News and Journalism - Period 1

In this course, you learn to understand and explain the significance and impact of journalism in society. Journalism is key for a well-functioning democratic society: It provides the public with information of general interest. The quality of the news, therefore, largely determines quality, of the public debate. The quality of the news depends of many factors. The news not only is a public information provision, but it is also a commercial product that must be sold and made in an almost industrial way is becoming. Today's news consumer is no longer the same consumer like that of 20 years ago. Journalists product news, yet, how do they select the relevant news events? How do they employ journalistic values such as objectivity, impartiality, professionalism, news values? Which forms of bias is the result of the way they work? To guarantee daily news, news media are dependent on access to powerful sources.

In short, in this course you learn to understand and analyze what news looks like, why it looks like this and how news consumers utilize news. Furthermore, we place the study of journalism in a historical and comparative context as well as address the challenges faced by a digital society.

Contact hours listed under a course description may vary due to the combination of lecture-based and independent work required for each course therefore, CEA's recommended credits are based on the ECTS credits assigned by VU Amsterdam. 1 ECTS equals 28 contact hours assigned by VU Amsterdam.