market in media plurality and the political information environment.
4. Assess controversies in political communications and their implications to empirical evidence.
Assessment:
1. Class Participation (15%)
Students are expected to actively participate during lecture and class discussion.
In-person attendance in every lecture will be checked as part of the course assessment. If you cannot attend class due to illness or an emergency, you are expected to notify your instructor and provide proof why you needed to skip class. Students’ questions emailed to the instructor after class or outside the lecture period will be addressed in succeeding class so that other students can benefit from the discussion. Late withdrawal or dropping out from the course after Week 6 may not be approved. Late withdrawal applications at the end of the teaching period are normally not approved, unless students can show extenuating circumstances with substantial proof of such request (eg. sickness, accident, family bereavement etc.).
2. Individual Essay (35%)
Students can choose a topic for their essay that is relevant to the learning objectives of the course. The word limit for this written assignment is 1,200 to 1,500 words, written in Times New Roman (12 font size) and double-spaced. Each essay should indicate clearly the number of words used in the paper, excluding the list of references. The essay should be based on a research question and core argument relevant to the course learning objectives. The submission deadline for the Individual Essay is November 20 (Week 12), and it should be uploaded via Canvas. Late submissions will be considered only on a case-to-case basis. Written assignments with a similarity report of over 20% in Turnitin may obtain a low score. Students are advised to reformat their list of references to avoid high similarity report scores. Written assignments with a 100% similarity report in Turnitin or 100% Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) may obtain an “I” or incomplete grade, and students involved may be subject to investigation whether or not there were violations of Academic Dishonesty. Failure to provide an explanation of how the AI tools have been used will lead to a zero mark. Please read the Department Head’s letter Concerning Academic Honesty and Assessment.
3. In-class tests (Midterm and Final quizzes) (50%)
Each test will have multiple choices, short answers, and essay formats. Midterm (Scope: Lectures 1 to 5) and Final tests are scheduled in Week 8 and 13, respectively. The questions in the test will be taken from lectures in class and required readings. A special “make-up” essay submission will be arranged for students who missed the test (submission deadline: 30th October), with legitimate extenuating circumstances beyond the student’s control (e.g. illness supported by a medical certificate). The file of make-up essay guidelines is uploaded separately on Canvas. Please contact the lecturer and teaching assistant for further assistance if necessary.
Weekly schedule and lecture topic:
Week 1 (September 4): Introduction to the Course; The Media and its relation to the State and Society within political systems
Week 2 (September 11): Analysing the Media: Theories and Concepts of the Press, and Free Press
Week 3 (September 18): Media in the Old and New political regimes: How the media’s political communication changes, and why?
Week 4 (September 25): The Media and the State: Political communication in democratic and hybrid regimes
Week 5 (October 2): The Media and the State: Political communication in authoritarian and dictatorial regimes
Week 6 (October 9): The New Media: Social media and its implications on political participation and development
Week 7 (October 16): Guest Lecture: Fake News and how to deal with it (Wasi Anjum)
Week 8 (October 23): In-class test (Midterm quiz)
Week 9 (October 30): From Studio to Cloud: The effects of new media technology and Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) media communications
Week 10 (November 6): Who owns the airwaves? Politics, political communication and environment in state-owned and private-owned media
Week 11 (November 13): Reading Week and Consultation
Week 12 (November 20): Media politics: Political communications at the local, national and international levels/ Submission deadline: Individual Essay
Week 13 (November 27): In-class test (Final quiz) and Concluding remarks
Compulsory Readings:
Bennett, W. Lance, Regina G. Lawrence, and Steven Livingston. 2007. When the Press Fails: Political Power and the News Media from Iraq to Katrina. Chicago: University of Chicago.
Bogaards, Matthijs. 2009. "How to classify hybrid regimes? Defective democracy and electoral authoritarianism." Democratization 16 (2): 399-423.
Diamond, Larry. 2021. "Democratic regression in comparative perspective: scope, methods, and causes." Democratization 28 (1): 22-42.
Egelhofer, Jana Laura, and Sophie Lecheler. 2019. "Fake news as a two-dimensional phenomenon: a framework and research agenda." Annals of the International Communication Association 43 (2): 97-116.
Guriev, Sergei, and Daniel Treisman. 2019. "Informational Autocrats." The Journal of Economic Perspectives 33 (4): 100-127.
O'Flaherty, Michael. 2015. "International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights: interpreting freedom of expression and information standards for the present and the future." In The United Nations and Freedom of Expression and Information: Critical Perspectives, edited by Tarlach McGonagle and Yvonne Donders, 55-72. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Schudson, Michael. 2017. "How to Think Normatively about News and Democracy." In The Oxford Handbook of Political Communication, edited by Kate Kenski and Kathleen Hall Jamieson, 95-106. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
United Nations Human Rights Committee. 2011. General Comment No. 34: Article 19: Freedom of opinion and expression (CCPR/C/GC/34), 12 September.
Van Aelst, Peter, Jesper Strömbäck, Toril Aalberg, Frank Esser, Claes de Vreese, Jörg Matthes, David Hopmann, Susana Salgado, Nicolas Hubé, Agnieszka St?pi?ska, Stylianos Papathanassopoulos, Rosa Berganza, Guido Legnante,
Carsten Reinemann, Tamir Sheafer, and James Stanyer. 2017. "Political communication in a high-choice media environment: a challenge for democracy?"
Annals of the International Communication Association 41 (1): 3-27.
Zhao, Kejin. 2015. "The Motivation Behind China's Public Diplomacy." The Chinese Journal of International Politics 8 (2): 167-196.
Additional Readings:
Coudray, Sylvie. 2015. "UNESCO: freedom of expression, information and the media." In
The United Nations and Freedom of Expression and Information: Critical Perspectives, edited by Tarlach McGonagle and Yvonne Donders, 208-234. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Hanitzsch, Thomas, Tim P. Vos, Olivier Standaert, Folker Hanusch, Jan Fredrik Hovden, Liesbeth Hermans, and Jyotika Ramaprasad. 2019. "Role Orientations: Journalists' Views on Their Place in Society." In Worlds of Journalism: Journalistic Cultures Around the Globe, edited by Thomas Hanitzsch, Folker Hanusch, Jyotika Ramaprasad and Arnold S. de Beer, 161-197. New York: Columbia University Press.
Kovalev, Alexey. 2021. "The political economics of news making in Russian media: Ownership, clickbait and censorship." Journalism 22 (12): 2906-2918.
Nye, Joseph S. 2008. "Public Diplomacy and Soft Power." The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 616: 94-109.
Scheufele, Dietram A., and David Tewksbury. 2007. "Framing, Agenda Setting, and Priming: The Evolution of Three Media Effects Models." Journal of communication 57 (1): 9-20.
Vaca-Baqueiro, Maira T. 2017. Four Theories of the Press: 60 Years and Counting. New York: Routledge.
Whitten-Woodring, Jenifer. 2009. "Watchdog or Lapdog? Media Freedom, Regime Type, and Government Respect for Human Rights." International Studies Quarterly 53 (3): 595-625.
Wong, Mathew Y. H., and Ying-ho Kwong. 2019. "Academic Censorship in China: The Case of The China Quarterly." PS: Political Science & Politics 52 (2): 287-292.
Yang, Jisheng. 2016. "Yang Jisheng Speech Transcript." Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard. Last Modified March 10. Accessed Sept 2, 2024. https://nieman.harvard.edu/awards-2/louis-lyons-award/yang-jisheng-speech-transcript/