MC424      Half Unit
Media and Communication Governance

This information is for the 2025/26 session.

Course Convenor

Availability

This course begins from the assumption that media and communication can only be fully understood if their governance and its implications for citizens and consumers, as well as producers and providers, are understood. Communication governance includes all attempts by public bodies to fund, licence or otherwise regulate or govern communication services or the providers of those services, usually for an alleged public benefit. The term 'governance' refers to the norms, rules and resources together with their theoretical underpinnings that inform the production and consumption of media and communication services. This course provides students with core theoretical perspectives and concepts required to critically analyse both the substance and processes of media and communication governance. It covers the fundamentals of telecommunications regulation, competition law and regulation as applied in the media and communications sectors, the law of freedom of speech, broadcasting licensing and public service and emerging notions of internet and platform governance. Students will compare different rationales used to justify regulation of media and communication services. Students will also develop an understanding of regulatory instruments, institutional arrangements and institutional practices that help public authorities, corporations, citizens and consumers decide how to allocate public resources for the provision of such services. Illustrations are drawn from national and international contexts, thereby presenting a multi-levelled analytical approach to governance issues in the field.

Some of the questions addressed in this course include: Under what conditions should platforms be governed? Are industry professionals or regulators best positioned to determine when broadcasting institutions adequately serve the diverse information needs of a population? To what extent should legacy media laws and policies be relaxed in the light of technological change? In what ways can and should communication providers be regulated to ensure they serve the public interest? These and other questions reflect the course’s focus on developing a critical, informed and authoritative account of ‘why’, ‘who’, and ‘how to’ govern media and communication services.

15 hours of seminars and 10 hours of lectures in the Autumn Term.

This course has a reading week in Week 6 of Autumn Term.

There will be a 1 hour revision lecture in the ST, ahead of the summative assessment.

Indicative reading

• Bannerman, S., & Haggart, B. (2015). Historical institutionalism in communication studies. Communication Theory, 25(1), 1–22.
• Epstein, D., Katzenbach, C., & Musiani, F. (2016). Doing internet governance: Practices, controversies, infrastructures, and institutions. Internet Policy Review, 5(3).
• Flyverbom, M., Deibert, R., & Matten, D. (2019). The governance of digital technology, Big data, and the internet: New roles and responsibilities for business. Business & Society,  58(1), 3–19.
• McChesney, R. W. (2013). Digital disconnect: How capitalism is turning the internet against democracy. New York: New Press.
• Puppis, M. (2010). Media governance: A new concept for the analysis of media policy and regulation. Communication, Culture  ;Critique, 3(2), 134–149.

Additional reading

• Cohen, J. E. (2019). Between truth and power: The legal constructions of informational capitalism. Oxford University Press.
• Freedman, D. (2008). Dynamics of the media policymaking process. In The politics of media policy (p. 1-53). Malden, MA: Polity.
• Hong, Yu (2014). ‘Between corporate development and public service: the cultural system reform in the Chinese media sector’. Media, Culture & Society. 36(5):610-627.
• Hoskins, G. (2019). Beyond ‘zero sum’: the case for context in regulating zero rating in the global South. Internet Policy Review, 8(1), n.p.
• Lentz, B. (2013). Excavating historicity in the U.S. network neutrality debate: An interpretive perspective on policy change. Communication, Culture & Critique, 6(4), 568–597.
• Lichtenberg, J. (1987). Foundations and limits of freedom of the press. Philosophy and Public Affairs, 16(4), 329-355.
• Michael, E. J. (2006). Market failure and intervention. In Public policy: The competitive framework (pp. 51–97). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Moore, M., & Tambini, D. (2018). Digital dominance: The power of Google, Amazon, Facebook, and Apple. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Napoli, P. M. (2015). Social media and the public interest: Governance of news platforms in the realm of individual and algorithmic gatekeepers. Telecommunications Policy, 39(9), 751–760.
• Rajadhyaksha, A. (2011). The last cultural mile: An inquiry into technology and governance in India. Bangalore, India: The Centre for Internet & Society.
• Sandoval, M. (2014). Corporate social (ir)responsibility in media and communication industries. Javnost -The Public, 20(3), 39-57.
• Stein, L. (2004). Understanding speech rights: Defensive and empowering approaches to the First Amendment. Media, Culture, & Society, 26(1), 103–120.
• Streeter, T. (2013). Policy, politics, and discourse. Communication, Culture & Critique, 6(4), 488-501.
• Tambini, D. (2024) Constitutionalising the BBC. Political Quarterly. 95(1) March 2024.
• Tambini, D. (2025) The Netflix Effect Revisited. Telecommunications Policy April 2025.
• Waldman, A. E. (2022). Privacy, Practice, and Performance. California Law Review, 110(4), 1221–1280.
• Woods, L. (2021). Introducing the Systems Approach and the Statutory Duty of Care. In Perspectives on Platform Regulation, edited by Jan Kalbhennhttps, Nomos, 2021
• Xia, J. (2017). China’s telecommunications evolution, institutions, and policy issues on the eve of 5G: A two-decade retrospect and prospect. Telecommunications Policy, 41(10), 931-947.

Presentation (50%)

Oral examination (50%)