LIS 867/767

Fall 2003

Political Economy of Information

 

Instructor:      Dr. Samuel E. Trosow              

Time & Place  Tuesday 1:30-4:20. MC 260

Office Hours: MC 275D: Mon & Tues 11-12

27 Law Building: Thurs 11-12 and by appt

Telephone:     661-2111  x88498 (FIMS) and x82282 (Law)                                         

Email:              strosow@uwo.ca

 

Description: This course gives a graduate-level introduction to the political economy perspective on library and information science. It examines the intersections between social relations of power and wealth and changing means of communication. The emphasis is on theory and broad historical overview. The course treats policy in the broadest sense, as a regime of power and control of the social processes of communication, and the production, organization, distribution, and use of information.

 

Readings:

 

·        Vincent Mosco, The Political Economy of Communication: Rethinking and Renewal. (London: Sage, 1996

·        Nick Dyer-Witheford, Cyber-Marx: Cycles and Circuits of Struggle in High-Technology Capitalism (Urbana: University of Illinois, 1999).

·        Michael Perelman, Steal This Idea: Intellectual Property Rights and the Corporate Confiscation of Creativity. NY: Palgrave, 2002).

·        Samuel Trosow, Information for Society: Towards a Critical Theory of Intellectual Property Policy (selected portions tba)

·        Additional readings as noted below and tba

·         [doctoral students] Individualized supplemental reading list to be assembled in consultation with instructor

 

Tentative Course Outline and Common Readings:

 

Week 1           September 9: Course Introduction

 

Week 2           September 16: Metatheoretical Issues & Introduction to Political Economy

Gibson Burrell & Gareth Morgan, Sociological Paradigms and Organisational Analysis (Portsmouth NH, 1979) (Introduction & Chapters 1-3)

Mosco, Chapters 1-3.

                         

Week 3           September 23

                        Mosco, Chapter 4

                        Marx, Capital (volume 1, chapter 1)

Dan Schiller, The Information Commodity: A Preliminary View. (pp. 103-120) in Davis, Jim, Thomas A. Hirschl and Michael Stack [Eds.] Cutting Edge: Technology, Information, Capitalism, and Social Revolution, (NY: Verso, 1997)

 

Week 4           September 30

                        Mosco, Chapters 5 & 6

 

Week 5           October 7

                        Mosco, Chapter 7

Doug Kellner, “Overcoming the Divide: Cultural Studies and Political Economy,” (pp. 102-120) in Marjorie Ferguson and Peter Golding [Eds.], Cultural Studies in Question. (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 1997)

 

Week 6           October 14

                        Dyer-Witheford, Chapters 1-3

                        Trosow, Chapter 1

 

Week 7           October 21

                        Dyer-Witheford, Chapters 4-6

Tessa Morris-Suzuki, “Capitalism in the Computer Age,” (pp 57-71) in Davis, et. al., Cutting Edge.

Martin Kenney, “Value Creation in the Late Twentieth Cewntury: The Rise of the Knowledge Worker,” (pp 87-102) in Davis, et. al., Cutting Edge.         

 

Week 8           October 28

                        Dyer-Witheford, Chapters 7-9

Marx, Grundrisse 699-743

 

Week 9           November 4

                        Perelman, Introduction, Chapters 1-4

                        Trosow, Chapter 2

 

Week 10         November 11

                        Perelman, Chapters 5-6, Conclusion

                        Trosow, Chapters 4-5

 

Week 11         November 18: Political Economy and Librarianship

Herbert I. Schiller, “For Sale: Schools, Libraries, Information, Elections,” Chapter 2 in Information Inequality: The Deepening Social Crises in America (pp. 27-41). (NY: Routledge, 1996).

Roma Harris, “Information for Sale: Profit versus Public Good—What happened to the Librarians?” Chapter 8 in Librarianship: The Erosion of a Woman’s Profession. (pp.145-160) (Norwood, NJ: Ablex, 1992).

Michael H. Harris, “State, Class and Cultural Reproduction: Towards a Theory of Library Service in the United States.” In Advances in Librarianship 14, edited by Wesley Simonton, (N.Y.: Academic Press, 1986).

 

Week 12         November 25: International Issues: WTO-TRIPS and Information Goods

Readings tba

 

Week 13         December 2: International Issues: WTO-GATS and Information Services

Readings tba

 

Week 14         December 9

Conclusions.

Final paper due.

 

Evaluation:

 

1)      30% For weeks 2 through 11: Prepared weekly responses to the readings; may include substantial questions about or comment on some aspect of the weekly readings (including, for the Ph.D. students your supplemental readings) that intrigues, puzzles or concerns you. (app 3-4 pages each week for Ph.D. students, app. 1-2 pages for MLS students). E-mail to class list, no later than 9 pm the evening before the readings are to be discussed. These responses will help organize the class discussion.

 

2)      20 % Paper plan—mid term. A working outline of your proposed final paper, indicating its topic, thesis, problem statenent and anticipated difficulties, with a working bibliography. To be submitted to class by October 28th (week 8) and presented and discussed in class weeks 8, or 9. (Half for the written submission, half for the presentation, app. 20 minutes)

 

3)       40 % Final paper. Approx 25-35 pages for Ph.D. students, (20-25 for MLS students) on a topic of your choice relevant to course themes and selected in consultation with instructor. Due in final seminar. Marked for literacy, organization, argument, originality, and quality of research.

 

4)      10% Participation. For intelligent, constructive participation in seminar discussions.

 

Late assignments will not be accepted absent compelling cause. (i.e.  (a) Documented medical reasons; (b) Documented extenuating personal circumstances; (c) Religious holidays, as per UWO calendar.) It is the student's responsibility to keep a copy of assignments to protect against loss. Plagiarism-the unacknowledged use of other people's ideas-is a serious offence, and will be dealt with according to the established UWO procedures detailed in the Academic calendar.


 

The following items are being placed on reserve at the GRC:

 

Davis, Jim, Thomas A. Hirschl & Michael Stack (eds.). Cutting Edge: Technology, Information, Capitalism and Social Revolution, (New York: Verso, 1997).  QA76.9.C66C88 1997 

 

De La Haye, Yves.  Marx and Engels on the Means of Communication. (New York: IMRC, 1979).  HE131.M37 1980 

 

Marx, Karl. Capital: A Critique of Political Economy, (volume 1). [Introduced by Ernest Mandel; translated by Ben Fowkes]. (New York: Vintage Books, 1977). HB97.5.A43 1977 v.1 

 

Marx, Karl, Grundrisse: Foundations of the Critique of Political Eeconomy. [Translated with a foreword by Martin Nicolaus]. (New York: Random House, 1973) HB97.5.M3313 1973 

 

Mosco, Vincent. The Political Economy of Communication: Rethinking and Renewal. London: Sage, 1996. P96.E25M67 1996 

 

Mosco, Vincent & Janet Wasko (eds.) Political Economy of Information (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 1988).  P91.P62 

 

Trosow, Samuel. Information for Society: Towards a Critical Theory of Intellectual Property Policy (unpublished dissertation).

 

Note to Ph.D. students--The following items from the IPPI reading list may be relevant to LIS 867:

 

Babe, Robert E.  Communication and the transformation of economics : essays in information, public policy, and political economy.  Boulder: Westview Press, 1995.

 

Bell, Daniel. The Coming of the Post-Industrial Society. New York: Basic Books, 1973.

 

Bettig, Ronald V.  Copyrighting Culture: The Political Economy of Intellectual Property.          Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1996.

 

Boyle, James. Shamans, Software and Spleen: Law and the Construction of the Information Society. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1996.

 

Branscomb, Anne Wells. Who Owns Information?: From Privacy to Public Access.  New York:  Basic Books (Harper Collins), 1994. 

 

Braverman, Harry. Labor And Monopoly Capital: The Degredation of Work in the Twentieth Century.  New York: Monthly Review Press, 1974.

 

De La Haye, Yves.  Marx and Engels on the Means of Communication.  New York: IMRC, 1979.

 

Dorland, Michael (ed.). The Cultural Industries in Canada: Problems, Policies, and Prospects. Toronto: Lorimer, 1996.

 

Dyer-Witheford, Nick. Cyber-Marx: Cycles and Circuits of Struggle in High-Technology Capitalism. Urbana: University of Illinois, 1999.

 

Gandy, Oscar H., Jr. The Panoptic Sort: A Political Economy of Personal Information. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1993.

 

Harris, Michael H., Stan A. Hannah, and Pamela C. Harris. Into the Future : the Foundation of Library and Information Services in the Post‑industrial Era, second edition. Greenwich, CT: Ablex, 1998.

 

Harris, Roma M. Librarianship: The Erosion of a Woman's Profession. Norwood, NJ: Ablex, 1992.

 

Kenney, Martin.  AValue Creation in the Late Twentieth Century: The Rise of the Knowledge Worker.@  In Jim Davis, Thomas A. Hirschl and Michael Stack (eds.). Cutting Edge: Technology, Information, Capitalism and Social Revolution, New York: Verso, 1997.

 

McChesney, Robert W.  "Media Convergence and Globalisation."  In Daya Kishan Thussu, ed., Electronic Empires: Global Media and Local Resistance, pp. 27‑46.  London: Arnold, 1998.

 

Mosco, Vincent. The Political Economy of Communication: Rethinking and Renewal. London: Sage, 1996.

 

Murdock, Graham and Peter Golding, AInformation Poverty and Political Inequality: Citizenship in the Age of Privatized Communications.@ Journal of Communication 39.3 (1989): 180‑195.

 

Robins, Kevin, and Frank Webster.  "Cybernetic Capitalism: Information, Technology, Everyday Life."  In Vincent Mosco and Janet Wasko, eds., The Political Economy of Information.  Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1988, pp. 44-75.

 

Schiller, Dan. "The Information Commodity: A Preliminary View." in Jim Davis, Thomas A. Hirschl and Michael Stack (eds.). Cutting Edge: Technology, Information, Capitalism and Social Revolution, New York: Verso, 1997.