Com Gen 150 W02

Com Gen 150: Integrative Seminar
Winter 2002
Tuesdays 3:55 – 6:45 pm MCC 125

Professor Robert Horwitz
MCC 130 534-2843 rhorwitz@ucsd.edu

Office hours: Wed 10:30 – noon; Thurs 2:30 – 4 pm

About the course
The seminar will attempt the integration of communication perspectives through an examination of the “problem” of ownership of the communications industry. What are the relationships among who owns the media, what content is delivered, how we use media content, and the consequences for democracy? Does it matter, for example, that AOL-Time Warner, Viacom, and AT&T own enormous numbers of media institutions, or do digitalization and the Internet change how we should understand ownership? Do large owners shape markets or do markets also shape the behavior of owners, as well? We will look at various communication markets, and assess ownership patterns against the backdrop of changes in technology, law, and policy. The recent evolution of American communications has meant the convergence of traditional markets and technologies. The old questions that have traditionally characterized debates about media ownership: diversity and localism, private control vs. government intervention, how much First Amendment protection should corporations have, and which models of communication best serve democracy, will be taken up anew in the course.

Required reading materials:
C. Edwin Baker, Media, Markets, and Democracy (Cambridge University Press, 2002).
Benjamin M. Compaine & Douglas Gomery, Who Owns the Media?: Competition and
Concentration in the Mass Media Industry 3rd Edition (Erlbaum, 2000).
Reading Packet assembled by University Readers, Inc.

The books are available at Groundwork Bookstore; the Reading Packet will be available in class on the second session (January 15).

Course requirements:
A seminar is a course where class discussion, not lecture, is the order of the day. Many Communication students have never had the privilege of taking a seminar. Students need to be in class, ready to talk about the readings and the issues posed by them. A seminar requires a different kind of reading practice, oriented not just to getting through the assigned materials, but to think about them and have an informed opinion about them. The course meets only 10 times. Students may miss one session without repercussions. Every unexcused absence thereafter results in a full grade penalty on the final grade (eg, two absences takes a B to a C; three absences takes a B to a D, etc.).

There will be 3 assignments:
• an in-class midterm, worth 25% of the final grade, given on February 12.
• a seminar paper, worth 60% of the final grade, due March 22 by 3pm (earlier would be
appreciated).
• class discussion, including an oral presentation of your research paper, worth 15%.

Calendar:
January 8
Introduction to the course
January 15
Setting up the problem of media ownership, markets, and democracy
Assigned reading
• Debate from opendemocracy.com among Robert McChesney, Benjamin Compaine, and David Hesmondhalgh (October – November 2001).
• C. Edwin Baker, Media, Markets and Democracy, pp. xi-40.
• Benjamin Compaine & Douglas Gomery, Who Owns the Media?, pp. 1-59.
January 22
The First Amendment tradition and the economics of media
Assigned reading
• Reading Packet: Robert Horwitz, “The First Amendment Meets Some New Technologies: Broadcasting, Common Carriers, and Free Speech in the 1990s,” Theory and Society 20 (1991);
• Reading Packet: Alfred Chandler & James Cortada, “The Information Age: Continuities and Discontinuities,” in Chandler & Cortada, eds., A Nation Transformed by Information, (Oxford, 2000).
• Baker, Media, Markets and Democracy, pp. 41-121.
January 29
Television, radio, and music industries; “gatekeeping” and how culture works
Assigned reading
• Reading Packet: “Ownership Limitations” & “EEO Rules”.
• Compaine & Gomery, Who Owns the Media?, pp. 193-358.
• Handout: Paul M. Hirsch, “Processing Fads and Fashions: An Organization-Set Analysis of Cultural Industry Systems,” American Journal of Sociology 77 (1972).
February 5
Book publishing and magazine industries;
Hollywood films and the online information industry
NOTE: Half the class to read chapters on book publishing/magazine industry; half the class to read chapters on Hollywood films and online industry.
Assigned reading
• Book publishing and magazine industries: Compaine & Gomery, Who Owns the Media?, pp. 61-191.
• Hollywood and online information industry: Compaine & Gomery, Who Owns the Media?, pp. 359-480.
February 12 (Midterm exam)
Antitrust
Assigned reading
• Reading Packet: David Millon, “The Sherman Act and the Balance of Power,” in E. Thomas Sullivan, ed., The Political Economy of the Sherman Act (Oxford, 1991).
• “Horizontal Merger Guidelines,” U.S. Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission (April 8, 1997).
• FCC Chairman Powell Interview, OnLine NewsHour with Jim Lehrer (August 9, 2001).
February 19
The question of diversity
Assigned reading
• Reading Packet: Philip M. Napoli, “Deconstructing the Diversity Principle,” Journal of Communication (Autumn, 1999).
• Reading Packet: Metro Broadcasting v. FCC, 497 U.S. 547 (1990).
• Reading Packet: Robert Horwitz, “On Media Concentration,” draft unpublished essay.
February 26
Interpreting ownership and control
Assigned reading
• Compaine & Gomery, Who Owns the Media?, pp. 481-581.
• Reading Packet: Robert McChesney, Ch. 2 from Rich Media, Poor Democracy: Communication Politics in Dubious Times (New Press, 1999).
March 5
Different aspects/models of democracy require different kinds of media
Assigned reading
• C. Edwin Baker, Media, Markets, and Democracy, pp. 123-214, 279-307.
March 12
The end of ownership regulation in light of corporate free speech claims?
Presentations of research
Assigned reading
• Reading Packet: Time-Warner Entertainment Co. v. FCC, District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals No. 94-1035, decided March 2, 2001.
• Reading Packet: Consumer, Citizen Groups Ask FCC to Reimpose Federal Ownership Limits on Cable TV Ownership – press release.Recommended additional reading: Federal Communications Law Journal, Vol. 52, No. 3, March 2000. Special issue on media mergers.