No items found

RIC 301 Risk Communication

Semester:

ECTS :

10

Course Description

This module examines an array of transfrontier: risks, threats, crises or disasters and global challenges. The aim is to clarify key concepts such as ‘risks’, resulting in disasters and to distinguish them from productive, ‘effective risk taking’. It focuses on their implications, past or ongoing, on predictable collateral damages, in the short and long term, feither acing humanity in part, or as a whole, at global or glocal levels. Vast disasters affect life, security, public health and environmental sustainability. The course presents case studies and relevant governance approaches or policy initiatives, undertaken at supranational level (UN agencies or the EU). It focuses on corresponding national or regional policies, but also on powerful reactions against them by vested interests. Key UN protocols and international law steps aiming to preempt or curb climate risks are discussed. Emphasis is on themes and guidelines for action, adopted by UN M-S and brought to prominence and public attention globally, f.ex. by the Rio Summit on Sustainability, or the Protocols of Montreal and of Kyoto, aiming to preemt environmental disasters such as ‘global warming’ or to remedy them.

Course Objectives

  • Familiarize with concepts of ‘environmental risk’, ‘social crises’, ‘global public goods’
  • Distinguish diverse categories of interlinked risks and challenges
  • Grasp consequential irreversible impact of environmental risks / crises on large populations
  • Elaborate with notions of ‘normative journalism’ for global awareness and rescue
  • Come to terms with non-partisan, activist types of journalism.

Learning outcomes

  1. Identify environmental risks and their concrete impact on society
  2. Capacity to analyze risks critically from a multi-stakeholder perspective
  3. Ability to compare risks and stakes between competing interests of various kinds, while considering and defending the ‘public interest’
  4. Construct proactive journalism methods: defending ‘global public goods’ and the universal common interest
  5. Approach humanity’s welfare risks beyond borders or nationalistic scope

Class and learning activities

Lectures, workshops, in situ study-visits, group simulation workshops, in-class presentations, literature study, written assignments.

Workload

Type of work Description Hours
Lectures Thirteen 3-hours lectures 39
Simulation of roles in group work Coordination of role play-acting and group work 20-25
Independent study Study of required and optional literature 40-45
Research Off- and Online research 35-40
Written assignments-Presentations Written assignments

  1. in-class oral presetantion and defense of main assignment
  2. submitting of the written essay of 3000 words (plus/minus 500)
 120-140
Total workload 254-289

Assessment

Type of assessment Learning outcome Impact on final grade Date of assessment
Participation in group work and discussion 1-5 20% Regularly
Preliminary Oral Presentation (of written) assignment 1-5 20% 8th-12th week
Simulating of Roles workshops 3-4 20% 5th-8th week
Submit written assignment (essay) 1-5 40% 14th week

Bibliography – required reading

  • Beck Ulrich, (1991), ‘Risk Society’, Cambridge, Polity Press,
  • Beck Ulrich, (2007), ‘World at Risk’, Cambridge, Polity Press
  • in Maxwell R. et al. ‘Media and the Ecological Crisis’, (eds), New York, Routledge
  • Kaul, Inge, Isabelle Grunberg & Mark A.Stern, (eds), (1999) ‘Global Public Goods’, Oxford University Press, Oxford
  • Maxwell Richard, Jon Raundalen, Nina Lager Vestberg, (2014), ‘Media and the Ecological Crisis’, (eds), New York, Routledge
  • Sophia Kaitatzi-Whitlock, (2014), ‘E-waste, Human Waste, Infoflation’,
  • Stig A. Nohrstedt (ed), (2010), ‘Communicating Risks: Towards the Threat Society?’, Gothenburg, NORDICOM

 

Additional Essay-supporting Reading List

  • Beck Ulrich, (1988), ‘What Is Globalization?’ Polity Press, Cambridge
  • Crenson A. Matthew (1971), ‘The Unpolitics of Air Pollution’, The Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore & London
  • European Union, Commission, (2008), ‘A sustainable Future in Our Hands: guide to the EU’s sustainable development strategy’, CEC, Luxembourg
  • George Soros, (1998), ‘The Crisis of Global Capitalism: Open Society Endangered’, New York, Public Affairs
  • Gorz Andre, (1980), ‘Ecology as Politics’, South End Press, Boston
  • Habermas Jurgen, (2003), ‘The Future of Human Nature’, Cambridge, Polity
  • Löfstedt Ragnar & Boholm Åsa, (2009), ‘Risk’, (eds), London, EarthScan Publishing
  • Martin Rees, (2003), ‘Our Final Century: will the human race survive the twenty-first century?’, London, Heinemann
  • Naomi Klein, (2008), ‘The Shock Doctrine’; Toronto, Random House Limited
  • Ralston Saul John (1995), ‘The Unconscious Civilization’ , New York, Free Press

Contact

Quality Assurance Policy

Developed by: Information Technology Center Aristotle University of Thessaloniki

Content template generated by the Quality Assurance Unit (MODIP) of AUTh