De-Colonise Comparative Media System Research?
Matthias Künzler
Information for students
The seminar will take place in person, a few sessions online via Cisco WebEx Meetings. Seminar schedule and notes, literature and presentation slides can be found on the e-learning platform “Blackboard”.
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Comparative media systems research develops categorisations of media systems and examines the impact of politics, economics and culture on media and media performance. This strand of research is of great importance in communication studies but has been subject to increasing criticism for over a decade. It is criticised that the most important typologies of media systems are western oriented and neglect other world regions and their specificities. In the light of the Berlin University Alliance's initiative to 'decolonise' research and teaching, the question arises as to whether these typologies might also reflect a certain kind of colonialism.
The seminar will seek answers to these questions. In some joint case studies, we will not only give an overview of developments in individual countries, but we will also try to find out whether the critique of current research on media systems is still valid. Thus, we are going to analyse the state of research by focusing on what countries/world regions are considered to date and which political, cultural and economic context is taken into account. This should allow us to assess whether colonisation is an appropriate concept to critique this research, or whether the critique should focus on other concepts to develop comparative media systems research.
close16 Class schedule
Regular appointments