Language, Politics and Society - ARTS2848
Faculty: Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences
School: School of Social Sciences
Course Outline: School of Social Sciences
Campus: Sydney
Career: Undergraduate
Units of Credit: 6
EFTSL: 0.12500 (more info)
Indicative Contact Hours per Week: 3
Enrolment Requirements:
Prerequisite: 30 units of credit at Level 1
Excluded: ARTS2844
CSS Contribution Charge: 1 (more info)
Tuition Fee: See Tuition Fee Schedule
Further Information: See Class Timetable
Available for General Education: Yes (more info)
View course information for previous years.
Description
Subject Area: Politics
This course can also be studied in the following specialisations: Globalisation Studies, International Relations
This is a course about propaganda, democracy and persuasion. Propaganda and public relations are essential to representative democracy yet they are seen as threats to democracy because of their perceived potential for lies and manipulation. Such modern perceptions are reinventions of the ancient dispute between rhetoric and philosophy. This subject disentangles such issues while exploring political rhetoric as a common feature of human interaction, the nature of rationality and truth in argument, the internet, and the public relations state. The history of propaganda since World War I forms the core of exploration. Satire is also explored as it is not adequately covered in some theories of democracy, even though there is a history of satire overlapping with propaganda.