International Course on Media and Political Engagement 15 credits

Throughout history, media has played a critical role in facilitating, shaping, and sometimes restricting citizens’ political engagement. Today, contemporary debates focus on social media and their perceived role in fostering engagement that leads to disinformation and polarization. This course reveals how digital technologies are only the latest development in the much broader interplay between media, political engagement, and democracy.

After an introduction into the historical genealogy of media and political engagement, the course places a special focus on how the internet and social media affects modern engagement practices. We examine how digital technologies affect citizens’ information environments, as well as how platforms shape practices of political engagement and disengagement. The course approaches the ‘political’ in terms of institutionalized politics (elections), extra-parliamentary politics (protests and activism), and cultural politics (the arts), in order to encapsulate the myriad of ways that citizens engage with politics in modern civic life.