What is it we are talking about when we refer to something called "international communication"? In the broadest sense, it is perhaps the movement of different sorts of commodities between the large collective entities or social systems that we refer to as "nations," whose boundaries are their geographical borders. Whether we focus on the exchange of materials and energy (an economic question), the flow of ideas (a cultural question), or the patterns of intergovernmental interaction (a political question), we can be said to be addressing the issue of international communication.

Adopting a more focused perspective invites us to view a nation as the seat of a more-or-less developed "media industry" that produces texts or "cultural products" for consumption by audiences both domestically and in other nations. Questions about media industries tend to emphasize political economy; those about foreign cultural products tend to fall in the domain of cultural studies.

Both of these perspectives tend to see the nation as the object of interest, adopting what we might call a "macro-level" perspective primarily interested in making comparisons among nations, assessing how different economic, social, and political structures influence and respond to each other within and between nations, and describing the cultural impact of those structural interactions.

A phenomenon of interest to adherents of both the broad (Model 1) and the focused (Model 2) perspective is that of globalization, which can be taken as indicating either (a) economic globalization, referring to increasing interdependencies of markets, industries, and firms on a regional and even world-wide basis or (b) cultural globalization, referring to the international diffusion of (broadly) ideas and (more narrowly) cultural products from their nation-of-origin. Depending on the viewpoint of the analyst, processes of globalization (of either sort) are taken as evidence of either the increasingly cosmopolitan quality of the world or as evidence of continuing Western (and, in some cases, particularly American) attempts at political and cultural hegemony (that is, control).

Another phenomenon of interest to scholars of international communication is that of national identity, which is taken to be an individual's sense of connectedness to and embodiment of something called a nation which can be differentiated from culture, ethnicity, religion, society, and even geography. It is here that studies of international communication move from the macro-level of political, social, and economic structures to the micro-level of individual understanding and experience.

A third phenomenon of interest may be termed "the technological question": How do the characteristics of telecommunications and mass media technologies, and of the industries in which they are embedded, influence the processes and structures of international communication? We can expect such investigations to focus on whatever technology is "new" at the time the inquiry is made, but this is not always the case.

Over the course of the semester, my goal is to begin to explore these and other phenomena as a way of introducing students (and myself) to the topic of international communication. By the end of the semester, you should (a) understand the basic political, economic, and social structures that shape international communication, particularly in terms of mass media, and (b) be familiar with theoretical arguments and empirical evidence regarding the effects of international communication on social, political, and cultural processes. The primary mechanism for achieving these goals is through reading and discussion, but we'll engage in other activities as well over the course of the semester.

Your grade for the course will be based on the following assignments:
 

To simplify the administration of these assignments, I'd ask that you give me your summaries on Monday of each week of class; I'll give them back to you on the next Monday so that you can use them to prepare your final exam.

Final Exam: The final examination for this class is scheduled for 12 noon on December 17^th. It will be a take-home exam. When I decide, I will let you know.

Final Project: Over the course of the semester, I would like each of you to prepare and present in class a 5-minute briefing about a case study in international communication. This case study should be a fairly narrowly focused informative presentation that describes a particular aspect (political, social, economic, cultural, or even technological) of the international communication experienced by a particular country, region, or area, or by individuals within such areas. The final project will be evaluated in stages; that is, I expect you to prepare an initial proposal, an intermediate progress report, and a final project presentation. Each will require you to talk about your ideas in class and submit a brief written document that summarizes or outlines those ideas.

Proposal: A statement about the topic you would like to investigate. This is due early in the semester, and is intended to get you thinking about what you might like to learn more about as the semester progresses. Your idea may, of course, change over the course of the semester as you carry out your investigation. Be prepared to talk through your proposal in class, and submit a one-page problem statement to me, on October 5^th.

Progress Report: Before the November break, I'd like you to submit an outline of your presentation as well as an annotated bibliography that indicates the sources you expect to be most helpful. Again, be prepared to talk through your outline in class on November 16^th.

Presentation: The last week or so of class will be devoted to project presentations; I expect each student to have about five minutes of class time available. At the time of the presentation, you should also submit a short "executive summary" or abstract of your presentation, along with bibliographic information.

In class, we'll discuss in more detail what topics might be useful, interesting, and practicable to investigate, and what I expect in terms of format and depth.

Alleyne, Mark D. (1994). Thinking about the international system in the 'information age': theoretical assumptions and contradictions. Journal of Peace Research, 31, 407-424.

Belay, G. (1996). The (re)construction and negotiation of cultural identities in the age of globalization. In H. Mokros (Ed.). Interaction and identity: Information and behavior, vol. 4, pp. 319-346. New Brunswick NJ: Transaction Press.

Craig, J. (1997). What is an Arab? Asian Affairs, 28, 38-50.

Gottlieb, G. (1994). Nations without states. Foreign Affairs, 73, 100-112.

Gurevitch, M. (1991). The globalization of electronic journalism. In J. Curran and M. Gurevitch (Eds). Mass media and society, pp. 178-193. New York: Edward Arnold.

Livingston, S. and Eachus, T. (1995). Humanitarian crises and U.S. foreign policy: Somalia and the CNN effect reconsidered. Political Communication, 12, 413-429.

Morley, D. and Robins, K. (1995). Spaces of identity: Global media, electronic landscapes, and cultural boundaries. New York: Routledge.

Norris, P. (1995). The restless searchlight: Network news framing of the post-cold war world. Political Communication, 12, 357-370.

Scheff, T.J. (1994).  Bloody revenge:  Emotions, nationalism, and war (pp. 75-104).  Boulder, CO:  Westview.

Sreberny-Mohammadi, A. (1991). The global and the local in international communications. In J. Curran and M. Gurevitch (Eds). Mass media and society, pp. 118-138. New York: Edward Arnold.