Journalism, media and politics

The course provides an analysis of the different actors and forms of interactions whitin the journalistic and political communication field. Journalism studies is an interdisciplinary field that involves an increasing number of actors (media practitioners and professionals, politicians and parties, and citizens, but also global media companiens, social media platforms, algorithms, bot and so forth) who interact in a increasing number of mediated ways. The aim of the course is to develop the critical and analytical capacities of the student in interpreting the role of such actors in shaping the political information environment.

This course has three objectives:
1. to offer a complete illustration of the several issues in the field of interactions between journalism, citizneship and politics (among other polarization, media trust, political knowledge, agenda setting, misinformation, fake news);
2. to explore domains of common interest with the professional world of media production (fact-checking, investigative journalism, data-journalism), applied political communication (advertising, electoral marketing, media management, spin doctoring, and the like) and citizens activism (alternative and citizen journalism);
3. to stimulate active participation with debates, papers, presentations and invitation of scholars

At the end of the course the student should have developed knowledge and understanding of the communicative dynamics within the political information environment. Applying knowledge and understanding, with an autonomous and critical evaluation of the characteristics of mediated communication in the political communication field. Knowledge of the preliminary practical skills necessary to enter the field (such as how to build a fact-checking or data-journalism project). Autonomy of judgement, and students' communicative capabilities will be developed by discussions and working papers. The final exam aims to verify the expected learning outcomes in respect to the students' capacity of understanding, applying knowledge, developing a critical analysis of the theoretical perspectives introduced by the course.