7999 Special Topics Seminar:
Democracy and Media

FALL 2001

Instructor:  Jack Hamilton                               Meets: 8:30 - 11:30   Fridays

I want this seminar to be of use to you.  Hence, it has purposes beyond the obvious one of acquainting doctoral students with issues related to media and democracy.  That purpose is to better prepare you for graduate teaching and research.  The class prepares you for teaching by having you lead the discussion of one of the assigned readings.  It prepares you for research by requiring a research paper that will be submitted to the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication or some other professional organization.

            Nine books are on the reading list.  They shine light on media and democracy from different angles.  I selected books with such diversity in mind, but also sought to include important books.  In a recent survey, mass communications scholars identified some of the books as seminal in our field.

Each of you assumes responsibility for one of the books.  This entails leading a class discussion of at least two hours.  All of you are expected to read the book beforehand and come to class prepared to engage in lively discussionunless you wish to make life difficult for the fellow student who is leading the discussion.  In that case, you may sit like lumps of coal while your colleague squirms.

            Students are marked on the quality of their discussion overall during the semester as well as on the quality of the discussion that they lead.

Each of you writes an original research paper.  This is due November 30.  It is important that you identify a research subject early in the semester and begin to work on it immediately.  At the beginning of each class session, we will discuss progress on the papers and swap ideas with each other on lines of inquiry, findings, etc.  In order to simulate the normal paper review process, I will create a three-person faculty committee (that is, me and two others) to blind review the papers.  Grades are based on two factors: quality of research; quality of writing.  A well-researched but poorly written paper will receive a low gradeand vice versa

Final exam

            The readings form the basis for the final exam.  We shall discuss later the construction of that exam.  Students who have read the books and understand the main arguments should be fine.

            Grades are calculated as follows:

            Class discussion                     10 percent

            Leading class discussion          15 percent

            Research paper                       50 percent

            Final exam                               25 percent

            As this class requires considerable outside work, it will not meet every week.  We initially will assume, however, that classes meet on all Fridays except these: September 14, October 12, and November 23.  I expect that a publisher from a Bogot- newspaper (and a former presidential candidate and ambassador to the United States) will be with us on September 28.

 We shall read books in the following order:

Pericles of Athens and the Birth of Democracy/Donald Kagan

News for All: America's Coming-of-Age with the Press/Thomas C. Leonard

The Good Citizen: A History of American Civil Life/Michael Schudson

Scorpion Tongues: Gossip, Celebrity & American Politics/Gail Collins

The Whole World is Watching/Todd Gitlin

News That Matters: Television and American Opinion/Shanto Iyengar and Donald R. Kinder

The Tiananmen Papers/Edited by Andrew J. Nathan and Perry Link

Out of Order/Thomas E. Patterson

Warp Speed/Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel