Course Content
The course addresses two dimensions of media analysis and in so doing, enables the concepts and applications of news values and the practice(s) of news management and media regulation to be interrogated.
Public Service Broadcasting (PSB) sets great store by adhering to the achievement of accuracy, balance and due impartiality in news reporting.
However, these goals can, at times, be in conflict, one with another and the very nature of language itself, both as content and in terms of decoding and reception analysis demonstrates the difficulties inherent in communications the best available version of the truth. Moreover, in so called post-truth times, with fake news and social media, agenda setting and disinformation make for a problematic context.
Add to this, the ideological biases of many news organisations and the lack of effective or indeed any media regulation of platforms under the rubric of ‘free speech’ and trust in the media can become overwhelmed by populism
Understanding these processes by using critical discourse and content analysis is a primary aim of this course such that students are helped to use an evidence based approach to develop high level skills of media literacy
The assessment design provides opportunities for a student centred approach to consider and focus upon one or more of media institutions, news values and media regulation, language and specific case studies in reporting.
