Popular culture & pedagogy under ‘cultural imperialism’: teaching IR with foreign TV shows in Argentina (updated)

VILA SEOANE, MAXIMILIANO; GIL, LUCIANA

Buenos Aires

Conferencia; Sixth Global International Studies Conference; 2022

World International Studies Conference (WISC)

Numerous articles have examined the use of documentaries and films to teach introductory courses of International Relations (IR). However, there is less research on the use of TV shows in teaching such introductory courses. This article explores if TV shows are useful as a pedagogical instrument to explain concepts of an introductory IR course. Furthermore, it investigates the way in which students in the Global South engage with the biases that content produced for Global North audiences may have. To answer these questions, we conducted two surveys in an introductory IR course in Argentina that incorporated TV shows as a complement to academic readings. Our findings make two contributions. First, we argue that TV shows from OTT platforms are equally useful as documentaries and films as complementary inputs for an introductory IR course, though with adaptations that consider the specificities of their format. Second, we claim that the use of such popular culture material by students in the Global South is challenging, because of the biases these cultural artifacts may have.