• MED3021
• Media Policy: Nat. & Intl Dims

The module introduces journalism students to both the national and international dimensions of television, online and print media policy, the politics of media policy and its implications for journalism practice. It evaluates the contexts, objects and contents of media policy and their expression at different levels and sites of governance. Students will explore the political-economic, historical and institutional contexts of policy making and evaluate its implications for both citizens and practitioners of journalism. Key themes include the way in which the media are now being re-shaped relative to wide scale structural change of a technological, spatial, political-economic and socio-cultural nature and the role of policy therein.

Media Politics and Media Policy
The broad scope of media policy introducing the key theoretical perspectives and concepts that bear on our understanding of media policy.
Broadcasting Policy in Ireland
The implications of structural change in Irish broadcasting for news producers.
Print Media Policy
The long development of policy around the print news industries in Ireland and the UK including issues of self-regulation and ownership and control policy
The European Union and Media Policy
The politics, processes and actors in media policy at European level, consider policy evolution and examine the varied components that now make up European media/communications policy.
EU and Ireland: Convergence and Digital Media
Policy responses to digitalisation in the television, radio and print industries and evolving approaches to the regulation of online content and media practices
Global Governance and the Internet
the multilevel policy debates (WTO, EU, ITU, UNESCO) taking place regarding the future development of the internet and its implications for the Irish/European media system. Issues of copyright, subsidy and international distribution for film, television and radio.