220005 VO Jean Monnet lecture series (2023S)

This course aims to teach students to ask critical scientific questions regarding democracy, integration, and media. It is about understanding concepts and being able to connect those to real world challenges. To assess students’ understandings of the content taught, there will be the requirement to hand in a policy brief (more instructions will be given in class) and a blogpost as form of public communication of research that treats the topic of critical issues in European democracy and media. Both texts will be based on the class material presented. To complete this course successfully both written tasks must be accomplished. The aim behind this is that students apply their newly gained knowledge and show in their written work a solid understanding of concepts treated, critical engagement with questions of integration and media, engagement with interdisciplinary sources and self-reflection of the learning process. There are no traditional exams in this course.

The total grade is calculated as follows:
60% policy brief
40% blogpost.
Participation and attendance are STRONGLY encouraged.

Your texts should be written in English or German and must be scientifically based on academic literature, it should present a discussion between theoretical approaches and empirical findings on a certain topic that has social relevance and refers to a “real life problem”.