Today, Tsinghua-UPenn summer school is open. We have 19 students and 3 teachers from the Annenberg School for COmmunciation, University of Pennsylvania. This summer school is also open for Tsinghua students. Welcome to join this summer school.

Communications 397: Media Events and the Beijing Olympics

Profs. Lee Humphreys, Jeffery Niederdeppe, and Chris Finley

This course examines the political, social, and cultural influence of international media events at national and international levels, using China and the 2008 Beijing Olympics as a case study. Students will be introduced to concepts for analyzing and thinking about the ways that major media events challenge traditional paradigms and customs both in China and on the global stage. The course will be organized into three sections. The first section, "Looking Out," will introduce the concept of global media events as a framework for thinking about how the Beijing Olympics may be used by multiple parties as a platform for advancing ideologies and messages to a world audience. This section of the course will critically analyze concepts of globalization, internationalism, media ownership, Olympic sponsorship, and political dynamics associated with the 2008 Beijing Olympics. The second section, "Looking In," will examine the interplay between Chinese media and Chinese audiences using mass communication theory and research as a framework to explore how aspects of the 2008 Beijing Olympics may impact Chinese audiences within the broader Chinese media system. The third section, "Media Events and New Media," will explore the potentially empowering effects of new media technologies (such as mobile devices and the internet) as they are situated within both the Chinese context (looking in) and globalization (looking out). Students will apply these theoretical tools to interpret and assess the potential global impact of the 2008 Beijing Olympics on both national and international audiences through (1) a research project, (2) an interactive journal, and (3) course participation.

Communications 393: Chinese and US Perspectives on Intellectual Property, Piracy, and Creativity

Prof. Peter Decherney

China and the US are engaged in a clash over how intellectual property (IP) circulates in the global market, especially now that new technologies and the Internet have made media reproduction and distribution easy and ubiquitous. This course will look at the history and current state of Chinese and US attitudes towards IP, piracy, and creativity more generally. We will explore the deep roots of Chinese and Anglo-American IP law. US IP law, for example, developed very differently from European law and came to assume a unique, market- driven model of authorship. China traditionally had nothing like an IP legal regime until one emerged out of trade contact with the US and Britain in the 19th century. During the early years of the People's Republic Of China, a Communist model of IP mixed with an Anglo-American model. These divergent histories of the US and China have resulted in conflicting cultures of artistic practice and consumption. We will investigate the current state of US- Chinese perspectives on IP through examinations of the black market, the effects of censorship, and trade policies. We will look at case studies like Disney in China; we will also hear from experts on the subject, and we will conduct ethnographic studies.

CHINA -IP syllabus

Syllabus _comm397