FRS 004 — Sec. 011 —
(2 units) — CRN 92662 — W 4:10-6:00pm — 245 AOB4
Globalization and the Media Industry
Instructor: John Theobald, Department of Communication, College of Letters
& Science
Description: The theme of the proposed FRS is Globalization and
The Media Industry. Course material will include views of globalization as both
a trend and a system. As a communication-related seminar, focus will be on the
role of mediated developments shaping the globalized world. A range of topics
will be explored, including the globalization of culture and politics, the relationship
of media and security issues, the blurring of boundaries between nations and regions,
and hopeful and threatening views of the process of globalization. Participants
in the proposed seminar will become acquainted with various perspectives on globalization
and will learn to analyze current developments in a range of transnational contexts
as noted above. The primary goal of the seminar will be to enhance students' ability
to apply their own observations of social developments in a global context.
Format: The first 5-6 meetings of the seminar will involve student
discussion of various readings, video presentations, and concepts presented by
the instructor. The last 3-4 meetings will be devoted to discussion of students'
individual analyses leading toward course papers. In the first course meetings,
all students will read a sample of views on globalization from such authors as
Anthony Giddens, William Grieder, Robert Wright, Benjamin Barber, J.R. & William
McNeill, and Thomas Friedman. In the last course meetings, students will acquire
materials unique to their own research and present them to the class for discussion.
Students will attend a 2-hour seminar once per week for the 10-week duration of
the course. In the first part of the course, described above, students will be
expected to spend approximately 3 hours per week reading the assigned material
and one hour per week developing a proposal for a course paper. By the later weeks
of the seminar, it is expected that students, in regular consultation with the
instructor, will spend their time writing a paper that may be an analysis of current
thought on globalization and the media industry or an original research paper
oriented toward observations of how the world has (and has not) changed as a result
of the globalization process variously described during the course. Grading:
There will be two grade components to the course that will be equally weighted.
They will include: 1) a participation grade that will be based on regular class
contributions and, in particular, presentation of individual research work, and
2) a 6-7 page course paper as described above.
About the Instructor: John Theobald is Continuing Lecturer in
the Department of Communication, where he has been on the faculty since 1991.
His primary course offerings include The Media Industry, News Policies and Practices,
Media Analysis, and Media Effects. These courses include many themes, among them:
media ownership, social consequences of technology, globalization, media and global
security, news bias, journalism practices, commercial effects of contemporary
media, media and ecological systems, and a range of politically-related themes.
Recent research interests include college orientation for high school students,
ecological communication campaigns, and the selling of the tourism industry in
the western United States. John has been a frequent commentator on media-related
issues for print, radio, and television news agencies. He studied at UCLA, San
Diego State University, and the University of Texas at Austin.