MODULE DETAILS

Description

1. Brief description and aims of module:

This module explores the ways in which information and opinion have been manipulated, suppressed and concealed by the state and others from the early modern period to the present day. It examines how the state has sought to persuade people of its authority and secure consent for its actions through speeches, ceremonial, audio/visual media and the written word, as well as the ways in which it has tried to suppress or persecute dissenting or otherwise dangerous ideas. It considers the ways in which people and organisations outside the government, including the news media and the public at large, have contributed to and engaged with these activities. It examines the state’s attempts to conceal secret information and the organisations that were created  to gather intelligence and engage in state espionage  through spies and covert informers in the domestic and foreign arena. The module will finally explore the relationship between the secret state and the individual and how this has changed over time.

2. Outline syllabus: 

The syllabus may include some or all of the following topics:

• The production and reception of propaganda, including speeches, sermons, ceremonies, printed and manuscript pamphlets, newspapers, posters, portraits, radio, TV and film, and how this has changed over time with the development of new media and the growth of the state. 

• Radical literature, poetry, songs, cartoons, gossip, rumour and the various forms of censorship - official, voluntary, social and self-imposed - that have been placed on them.

• Espionage and spying - the gathering of intelligence on foreign governments, and internal threats (real or perceived) via secret agencies; the concealment of secret information; the politics and ethics of espionage and the ways in which espionage and spies are portrayed in popular culture, such as James Bond. 

• Forms of censorship, and self-censorship.

• Ideas of Liberty, Civil Rights and Libertarianism.

• Policing of Dissent.

• The idea of the ‘Deep’ or Secret State and state conspiracy.   

3. Teaching and learning activities: 

Lectures, Seminars, set reading and other preparatory activities. Individual tutorials and Feedback.

Assessment Details