Media Economics

Catalog description

This course provides an overview of economic perspectives on media and communication, particularly examining cases, topics, and controversies that stem from the many linkages between media and the economy. It reviews a range of perspectives on the economy of media, including the critical political economic approaches commonly employed in the field of communication, but also emerging neoclassical, behavioral, institutional, and heterodox approaches to economics, as applied to a range of possible topics. These may include: media ownership and the economics of journalism; labor and social media; data and surveillance economies; copyright and intellectual property; piracy, sharing, and collaboration; digital gift economies; social media celebrity and influencers; bitcoin and other virtual currencies; debt, credit, and algorithmic calculation; microfinance apps; "on-demand" platforms such as Uber and Lyft; automation and the future of employment; global supply chains in the manufacture of technology; the disposal of waste; consumerism and unsustainable energy use.