French economist Thomas Piketty has shown that economic inequality has increased dramatically in the age of hyper-capitalism since the 1980s in all regions of the world analyzed, including the United States, Europe, Russia, India, and China. What is the role of journalism in the shift of wealth from the bottom to the top? We approach this question in two ways: 1) We compare on a global scale how the "hyper-meritocratic" ideology of neoliberalism varies across the world and how it is disseminated in selected media. 2) Based on audience data, we construct fields of journalism to analyze which media represent which class in terms of their economic and cultural interests. Putting one and two together, we will compare and measure media inequality. The result of this class will be the starting point for the project of a "World Media Inequality Report".
- Teacher: Alexis von Mirbach
We will discuss the body of knowledge in international media research ranging from the Theories of the Press (Siebert et al., 1956) over Comparing Media Systems (Hallin & Mancini 2004, 2011) to Worlds of Journalism (Hanitzsch, Hanusch, et al., 2019). In addition, students get familiar with the empirical methods of journalism studies. As a relevant issue, we focus on the “Global Trust Deficit Disorder” in and between nation-states (Flew, 2021; Hanitzsch & Van Dalen et al., 2018). Public Scholarship aims to address global injustices, understand the public, and co-create new and unconventional knowledge for a better world (Waisbord, 2020; Billard & Waisbord, 2024). In doing so, we combine the Future Lab Method (Jungk & Müllert, 1979) with standards of empirical social science.
- Teacher: Alexis von Mirbach
- Teacher: Nina Steindl