MA Political Communications

This module examines the actors and communication processes involved in contemporary political communication. Its core concern is to explore notions of ‘crisis’ in mature democracies as voter turnouts and ‘trust’ in formal political institutions steadily drop, national economies struggle, and news media decline. It combines theoretical insights and case examples from the fields of media studies, journalism, sociology and political science. It mainly focuses on democracies, particularly in the US and UK, but literature and examples are also drawn from other types of political system and country. Weekly topics combine political communication themes and contemporary examples, with discussions of related theory and concepts.

Topics covered include: The crisis of politics and media in established democracies; public sphere theory; comparative political and media systems; mass media, news production and the future of news; political parties, from ideologies to political marketing; elections and referendums; government media management, mediatisation and populist politics; historical and cultural political communication; forms of public participation and public opinion; media effects and audiences; policy-making, lobbying and power; economics, austerity and the financial crisis; digital media and online politics; interest group campaigning, lobbying and environmental/welfare policy. Much of the material for this module is highly contemporary, so students are encouraged to maintain an awareness of current developments in political communication in the UK and elsewhere.

This module covers fresh topics and new perspectives and literature developed in media sociology, political sociology, international/comparative politics and cultural theory. Work discussed includes: theories of media, culture and power; policy making, advocacy and elite decision-making; new technologies and the information society; popular culture and politics; identity and difference in global politics; interest groups and new social movements; alternative communications and forms of democracy; comparative systems work on democracies, transitional and authoritarian regimes; global governance and transnational communications and citizenship.

All students are encouraged to develop ideas for their own research projects, and are assigned a supervisor, in their first term of study. During the first and second term you will attend a series of 10 research skills workshops. Topics include: literature reviews, research design, ethics, questionnaires and surveys, focus groups, interviews, online research, textual analysis, case studies, ethnography and observation. During the second and third terms, in conjuction with your supervisor, you work on their projects with a view to producing some independent research by the end of the module.

Pending

Risk in Contemporary Politics treats risk as the core notion in framing and exploring contemporary politics. The module is aimed at exciting your interest in the relationship between politics and the assessment, communication and management of risk. You are invited to explore the ways in which the management of risk has become one of the most pressing concerns in contemporary politics and encourages them to consider the leading role ideas about risk play in shaping political debate, the formulation and evaluation of public policy and the coverage of politics in the popular media.The study of risk is a multi-disciplinary enterprise and the module takes as its starting point the proposition that: ‘Risk politics affords students a highly rewarding and stimulating opportunity to consider the ways in which political analysis interacts with and draws on social psychology, media studies, economics, sociology, legal studies, and sub-disciplines in the natural sciences, such as toxicology’.

The module is designed to provide you with knowledge and understanding of key concepts and findings from empirical studies of human risk perception, risk management and the scientific analysis of risks. The significance of risk analyses and their impact upon contemporary political discourse and action serve as the prime focus for the module. Risk in Contemporary Politics aims to foster your ability to critically evaluate the growth and development of risk politics in response to specific risks and to consider the ways in which particular risks have been politicised.

The module is taught with three main goals in mind: 

• To stimulate and reward the curiosity of post graduates about the interaction between politics and the assessment, communication and management of risk;
• To enable you to develop an appreciation of the extent to which risk politics has become a multi-disciplinary enterprise;
• To inform and encourage the critical evaluation of contemporary risk politics and, most particularly, the growing politicisation of risk.

This module aims to raise questions about whether the concepts and categories through which we usually study the ‘international’ or ‘global’ are adequate to the task. It critically examines categories of the social sciences and humanities that are usually simply presupposed and ‘applied’, and which, despite their Western or European origins, are assumed to be ‘universal’. It does this by closely examining some of the most important theoretical writings of the post-WWII period, focusing upon books and debates which had repercussions far beyond their immediate disciplinary boundaries, including books by Kuhn, MacIntyre, Foucault, Said, and others. Students explore the claim(s) that far from being objective and universal, our knowledge is shaped by culture, history and politics.

This module will introduce you to the main theoretical perspectives that inform the discipline of International Relations. While the main focus is on contemporary theoretical trends and developments, a guiding rationale is that current international theory emerges out of and in an ongoing critical relationship with the discipline’s theoretical heritage that reaches back until at least the beginning of the twentieth century.

You'll explore the claim that IR theory exists in a dialectic with contemporary processes, and practices of world politics, which it both reflects and influences. You'll be encouraged to think critically about how theories might help us to explain and understand key themes and events, both historical and contemporary, that constitute the subject matter of the discipline of International Relations, broadly understood .

The module falls loosely into two halves. The first, which addresses the intellectual history of IR theory; identifies the uniqueness of the IR as a distinct discipline; introduces three of the dominant intellectual traditions: Realism, Liberalism and the theory of International Society; and considers the status of IR as a political science. The second half engages with some of the most significant theories challenging mainstream traditions since the end of the Cold War. Often identified as ‘critical’, these theories - Constructivist, Marxist, Feminist, Poststructural and Postcolonial - are evaluated for their ability to i) critique the epistemological, ontological and methodological assumptions of mainstream theories and ii) to present coherent alternative theories of International Relations.

Pending

This module exams two key areas from the perspective of the Continental philosophical tradition: Radical Evil and Terror.

This module examines the ways in which the body has been an important site for the articulation of larger social, political and cultural anxieties and desires. By focusing on examples from the medieval and non-western worlds it questions modern assumptions about the body, which whilst masquerading as universal, have a very specific history.

This subject is built around glimpses of, and insights into, the lives of ordinary Chinese people and the rules and rituals that govern their existence. You will discuss the ways everyday life was governed under socialism and the ways that control is now breaking down with the emergence of a consumer culture, enabling a close scrutiny of the politics of everyday life. Picking up on themes as diverse and quirky as Mao badge fetishists, hoodlum slang, and the role of the tattoo, the subject examines the way a range of people not only live but resist dominant social discourse.

We will employ an array of critical thinking from Western social theorists and it is this that is highlighted through themes such as ‘commodities and collection’, ‘authorship and biography’, questions of power, violence and excess  as well as themes of fore-thrownment, sacrifice and desire. You will gain a grounding not only in the politics of everyday life in China but also in Western theoretical engagements with the everyday.  

This module will give you an insight into different values systems and political forms and in taking up the issue of politics in a culturally different way gaining an understanding of the heuristic value of certain schools of social, cultural and political theory