Postgraduate Course: Media Culture in Modern China (ASST11022)

Course Outline
School	School of Literatures, Languages and Cultures	College	College of Humanities and Social Science
Credit level (Normal year taken)	SCQF Level 11 (Postgraduate)	Availability	Not available to visiting students
SCQF Credits	20	ECTS Credits	10
Summary	Commercialisation, consumerism and technological developments have transformed China?s media landscape fundamentally and changed its social and political role in the last two decades. Although the media have emancipated themselves from being mere Party mouthpieces, governmental actions aiming at censorship and control still dominantly determine their fundamental parameters of operation. Understanding of this dramatic change in China?s media system is crucial to our knowledge of contemporary Chinese culture and literature in the PRC as it forms the framework for China?s cultural and literary production and dissemination. Analysis of how the government is coping with the challenges of media proliferation, decentralisation and commercialisation is also important for understanding changing state-society relations in the PRC. The course will critically discuss these developments from a historical perspective to gain an understanding of the present situation of mass media in the PRC. It will focus on key issues of media studies, key concepts, institutions, media practice and media law. We will discuss the basic ?traditional? and new ideological Marxist-Leninist premises and concepts that inform China?s media practice and then proceed to case studies in the realms of the print media, publishing and literary production, TV and Radio, film and internet. The course will address key issues of the Chinese media system such as censorship, commercialisation, consumerism, popular culture, globalization, media ethics and media debates. The course is an additional option for students of the Chinese Literature, Language and Culture (MSc/Dip) programme, but might be of interest also to students of the Master of Chinese Studies programme, Cultural Studies and Translation Studies.
Course description	Not entered

Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
Pre-requisites		Co-requisites
Prohibited Combinations		Other requirements	None

Course Delivery Information
Not being delivered

Learning Outcomes
At the end of the course students will be able to: - identify key concepts of media production and media control in China - understand the institutional framework of information production and dissemination, its limits and leeway - understand the changing perceptions of media and information - critically assess and interpret information on China conveyed through mass media and its literary and cultural production on the basis of China?s media system.