Political Communication

Course Description

This course deals with communication in American politics. We will begin by examining the breadth of political communication research and some of the major theories guiding political communication research. We will then move on to discuss political messages, political communications and institutions, and political communication at the individual level. In addition, this class will expose you to some of the methods used in political communication research. We are fortunate to have individual classes for media and politics (POLS 341) and campaigns and elections (POLS 318). Therefore, these subjects will not be the focus of the course.

Course Obejectives

• To understand the theories that explain how people talk about politics

• To understand how candidates communicate

• To understand how people within government communicate<

• To understand how citizens communicate

• To learn learn to analyze political communication phenomena

Grading

Exams

There will be two exams, a midterm and a final. The exams will cover all material from the readings and any material presented in class. You should bring a green book to both exams. Do not mark in the green book or write you name on it prior to the exam. Everyone will turn their green book in at the beginning of the exam and they will be redistributed at random. The midterm is worth 125 points and the final exam is worth 200 points.

Class Discussion

Classroom discussion is an integral part of exploring ideas and thinking critically about the material. As such, you are expected to come to every class (see section attendance policy below) prepared to discuss the assigned reading. This means that you will need to read the material prior to arriving to class and take time to think about what is important, how does the reading relate to other readings in class, and how does the reading relate to real-world examples. Should I feel that the class is unprepared, I reserve the right to give the class a quiz and incorporate this quiz into your discussion grade. You discussion grade is based on my subjective opinion of your contribution to the classroom discussion. Your discussion grade is worth 150 points in this class.

Throughout the semester we will be reading several books. Although we will discuss the books in sections, I encourage you to start on the books early. In addition, I strongly encourage you to take notes over the readings. Should I give a quiz, I will permit you to use these notes on the quiz.

Political Communication Project

One of the goals of this course is to introduce you to how political scientists research political communication. As such, you will be engaging in original research, similar to that of a political science scholar. The basis of this project is an article by Mutz and Wojcieszak (2009), ``Online Groups and Political Discourse: Do Online Discussion Spaces Facilitate Exposure to Political Disagreement.'' In the article Mutz and Wojcieszak examine whether political discussion takes place online in ten different types of online forums:

• a trade, educational, or professional association

• a group for people who share a particular hobby, interest, or activity

• a support group, such as for a medical condition or personal situation

• a group that promotes social or political change, such as an environmental organization

• a group associated with a political party or political cause of some kind

• a fan group for a particular TV show, actor, movie, musical group, or sports team

• a group that discusses political issues and controversies

• a religious group or organization

• an ethnic group or organization

• a charitable group or civic organization

For this project you and a partner are to pick one of the topics above, with no more than one group per topic. We will select groups and topics on February 2.

Part 1 (Data Collection): To start the project you will visit online forums and collect the data. You and your partner should each visit 35 different forums. For each forum that you visit you should record the website, the date visited, and the content of the forum dating back to August 2010. I would suggest you use Notepad or a similar text editing program and save it as a .txt file. This will save you some work later on in the project. I strongly encourage you to get an early start on this part of this project. Successful completion of this portion of the project is worth 25 points.

Part 2 (Qualitative Analysis): For this part of the project you will be evaluating whether political discussion took place on each of the forums from which you collected data. We will talk more in class on what political discussion is and how to decide whether political discussion is taking place on your forums. In addition, if political dialogue did take place, describe the tenor of the dialogue. Do the discussants tend to agree or disagree? Is the tone civil or uncivil? We will talk more about these concepts in class. This will likely be the most time consuming portion of the study. Do NOT wait until the last minute to work on this portion of the project. Successful completion of the qualitative analysis is worth 50 points.

Part 3 (Inter-Coder Reliability): It is important that you code the forums correctly, but we have to realize that we are human and we do make mistakes, whether it is overlooking something or misunderstanding. Therefore it is important to have someone check your work and validate that you and your co-researcher are coding things the same way. You and your partner should exchange 7 randomly selected texts of forums and code these independent of the other researcher. This means that you should not know in advance whether your partner coded the forum as containing political discussion, whether forum members tended to agree or disagree with each other, or wether the tone was civil or uncivil. Completion of the inter-coder reliability check is worth 20 points.

Part 4 (Quantitative Analysis): For this part of the project we will quantify the presence of political words. We will spend some time in a computer lab learning how to run word frequencies on the content of your forums. To prepare for the lab days, you should put the text of each forum in a text document and save it as a .txt file. Each forum should have its own file and all files, including your partners should be placed in a single folder. Completion of the quantitative analysis is worth 25 points.

Part 5 (Paper): You and your partner should write a paper that begins by outlining why it is important to examine whether political dialogue takes place online, what political dialogue is, how you collected and analyzed your data, and what your found in doing your analysis (Are people just talking or is there real dialogue?). In addition, if your findings are different from Mutz and Wojcieszak's (2009) you should speculate why your results are different from their results. The paper is due May 2. This portion of the project is worth 80 points

Part 6 (Class Presentation): You and your partner will present your findings to the class at the end of the semester. Your presentation should clearly answer whether political discussion was talking place in your type of online forum, whether discussants tended to agree or disagree, whether the tone was civil or uncivil, and whether your findings are consistent with Mutz and Wojcieszak's (2009) findings. For your presentation, you may wish to include examples of conversations, the percentage of sites that contained political discussion, and/or the frequency of the number of political words found in your forum. Keep in mind that for presentations graphs and visuals are much more interesting than text. This portion of the project is worth 50 points.

Memos: You and your partner will receive independent grades. As such, I want a memo from each individual every two weeks detailing where you are at in the project and who is doing what work. This helps to ensure that no one group member is slacking off or causing problems for the other group member. If at any time you are having problems with your partner you should see me durning office hours to discuss how I can help the situation. Failure to turn in a memo will result in a 10 point reduction from your final grade on this project for each memo that you fail to turn in. We will take time in class, starting February 2, to discuss this project in further detail, including expectations and grading. As the project progresses, questions will inevitably arise. Do not hesitate to send me an email (see section \ref{Contact} about contacting the instructor) or ask questions in class.

Micro-Papers

Throughout the semester you will be asked to write several (probably three or four) micro-papers. These are meant to be short papers, approximately one page, single-spaced in length. The goal is to get your to think critically. These micro-papers will be announced in class. Each micro-paper is worth 50 points.

Due Dates

Political Communication Project

• Project Updates: Every Other Monday

• Presentations: May 2-6

• Paper: May 2

Participation: Weekly
Midterm Exam: March 7
Final Exam: Friday, May 13, 7:50 AM-09:50 AM

Grades

Political Communication Project: 250 points
Participation: 150 points
Micro-Papers: 50 points (each)
Midterm Exam: 125 points
Final Exam: 200 points

Grading Scale

A 90-100%
B 80-89%
C 70-79%
D 60-69%
F 59 and below

Course Policies

Attendance

You are expected to attend every class. Attendance will be taken at least one per week at some point during the class. If you are not in the classroom when attendance is taken, it is your responsibility to make sure you are marked as present for that day. If you must miss a class you may receive an excused absence by contacting the instructor in advance. I reserve the right to ask for documentation of your absence and decide what constitutes an excused absence. It is your responsibility to figure out what you missed on any days that you are absent. I strongly encourage you to exchange contact information with one of your classmates. In addition, for every absence beyond your third absence, you will be dropped one letter grade on your final grade.