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UC Center Program
Courses - Fall 2008
PCC 117. French Media: From the Newspaper to the Internet
| Professor Sarah Juliette Sasson
Office Hours:
By appointment
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Lecture
Thursday 3:30-6:30pm |
This course will explore the interaction between French media and contemporary society.
The aim of the course is to give participants a detailed understanding of the various
media: press, television, radio, publishing and the internet. Themes will include the
genesis and growth of the French media, institutionalization of the media, media and
politics, media as a tool of power, and the identity of the French media within Europe and
a globalized world. We will contextualize the current state of affairs and look closely at
the way the nineteenth century paved the way for modern media today. The course will
be conducted in an interactive seminar format and will include visits to museums as well
as interventions from actors in the French media.
[Communications, History, Sociology]; 5.0 credits
CLASS REQUIREMENTS
Attendance /Participation: 30%
Presentation: 15 %
Midterm: 15%
Research paper: 20%
Final Exam: 20%
The course will include a visit of the museum of Radio France (Radio, TV)
COURSE SCHEDULE
Week 1. September 8-12
Introduction
The Origins: Reading Practices in the Eighteenth Century
Salons, cabinets de lecture, book circulation.
Reading: Robert Darnton, Jeremy Popkin
Week 2. September 15-19
Cultural Production and Politics in the Nineteenth Century
-Journalism in the nineteenth century: circulation, influence, the role of feuilletons.
Reading: Balzac, Lost Illusions [excerpt]
Week 3. September 22- 26
Workshop. The Presse écrite between Tradition and Economic Necessity
-Presentation of the different actors
Reading. Nicolas Hewitt. “The Birth of the Glossy Magazines: The Case of Paris Match” in B.Rigby and N.Hewitt, France and the Mass Media. (McMillan, 1991)
Roland Barthes, “The Photographic Message,” in Image, Music, Text, (New York, Hill and Wang, 1977)
Week 4. September 29-October 3
Workshop. Covering the News: The French Approach
-Newspapers, TV: a comparison between France and the US
Week 5. October 6-10
Radio and TV as Tools of Power
-State Radio/TV and its Contents: the Government in the Newsroom
ORTF. From the Origins to the 80s. May 68.
-The era of Private Media.
The Radios libres. TF1 as political player. Canal + the movie channel.
Readings. Hélène Eck, “Radio, Culture and Democracy in the Immediate Postwar Period, 1944-1950” in Brian Rigby and Nicholas Hewitt eds, France and the Mass Media (London: MacMillan, 1991)
-Shella Perry and Maire Cross, eds. Voices of France. Social, Political and Cultural Identity. (Pinter, London, 1997).
Week 6. October 13- 17
Political Culture and the Media
-Workshop.
Satire: Two case studies: Les Guignols and Le Canard Enchaîné
Week 7. October 20-24
Review and Midterm
October 27-31 : Semester break
Week 8. November 3-7
French Critics on Media
Readings: Michel de Certeau, “The Beauty of the Dead: Nisard,” in Heteorologies. Discourses of the Other. (U. of Minnesota Press, 1986)
Guy Debord, Comments on the Society of the Spectacle (London, New York, Verso, 1998)
Pierre Bourdieu: On Television (New York: New Press, 1998)
Jean Baudrillard. (Douglas Kellner, ed. Baudrillard, a Critical Reader. Oxford, Blackwell, 1999).
Olivier Razac, “Real TV: the Art of Taming” and Martin Winckler “The Screens of Contempt,” in Manières de voir [Le Monde diplomatique], December 2007-January 2008.
Week 9. November 10-14
Broadcasting French culture
-Francophonie as Institution
-RFI, TV5, France 24,
www.france24.com
www.tv5.org
www.rfi.fr
Film: “Le Prix du Danger” or Chronicle of Real TV Foretold
Week 10. November 17-21
Distinct Voices: French Publishers and the Cultural Landscape
-The Role of the NRF
-WWII and French Publishing
-Current trends
Week 11. November 24-28
The Rise of the Internet
-Virtual Democracy: Blogging During the Presidential Campaign
-Conformity in the Global Age
Readings. Paul Virilio, Politics of the Very Worst (New York: Semiotext(e), 1999)
Lee Siegel, Against the Machine: Being Human in the Age of the Electronic Mob (New York: Spiegel and Grau, 2008)
The Virtual Archive:
-INA
-Gallica
Week 12. December 1-5
Review and Presentation of Students’ Papers
Week 13. December 8-12
Final Exam
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