Case Study (International Politics and the Press)
Faculty
F. Kubo M. Ikuma
Description
The objective of this class is to help students acquire an in-depth understanding of the current international affairs from the perspective of their relationship with the media.
The overall focus of the class is on the development of international politics since the end of the cold war, but a particular emphasis will be put on the foreign policy and domestic politics of the Unites States and the dramatic changes in the European politics such as in Russia and Poland. The students will learn not just what happened and why but also how certain events are reported by the media and why.
The instructors will invite to class from time to time practitioners in media and diplomacy and encourage students to have lively in-class discussion with them.
Professor Mikio Ikuma, taking advantage of having been a foreign correspondent
for many years stationed in Washington, D.C., London, Moscow, and Warsaw,
will lecture on how the unfolding international affairs were reported by
the media of the West, Japan and the local countries of the time. Professor
Fumiaki Kubo, an expert of America politics who studies in the U.S. for
five years, will explain how the American politics since the election of
Bill Clinton till the reelection of G.W. Bush have been reported by the
American media and why. The particular topics that will be addressed in
the class are as follows;
The democratic revolution in East Europe and the German unification, the
breakdown of the USSR and the rise of Putin, the Middle East from the Gulf
War to Iraq War, the European Integration and the transformation of the
West European politics, Asia in the post-cold war years, contemporary media
and international politics, the realities of international media and press,
the fall of the G.H.W. Bush, the Clinton Presidency and its foreign policy,
G.W. Bush and the war on terrorism, and the rise of conservative media in
the U.S.