Admission requirements
This elective course is exclusively for students of the Minor Disinformation and Strategic Communication in Global Media. For this course, no language skills other than English are required to work with the study materials.
Description
The regional electives in block 1 and 2 focus on information dissemination and power structures in local media landscapes.
In this regional elective, students will familiarize themselves with the contemporary Latin American media landscapes and learn to assess both the reliability of and trust in different media platforms and sources. Using a case-study approach, we will analyze the profound changes that the Latin American media landscapes are currently undergoing and place this development in a historical perspective.
In Democracy’s Third Wave (1991), Samuel Huntington reflected on the future of the 30 countries that transitioned to democracy between 1974 and 1990. This “wave” included several Latin American countries. The list of democracies in the region grew even more in the years that followed. Despite the overall tendency, Huntington was unsure about the capacity of these new democracies to resist authoritarian impulses and feared they could face a “backslide” or a “third reverse wave”. He even suggested the emergence of a new “technocratic electronic dictatorship, in which authoritarian rule is made possible and legitimated by the regime’s ability to manipulate information, the media, and sophisticated means of communication.”
Evidence of this authoritarian backslide is varied, mixed and complex depending on the country. It is also mediated by non-state actors such as organized crime. For journalists, countries like Mexico have become some of the deadliest even without being immersed in an open war. Media professionals are particularly at risk when they report on drug trafficking, corruption and embezzlement. Journalist homicides are usually not thoroughly investigated and the link between corrupt government officials and criminal organizations is well-known but not looked into.
In this course, students will gain insight into the ways in which authoritarian and hybrid populist regimes in different Latin American countries instrumentalize language and images in large-scale disinformation and propaganda campaigns. Equally important, we will also look at the windows of opportunity and innovations that some journalists, activists, and individuals still find to put forward different narratives and world views.
In this course, students will have the chance to do state-of-the-art research on media environments undergoing a rapid and severe transformation. They will learn to work with methodological tools such as multimodal discourse analysis, media framing analysis, affect analysis and quantitative text analysis to dissect the relationship between power, media, and dissent in today’s Latin America.
Course objectives
By the end of this course, students will have acquired:
insight into the development and make-up of the contemporary Latin American media landscapes;
the ability to critically reflect on the use of different forms of contested information in Latin America;
an in-depth understanding of the interrelationship between power, media, and dissent in Latin America;
methodological skills to assess and analyze the reliability of and trust in different media platforms and forms of information in Latin America;
experience in developing and presenting a small research project in written and oral form, both on an individual and a group level.
Timetable
The timetables are available through My Timetable.
Mode of instruction
- Seminar.
Assessment method
Assessment
Paper / writing assignment
Oral presentation
Active participation in class
Regular, punctual attendance, thorough preparation of the reading materials, and active participation in plenary discussions are also expected.
Attendance is compulsory. Missing more than one tutorial means that students will be excluded from the tutorials. Unauthorized absence also applies to being unprepared, not participating and/or not bringing the relevant course materials to class.
Weighing
Paper / writing assignment: 60%; minimum grade required: 5,5
Oral presentation: 20%
Active participation: 20%
The final mark for the course is established by determination of the weighted average combined with additional requirements. The additional requirement is a minimum of a 5,5 for the final paper. To pass the course, the weighted average of the partial grades must be 5.5 or higher.
Resit
A resit is only possible for the final paper.
Inspection and feedback
How and when an exam review will take place will be disclosed together with the publication of the exam results at the latest. If a student requests a review within 30 days after publication of the exam results, an exam review will have to be organised.
Reading list
- Reading materials will be made available on Brightspace.
Registration
Enrolment through MyStudyMap is mandatory.
General information about course and exam enrolment is available on the website
Contact
For substantive questions, contact the lecturer listed in the right information bar.
For questions about enrolment, admission, etc, contact the Education Administration Office: Arsenaal.
Remarks
Not applicable.