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Crossing Borders Seminar:
Transborder Communications
and its Discontents

(01H: 237; 008: 231; 013:262; 016:247; 030: 242; 035:273; 044:286)

Fall 2004, W 5:30-8:00 p.m., 151 Schaeffer Hall

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Description of Course:

The course will focus on debates since 1945 on the transborder flow of communications, specifically News, film, music, and other media forms.  Communication poses a problem of sovereignty for nation-states, since it easily violates national borders, and we will examine (1) state policy that grapples with this question, ranging from the rise of national broadcasting systems to quotas and subsidies of domestic media production to outright prohibition of foreign media content (2) efforts by non-governmental groups to manage the global mediascape, including media industries and their critics (3) theories of globalization and global flows.  Possible case studies might include Voice of America; how national film industries have coped with Hollywood (France being one key example); the moral policing of foreign and domestic music and television in the Islamic world (Egypt is an excellent case); diasporic media production (Turkey is an excellent case); the diversity of critiques of (Anglo-)American media imperialism; the emergence of human rights politics in the 1940s, and in waves since; calls for a new world information order in the 1970s; the cultural politics of TV syndication; Singapore's internet firewall; political consequences of regional rivals to US media dominance (Brazilian soap opera, Bollywood, Hong Kong Cinema). 

Global media flows are relevant for almost every nation on earth.  Graduate students will benefit from a topic that is so widely debated but rarely studied systematically, and one that is susceptible to study from many disciplinary optics.  The topic invites comparative analysis, and offers a particularly apt linkage of the global and the local.

Readings will include books, research articles, original policy statements; we may also examine examples of relevant media artifacts.  Papers will be based on research in primary documents of various sorts and specific to student expertise. 

Peters brings an interest in how media constitute public spheres that both shape and transcend national cultures; Cmiel brings research on the postwar emergence of human rights politics, specifically a right to freedom of information, as well as an interest in how the global circulation of image and information has shaped the second half of the twentieth century.  Both share an interest in the intellectual and cultural history of communications in the late twentieth century and how it illuminates more general problems of global modernity.   The instructors are Professors John Peters and Kenneth Cmiel.

Instructors:

Kenneth Cmiel	310 Schaeffer Hall 335-2294 kenneth-cmiel@uiowa.edu	Offfice Hours:	Tuesday 2 - 4 p.m. Thursday 9 - 10 a.m.
John D. Peters	125 BCSB 353-2258 john-peters@uiowa.edu	Office Hours:	Tuesday 12:30-3:30 p.m. and by appointment.

BOOKS

The following books have been ordered at Iowa Book and Supply (on the corner of Clinton and Washington: go the basement).  They are shelved in the “008” section. 

• Bhagwati, In Defense of Globalization (will arrive in early September)
• Hardt and Negri, Empire
• Loosely, Popular Music in Contemporary France
• Miller, et al., Global Hollywood
• Nye, Soft Power
• Stiglitz, Globalization and its Discontents

REQUIREMENTS

1. Active participation in class discussion and exchange.  This will require careful and thoughtful reading of the assigned material. 
2. Two reading responses of 2-3 pp. each that grapple with and compare and contrast the readings.  These will be spread out across the semester according to a sign up sheet (four students per week approximately).  Please turn in two copies.
3. A research paper of 20-25 pp, due on 8 December.  A one-page statement of topic and approach is due on 15 September.  Please turn in two copies. 

SCHEDULE OF READINGS AND TOPICS

August 25 – Introduction to Class

Part I – Economic Globalization: Laying out the Positions

September 1 – The Liberal

• Stiglitz, Globalization and Its Discontents  (2002)

September 8 – The Radicals

• Hardt & Negri, Empire (2000)

September 15 – The Fan

• Bhagwati, In Defense of Globalization (2004)
• Statement of Proposed Paper Topic Due (in Duplicate)

Part II – Flows of Information

September 22 – From Modernization to Globalization

      Politics: The United Nations and UNESCO

• Cmiel, “Human Rights, Freedom of Information, and the Origins of Third-World Solidarity” (2003) (handout)
• Chris Brown-Syed, “The New World Order and the Geopolitics of Information”  

                    http://valinor.ca/csyed_libres3.html 

• Matsuura Koichiro, “The New UNESCO” (via EBSCO)
• Steven Bernstein, “Is UNESCO Reformed?”

                    http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=10110

Social Theory: Modernization and Globalization

• Selection from Daniel Lerner, The Passing of Traditional Society: Modernizing the Middle East (1959) (handout)
• Alain Finkelkraut, “ Generous Betrayal,” from The Defeat of the Mind (1987) (handout)
• Arjun Appadurai, “Disjuncture and Difference in Global Cultural Economy,” from Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization (1996). (handout)

September 29 – Influencing Others Today

• Joseph Nye, Soft Power: The Means to Success in World Politics (2004)
• On Al Jazeera:

        “In defense of Al Jazeera”       

               http://www.msnbc.com/news/643471.asp?cp1=1

        “What the Muslim World is Watching”

               http://www.tbsjournal.com/Archives/Spring02/ajami.html

October 6 – Keeping Order

• On Internet regulation: China as a Case Study

“Meanwhile: The great leap that is stirring China”

    http://www.iht.com/articles/532741.html

“China and Internet Filters” Nieman Reports (Summer 2004) (EBSCO)

“US corporations complicit in China’s cyber censorship” 

   http://www.scienceblog.com/community/article3573.html

“Rights group slams Google, Yahoo! Self-censorship in China”

http://origin.rfaweb.org/front/article.html?service=eng&encoding=10&id=142626

• Ege Algan, “Privatization of Radio and Media Hegemony in Turkey,” in The Globalization of Corporate Media Hegemony (2003) (handout)
• Child Porn on the Internet

October 13 – Politics and Global Information Flows

• Marc Sageman, “Joining the Jihad” and “Social Networks and the Jihad” from Understanding Terror Networks (2004) (handout)
• Terrorism and the internet:

                    “Internet’s many layers give terrorists room to post, then hide”

 http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2004-06-27-terrorweb-usat_x.htm

                    “Terror in the digital domain”

 http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5261602

                    “Cyberspace gives Al Qaeda refuge” Los Angeles Times, August 15, 2004

• Cmiel, “The Emergence of Human Rights Politics” Journal of American History (1999) (online)
• Alison Brysk, “Turning Weakness into Strength: The Internationalization of Indian Rights,” Latin American Perspectives 23 (Spring 1996) 38-57 (online)

Part III – Culture

October 20 – Television (visit of Prof. Purnima Mankekar)

• Purnima Mankekar, “Dangerous Desires: Television and Erotics in Late Twentieth-Century India,” Journal of Asian Studies 63 (May 2004) (online: http://www.aasianst.org/catalog/mankekar.pdf)
•  “Bring on the Bathos” Los Angeles Times, August 8, 2004

      http://www.latimes.com/features/lifestyle/la-ca-mcnamara8aug08,0,6514824.story?coll=la-headlines-lifestyle

• “Accent on higher TV ratings” Washington Post, August 2, 2004

       http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A32693-2004Aug1.html

• Timothy Havens, “It’s Still a White World Out There: The Interplay of Culture and Economics in International Television Trade,” Critical Studies in Mass Communication (December 2002)
• Sheldon H. Lu, “Soap Opera in China: The Transnational Politics of Visuality, Sexuality, and Masculinity,” Cinema Journal (Fall 2000)

October 27 – Media and Identity

• Melinda Robins, “Are African Women Online Just ICT Consumers?” Gazette: International Journal for Communication Studies (June 2002)
• Meenakshi Gigi Durham, “Constructing the ‘New Ethnicities’: Media, Sexuality, and Diaspora Identity in the Lives of South Asian Girls,” Critical Studies in Mass Communication (June 2004)
• Elain Salo, “Negotiating Gender and Personhood in the New South Africa,” European Journal of Cultural Studies (August 2003)
• Şahin, Haluk and Asu Aksoy, "Global Media and Cultural Identity in Turkey." Journal of Communication. 43, no. 2 (1993): 31-41.

November 3 – Popular Music: France as a Case Study

• Loosely, Popular Music in Contemporary France (2003)
• Several articles about downloading problems in France (handout)

November 10 – Film

• Miller, et al, Global Hollywood (2002)
• A packet of journalism on film quota issues in different parts of the world. (handout)

November 17 – The Novel

• Franco Moretti, “Conjectures on World Literature” New Left Review (Jan-Feb 2000)  http://www.newleftreview.net/NLR23503.shtml
• Franco Moretti, “More Conjectures” NLR (March-April 2003) http://www.newleftreview.net/NLR25402.shtml
• Frederic Jameson, “Third-World Literature in the Era of Multinational Capitalism” (1986)
• Other, TBA

November 24 – Thanksgiving Holiday

December 1 TBA

December 8  Summing Up

            Research Paper due by the beginning of class (in duplicate). 

REQUIRED STATEMENT OF RULES AND REGULATIONS

Disabilities: If there are any accommodations that we can make so that your learning environment is more user-friendly, please don’t hesitate to let the instructors know ASAP. 

            Language Competence: All instructors for this course are approved as competent speakers of the English language.

            Academic Misconduct: Plagiarism, the unacknowledged use of another’s words, ideas, or work, and cheating, in any form, are both academic crimes.  For more information on student rights and responsibilities, please see http://www.clas.uiowa.edu/students/academic_handbook/ix.shtml. 

            Reviewing paper drafts by e-mail: We will not review or comment on drafts of papers sent over e-mail.  We will be happy to discuss your writing in person in office hours or other arranged times. 

            Human Rights: The University of Iowa prohibits discrimination in its education programs based on race, national origin, color, creed, religion, sex, age, disability, veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity or associational preference.  For more information:

            Office of Equal Opportunity and Diversity: http://www.uiowa.edu/~eod/

            Sexual Harassment Policy: http://www.uiowa.edu/~our/opmanual/ii/04.htm

            Professional Ethics: http://www.uiowa.edu/~our/opmanual/iii/15.htm

Jurisdiction: This course is given by the Graduate College. This means that class policies on matters such as requirements, grading, and sanctions for academic dishonesty are governed by the Graduate College.  Students wishing to add or drop this course after the official deadline must receive the approval of the Dean of the Graduate College.  Details of the University policy of cross enrollments may be found at: http://www.uiowa.edu/~provost/deos/crossenroll.doc