The Implications of Changing Attitudes:
Perception of US Foreign Policy in the Media Overseas

The project is built as an interdisciplinary group weblog and a course for graduate students affiliated with different departments and Centers on campus. While following news through local media in different parts of the world, the course and web-site provides opportunities for academics, journalists, students, policy-makers, intellectuals and others to exchange information and analysis on the many complex and often countervailing impulses that U.S actions in particular countries and regions inspire and/or provoke.

The project takes an inter-disciplinary approach, combining journalism with international studies. This stresses what journalists interested in international reporting can learn from scholarly analyses and writing; and what scholars of international affairs can learn from the journalistic approach to finding, presenting and editing information from a diverse range of source material.

Launched during the 2005 spring semester, the project is sponsored by the Graduate School of Journalism, the Institute of Governmental Studies, and the Institute of International Studies.

Project Activities: The first aspect of this project is a new course, "J299-WorldandUS - Tracking perceptions of the U.S. in the world, a group blog," offered at the UC Berkeley School of Journalism by Francis Pisani, of France's Le Monde and Spain's El Pais; Federico Rampini, a correspondent and former executive managing editor and of the Italian newspaper La Republica; and Mark Schapiro, Editorial Director of the Center for Investigative Reorting, and correspondent for the PBS television series Frontline/World, on the difference in perspectives between the American and European media. The students will travel to Europe in Spring 2004 to do a collective series reporting on European coverage of American policy initiatives for publication in the US.

Course Description:

WorldAndUS http://worldandus.net is an independent study project exploring the changing role of the United States in the world. We conduct this exploration through dual tracks: one, by sustaining our own university-hosted blog—WorldandUS.org—which students are asked to both contribute to and find contributors for; and by readings and discussion of contemporary developments which are illustrative of the changing perceptions of the United States around the world.

Launched during the 2005 Spring semester, the project is sponsored by the Graduate School of Journalism, the Institute for Governmental Studies, the Institute of International Studies. It is open to students coming from other departments. Visiting scholars are most welcome. Other contributors to the blog come from different parts of the world (Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America).

In this second stage of the project, we plan to consolidate a global network of journalists and academics interested in tracking together some of the key transnational issues of the times. While following the ongoing news we will focus in particular on security issues (from climate change to terrorism, and the trade off between security, freedom and privacy), how they vary according to places, and how the US positions in these matters trigger varrying reactions.

The course takes an inter-disciplinary approach, combining journalism with international studies. This stresses what journalists interested in international reporting can learn from scholarly analyses and writing; and what scholars of international affairs can learn from the journalistic approach to finding, presenting and editing information through a diversity of source material.

WorldandUS has proven to be a useful tool for tracking the shifting attitudes toward American power and influence. Through class discussion and blog contributions, we will be exploring these shifts, and the many complex and often countervailing impulses that U.S. actions in particular countries and regions inspire and/or provoke.

Dealing in a blog format on varied topics with people of opposite sensibilities from different parts of the world is an excellent way for students to develop their own nuanced, critical and analytical thinking on international matters.

Conceived as an ongoing effort, this independent study project is a participatory experience in which students and instructors feed the blog together (and learn about the blogosphere) at the same time as they deal with the most significant international issues of the moment seen from different political creeds, cultures, and regions.

Students will meet with the instructors on an "as needed" basis (20 hours). They will be graded exclusively on their participation to the blog and the discussions. Participating in this study can get you up to two units.