News, Media and Communication (HIH3617)

Staff	Dr Richard Ward - Lecturer
Credit Value	30
ECTS Value	15
NQF Level	6
Pre-requisites	None
Co-requisites	None
Duration of Module	Term 1: 11 weeks; Term 2: 11 weeks;

Module aims

This module is designed to enhance your understanding of recurring themes in the history of news, media and communication over a time scale extending from the medieval period to the present day. It will be taught by two or three different tutors, and exact chronological and thematic focus will depend on which tutors are teaching the module in any given year. By close specialist evaluation of key topics such as censorship, economics and popular participation in news production in settings as various as the post-reformation world and the digital society, you will trace key developments in the subject, and think about these comparatively across time and space. The module will also introduce you to the approaches of different disciplines, such as anthropology and philosophy, and to a variety of different historical source materials, such as letters, woodcuts, newspapers and electronic media sources. By using a combination of tutor-led seminars and lectures, student-led seminars and independent study, the module will enable you to reflect on the strengths and weaknesses of taking a comparative approach to the study of news, media and communication. In this way you will learn to draw thematic comparisons between material from different sources, show awareness of contrasting approaches to research, and demonstrate an enhanced understanding of some of the philosophical questions arising from research into large historical themes. You will also learn to present some of these complex issues to the rest of the class by leading a seminar in the second half of the course.

ILO: Module-specific skills

• 1. Analyse developments in the history of news, media and communication.
• 2. Assess the relationship between developments in the history of news, media and communication and other phenomena such as orality, literacy and technological shifts across a variety of historical time-periods and contexts.
• 3. Critically evaluate the approaches that historians and scholars working in other disciplines have taken to the history of news, media and communication
• 4. Define suitable research topics for independent study and student-led seminars in the history of news, media and communication

ILO: Discipline-specific skills

• 5. Analyse the key developments in complex and unfamiliar political, social, cultural or intellectual environments.
• 6. Evaluate different and complex types of historical source and historiography.
• 7. Present work in the format expected of historians, including footnoting and bibliographical references.
• 8. Identify and deploy correct terminology in a comprehensible and sophisticated manner.
• 9. Critically evaluate different approaches to history in a contested area.

ILO: Personal and key skills

• 10. Work both in a team and independently in order to prepare and lead a seminar.
• 11. Digest, select and organise material to produce, to a deadline, a coherent and cogent argument, developed through the mode of assessment.

Syllabus plan

While the content may vary from year to year, it is envisioned that it will cover some or all of the following topics:

• Five sessions covering methodological and conceptual issues relating to the history of news, media and communication, using case studies, and set-up for student-led seminars. Each session will be taught through one seminar and one lecture. The lectures will focus on worked examples or case studies from the tutor’s own area of specialism and suggest questions and themes which could be explored comparatively by the students themselves. The seminars will explore particular issues in more depth, through case studies or discussion of particular sources and historiographical debates. They will also lay the foundations for the student-led seminars in the second half of the course. Topics covered will vary according to tutor availability but may include: Letters and Social Networks; News, Rumour and Gossip; Issues of Contemporaneity; Newspapers and Media Professionals; and Media and Reader Identity.

• Five seminars led by groups of 2 or 3 students on topics chosen from a menu offered by tutors. Topics will vary according to tutor availability and student choice but may include: Citizen Journalists; the Role of the State and Censorship; Fake News; Professional Newsproducers; and Tracing Transmission of Events.

• Concluding session: discussion of overarching issues and comparative points.

Learning activities and teaching methods (given in hours of study time)

Scheduled Learning and Teaching Activities	Guided independent study	Placement / study abroad
33	267	0

Details of learning activities and teaching methods

Category	Hours of study time	Description
Scheduled learning and teaching	11	11 x 1 hour lectures to run on alternate weeks over both terms, as described in syllabus plan above.
Scheduled learning and teaching	12	6 x 2 hour tutor led seminars
Scheduled learning and teaching	10	5 x 2 hour seminars, each led by a group of 2 or 3 students. Topics should be chosen from a menu of subjects agreed in advance by tutors. While tutors give guidance and a basic reading list, students are responsible for designing seminar activities and identifying further reading materials.
Guided independent learning	267	Students prepare for seminars, essay, final report and exam through reading and research; they also work in groups to lead seminars based on projects that have been developed.

Summative assessment (% of credit)

Coursework	Written exams	Practical exams
60	0	40

Details of summative assessment

Form of assessment	% of credit	Size of the assessment (eg length / duration)	ILOs assessed	Feedback method
Essay	30	3000 words	1-8, 10	Oral and written
Student-led seminar [comprising: leading a student-led seminar (36%) and participation in student-led seminars (4%)]	40	Two hours	1-9	Oral and written
Written Assignment	30	2000 words	1-8,10	Oral and written
	0
	0
	0

Details of re-assessment (where required by referral or deferral)

Original form of assessment	Form of re-assessment	ILOs re-assessed	Timescale for re-assessment
Essay	Essay	1-8,10	Referral/deferral period
Student-led seminar and participation	2500 words (written by student individually) describing and reflecting on the proposed seminar activities and materials equating to one person’s contribution (c. 45 minutes), plus proposed handout or slides from seminar (not more than 2 sides of A4) and seminar reading list (not more than 1 side of A4)	1-8,10	Referral/deferral period
Written Assignment (2000 words)	WQritten Assignment (2000 words)	1-8,10	Referral/deferral period

Re-assessment notes

The re-assessment consists of a 3000 word essay and 2000 word assignment, as in the original assessment, but replaces leading and participating in student-led seminars with a written seminar plan and reading list that corresponds to one student’s contribution to such a seminar. The plan should outline how the seminar is to be structured and organised as well as detailing the material to be used. This will enable a reader to gain a sense of what the student intended to do in the seminar, the rationale for this activity, and when this activity / discussion would take place.

Deferral – if you miss an assessment for certificated reasons judged acceptable by the Mitigation Committee, you will normally be either deferred in the assessment or an extension may be granted. The mark given for a re-assessment taken as a result of deferral will not be capped and will be treated as it would be if it were your first attempt at the assessment.

Referral – if you have failed the module overall (i.e. a final overall module mark of less than 40%) you will be required to submit a further assessment as necessary. If you are successful on referral, your overall module mark will be capped at 40%.

Indicative learning resources - Basic reading

• Behringer, Wolfgang. ‘Communications Revolutions: A Historiographical Concept’, German History 24:3 (2006) 333-374.
• Dooley, Brendan (ed.) The dissemination of news and the emergence of contemporaneity in early modern Europe (Farnham: Ashgate, 2010).
• Doig, J. A. ‘Political Propaganda and Royal Proclamations in Late Medieval England’, Historical Research 71:176 (1998) 253-280.
• Capp, Bernard. When Gossips Meet : Women, Family, and Neighbourhood in Early Modern England (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004).
• Hanson, Ralph. Mass communication: living in a media world (Washington, DC: CQ Press, 2011).
• James, Carolyn. ‘An Insatiable Appetite for News: Isabella d’Este and a Bolognese Correspondent, in Rituals, Images and Words: Varieties of Cultural Expression in Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe, ed. F. W. Kent and Charles Zika (Turnhout: Brepols, 2005), pp. 375-88.
• Mathews, Joseph J. ‘Heralds of the Imperialistic Wars’, Military Affairs, Vol. 19, No. 3. (Autumn, 1955), pp. 145-155.
• Randall, David. Credibility in Elizabethan and early Stuart military news (London: Pickering and Chatto, 2008).
• Watson, Tom, and Martin Hickman, Dial M for Murdoch: News Corporation and the Corruption of Britain (London: Penguin, 2012)
• Waugh, Evelyn. Scoop (London: Penguin, 1938).

 

Module has an active ELE page?

Yes

Indicative learning resources - Web based and electronic resources

Indicative learning resources - Other resources

•  Beckett, Charlie. The impact of the Internet on the news media (audio-file) (London, 2010).

Available as distance learning?

No

Origin date

06/12/2012

Last revision date

04/10/2021

Key words search

News, Communication, Media, Press