Courses > 2008 Fall

Graduate Courses

CINE 835 - Explorations in Global Media Ethics

COMM 835
401 | W 5:30-7:30pm

This course will have two aims: first, to explore the philosophical resources from which a framework for ethical debate can be built about the media process, as it operates on all scales up to and including the global; and second, on the basis of those resources, to review the ethical questions raised by some specific aspects of contemporary media. The philosophical resources explored will include materials from the Aristotelian and Kantian traditions, the work of Emmanuel Levinas and Paul Ricoeur, and the Christian humanist tradition reflected in Clifford Christians’ work on media ethics. The specific aspects of contemporary media selected for detailed ethical review will be chosen jointly by the course leader and those attending the course, but will include the areas of ‘reality television’, media coverage of private life, and media representations of religious and cultural difference. A relevant reference-point for the course is the course leader’s previous work on media ethics: see N. Couldry, Listening Beyond the Echoes: Media, Ethics and Agency in an Uncertain World  (Paradigm books, 2006, chapter 7).