SPS5008 MEDIA WAR & SECURITY
MA/MSc Course, Semester 1, 2024-25
College of Social Sciences, School of Social & Political Sciences
Module Aims:
This course provides students with an understanding of the role of contemporary media in dynamically shaping the nature and experiences of warfare and security. (Media here refers not only to formal broadcast media but also to the multitude of techniques, technologies and practices through which discourse and interaction is mediated). It enables students to develop critical thinking on the relationship between different modes of media representation, consumption and experience, in shaping contemporary in(securities) around war and terrorism, the conduct and outcomes of warfare, and in the legitimization or otherwise of political discourses on war and terrorism. Students will develop interdisciplinary modes of analysis and understanding of a range of interconnected themes including: Radical War, Images, Compassion, Riots, Memorialization, Algorithms.
Learning Outcomes:
• Demonstrate a thorough knowledge and critical understanding of the contemporary theorisation of the relationship between media, war and security.
• Critically apply the concepts of mediation and mediatization to an inquiry of contemporary war and security.
• Draw systematically on a range of resources and materials, including academic, journalistic, and other media texts, to inform. interdisciplinary understanding, argument and analysis.
• Demonstrate skills in individual presentationaland group analytical work.
• Present clear, analytical and robust analyses and arguments in both written and oral form.
Assessment:
One 4,000 word (excluding references) essay:
It must be an original piece of writing drawing on a range of properly referenced scholarly and other relevant sources that directly answers the question. It must have a clear introduction that sets out the aims and parameters of the essay, and also a clear conclusion that summarises the arguments/issues presented.
Deadline: Thursday 12th December, 2024, midday
Assessed essays must be submitted via Moodle.
Formative Essay Plan (not formally assessed)
You are encouraged to email a one-side maximum essay plan to your seminar tutor (see their email addresses above) to enable them to offer some feedback on your essay. The deadline for this is Friday 15 November, 5pm.
Weekly Topic Overview
|
|
Date
|
Lecture Topic
|
|
1
|
25 September
|
From Diffused to Arrested Warfare: Introduction
|
|
2
|
2 October
|
Broadcast Era War: From Vietnam to the Gulf
|
|
3
|
9 October
|
The Individual at War
|
|
4
|
16 October
|
Guest Lecture - Dr. Cairsti Russell, Glasgow
Digital Frontlines: The Role of Digital Technology in Israel and Palestine
|
|
5
|
23 October
|
Erase & Forget
[no in person lectures/seminars this week]
|
|
6
|
30 October
|
Compassion After Digital War
|
|
7
|
6 November
|
Guest Lecture - Dr. William Merrin, Swansea Algorithmic War: The A.I. and Robotic RMA
|
|
8
|
13 November
|
Radical War in Ukraine
|
|
9
|
20 November
|
Commemoration and Memorialisation
|
|
10
|
27 November
|
Archives of War: Memory, History, Security
|
Assessed Essay (4,000 words - word count EXCLUDES bibliography)
Deadline Thursday 12th December, midday
Answer only ONE question from the list below
Essays must be submitted via Moodle.
1. What are the key ‘ethical’ dilemmas faced by those in the media who are involved in the reporting of war and terrorism? How has the development of new media technologies and associated reporting conventions eased or exacerbated these dilemmas?
2. Much is said of the ways in which news media ‘amplify’ terror and aid terrorists’ aims in this respect. In what ways can news media be said to ‘contain’ terror and thus, presumably, act as a force against terrorism?
3. Susan Sontag argues: ‘Animage is drained of its force by the way it is used, where and how often it is seen. Images shown on television are by definition images of which,sooner or later, one tires’ (2003: 105).
To what extent do you agree and/or disagree with this view and why?
4. Martin Bell (1998) advocates a ‘journalism of attachment’ . Critically evaluate this idea in relation to contemporary war reporting.
5. Critically examine the idea that the media are ‘weaponized’ .
6. How relevant and persuasive is the thesis of ‘compassion fatigue’ (Moeller, 1999) when applied to an understanding of public and political support for and/or opposition to 21st century warfare?
7. How does the advent of digital media and content transform. or challenge how societies memorialise past catastrophe/warfare?
8. Critically examine the idea that today security threats are ‘premediated’ (Grusin, 2004, 2010).
9. In what ways can images be said to be ‘weapons’ in contemporary media ecologies?
10. How and to what effects are algorithms and artificial intelligence transforming war?
11. How and why is war ‘individualised’ in the twenty-first century?
12. How has digital media transformed the strategies and narratives of conflict in
modern warfare, and what impact does it have on public perception and response?