Dr Bart Cammaerts TW2-601c

This course is compulsory on the MSc in Politics and Communication. This course is not available as an outside option.

This course examines the links between the media and democracy in theory and practice. The range of issues examined include: theories of democracy and the obligations of media; issues of press freedom and the limits to free speech; media and elections; media and public policy; the Internet and political participation; reporting in the digital age; media in an international context and the relationship between the media and social movements. This course discusses the role assumed by the media in both long-established democratic societies and in new and emerging democracies.

5 hours of lectures, 5 hours of seminars and 15 hours of workshops in the MT.

The workshops refer to 5 student-led classes of 3 hours of in the MT centred around student presentations.

All students are expected to complete advance reading, prepare seminar presentations, and submit one essay of 1,500 words.

• Cammaerts, B., Matoni, A. and McCurdy, P. (eds) (2013) Mediation and Protest Movements. Bristol: Intellect, 2013.
• Chadwick, A. (2013) The Hybrid Media System: Politics and Power. New York: Oxford University Press.
• Esser, F. and Strömbäck, J. (eds) (2014) Mediatization of Politics: Understanding the Transformation of Western Democracies. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
• Hallin, D. C., and Mancini, P. (2004). Comparing media systems: Three models of media and politics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Hallin, D. C., and Mancini, P. (eds) (2012) Comparing Media Systems Beyond the Western World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Held, D. (2006) Models of Democracy, Cambridge: Polity.
• Negrine, R. (2008) The Transformation of Political Communication. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
• Scammell, M. (2014) Consumer democracy: the marketing of politics. Communication, society and politics. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge,
• Semetko, H. and Scammell, M. (eds) (2012) The SAGE handbook of political communication. London. SAGE,
• Voltmer K. (2013) The Media in Transitional Democracies. Contemporary Political Communication. Cambridge: Polity.

Essay (90%, 3000 words) in the LT.
Presentation (10%) in the MT.

This course examines the relationship between democracy and the media from a variety of angles addressing democratic theory, freedom of speech, elections, social movements, media power and emerging democracies.

Students' comments 

"It is helpful to go into depths of these issues. It is also great to communicate in such a pluralistic class with different identities and listen to everyone's views."