Type of Credit: Elective
Credit(s)
Number of Students
This course is designed to introduce the essential concepts and ideas related to how the communication of information shapes our political lives. In the current digital age, the production, construction, and distribution of information have become even more influential in how politics works. Therefore, there is an increasing interest in unpacking the mechanisms of political communication. This course begins with familiarizing students with some of the fundamental concepts such as “power”, “mediatization”, “ideology”, “intentionality”, and “media channels.” I will also discuss the major theoretical and analytical frameworks in the following realms of political communication: media effects (agenda-setting, priming, framing, media malaise theory); politics-media relationships (theory of press-state relations, meditation of politics theory); comparative analysis of communication systems (heuristic model, comparing media systems); theories of new media (affordances, hyperlinked society, connective action, hybrid media system, technological optimism); and normative perspectives (public sphere, critical theory, cultural hegemony, authenticity, civility).
The second part of this course highlights discussions on the different channels and actors of political communication. We focus on the roles played by political elites, the masses, influencers of social media, as well as activists and try to understand their behavioral patterns. Therefore, the second part of the course provides a detailed overview of these important topics: political elites’ electoral advertisements and negative campaigning; social movements and framing; interpersonal political communication and cross-cutting networks; social media and the spread of misinformation; mass media and political polarization.
The third part of this course looks at how we can apply what we have learned in the first two parts of the class in real-world cases. These case studies are saliently special topics in the research of political communication of recent years. These cases include but are not limited to the following ones: media censorship in China, policy framing of LGBTQ rights in Taiwan, and former U.S. president Trump’s use of Twitter.
能力項目說明
The course includes student presentations and activities. In student presentations, discussion facilitators will go through the main ideas of the readings and propose questions to ask their peers’ opinions on topics of a specific week. In the second part of the class, discussion facilitators will lead a group activity designed to match with the topic of that week. One example of the group activities is to ask students to play the role of activists. The goal of this activity is for students to design and apply what they have learned in “framing” when constructing their policy messages in a poster. Each group represents a minority group in society (for example women, LGBTQ persons, immigrants, etc.) and they need first try to identify the most pressing issue of their social group. Once the students have chosen a specific policy issue, they will then brainstorm the slogans, symbols, discourse, as well as images to be shown on their posters. At the end of the activity, students present their posters to the whole class and explain the rationale of their design as well as policy messaging. This hybrid style of teaching that combines both student presentations and group activities aims to encourage students to not only gain knowledge but also actively use such knowledge in real-world scenarios.
| 教學週次Course Week | 彈性補充教學週次Flexible Supplemental Instruction Week | 彈性補充教學類別Flexible Supplemental Instruction Type |
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週次 |
課程主題 |
課程內容與指定閱讀 |
教學活動與作業 |
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1 |
Introduction |
Bennett, W. L., & Iyengar, S. (2008). A new era of minimal effects? The changing foundations of political communication. Journal of communication, 58(4), 707-731. Perloff, M. (2013). Political communication: Politics, press, and public in America. Routledge. Chpater 1 McNair, B. (2017). An introduction to political communication. Routledge. Chapter 1. |
What is political communication? How do different forms of media affect politics and vice versa? How can we study social phenomena related to political communication?
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2 |
Politics-Media Relationship |
Street, J. (2010). Mass media, politics and democracy. Macmillan. Chapter 5. Hadland, A., & Zhang, S. I. (2012). The “paradox of commercialization” and its impact on media-state relations in China and South Africa. Chinese Journal of Communication, 5(3), 316-335. Dragomir, Marius. (2018). “Control the money, control the media: How government uses funding to keep media in line.” Journalism 19 (8): 1131–48. |
What functions does the press serve in society? How do the press and the state interact with each other? Does commercialization reshape media-state relations? |
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3 |
Normative Perspectives |
Christians, C. G., Glasser, T., McQuail, D., Nordenstreng, K., & White, A. (2010). Normative theories of the media: Journalism in democratic societies. University of Illinois Press. Cha. 2-3 Ogbebor, B. (2020). Media Policy, Democracy and Theories of the Press. In British Media Coverage of the Press Reform Debate (pp. 53-75). Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. |
How “should” the media system be controlled and operated? What is the interrelation between communicative (philosophical) traditions, democratic models, and journalistic roles? |
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4 |
Media Effects |
Potter, W. J. (2012). Media effects. Sage Publications. Chapters 3 and 5. Scheufele, D. A. (2000). Agenda-setting, priming, and framing revisited: Another look at cognitive effects of political communication. Mass communication & society, 3(2-3), 297-316. |
How does the consumption of media content affect individuals’ beliefs and behaviors? How can we measure media effects? Do media effects vary across individuals?
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5 |
國慶連假 |
國慶連假 |
國慶連假 |
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6 |
Brainstorming Session on Term Papers |
No assigned readings |
Students need to come with a research proposal (2 pages) that specifies the research question(s), a brief review of the literature, and the contributions of this project. Students will take turn sharing their thoughts and receiving feedbacks from the professor and their peers. |
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7 |
Interpersonal Communication of Politics |
Matthes, J., Knoll, J., & von Sikorski, C. (2018). The “spiral of silence” revisited: A meta-analysis on the relationship between perceptions of opinion support and political opinion expression. Communication Research, 45(1), 3-33. Matthes, J., Knoll, J., Valenzuela, S., Hopmann, D. N., & Von Sikorski, C. (2019). A meta-analysis of the effects of cross-cutting exposure on political participation. Political Communication, 36(4), 523-542. |
Do daily interpersonal interactions affect people’s political behaviors? If so, how? What does cross-cutting exposure mean? Does cross-cutting exposure always discourage people from taking part in politics? |
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8 |
Mass Media |
Groeling, T. (2013). Media bias by the numbers: Challenges and opportunities in the empirical study of partisan news. Annual Review of Political Science, 16, 129-151. Puglisi, R., & Snyder Jr, J. M. (2015). Empirical studies of media bias. In Handbook of media economics (Vol. 1, pp. 647-667). North-Holland. Wolton, S. (2019). Are biased media bad for democracy?. American Journal of Political Science, 63(3), 548-562. |
What is media bias? Does media bias necessarily harm democracies? What are the different ways to measure media bias? Which measurement is most convincing? |
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9 |
Social Media |
Gil de Zúñiga, H., Weeks, B., & Ardèvol-Abreu, A. (2017). Effects of the news-finds-me perception in communication: Social media use implications for news seeking and learning about politics. Journal of computer-mediated communication, 22(3), 105-123. Muller, D. (2021). A New Press Theory: Democratic Revival. In Journalism and the Future of Democracy (pp. 165-183). Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. Garrett, R. K. (2017). The “echo chamber” distraction: Disinformation campaigns are the problem, not audience fragmentation. Journal of Applied Research in Memory and Cognition, 6(4), 370-376. |
How does the emergence of social media change the way people consume news and information? What does social media impact democracies, either positively or negatively? |
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10 |
Political Elites |
Kalla, J. L., & Broockman, D. E. (2018). The minimal persuasive effects of campaign contact in general elections: Evidence from 49 field experiments. American Political Science Review, 112(1), 148-166. Haselmayer, M., Meyer, T. M., & Wagner, M. (2019). Fighting for attention: Media coverage of negative campaign messages. Party Politics, 25(3), 412-423. Newman, B., Merolla, J. L., Shah, S., Lemi, D. C., Collingwood, L., & Ramakrishnan, S. K. (2021). The trump effect: an experimental investigation of the emboldening effect of racially inflammatory elite communication. British Journal of Political Science, 51(3), 1138-1159.
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How do political messages from elites affect people’s attitudes toward social groups or policy issues? Why do elite politicians frequently appeal to negative campaigning? Do political campaigns effectively affect voters’ candidate choices? |
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11 |
Social Movements |
Benford, R. D., & Snow, D. A. (2000). Framing processes and social movements: An overview and assessment. Annual review of sociology, 26(1), 611-639. Snow, D. A., Vliegenthart, R., & Ketelaars, P. (2018). The framing perspective on social movements: Its conceptual roots and architecture. The Wiley Blackwell companion to social movements. Oxford: Wiley Blackwell, 392-410.
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What does framing mean, and why does it matter? What are the core framing tasks according to Benford and Snow (2000)? How do policy frames change over time?
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12 |
Workshop on Data and Methods |
No assigned readings |
Students need to come to class with a proposal that discusses the data and methods they will use in their projects. After their presentation (about 10 minutes), they will have a QA session where comments and questions will be provided.
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13 |
China and State Censorship |
MacKinnon, R. (2011). China's ‘Networked Authoritarianism’. Journal of Democracy Volume, 22(2), 32-46. King, G., Pan, J., & Roberts, M. E. (2013). How censorship in China allows government criticism but silences collective expression. American political science Review, 107(2), 326-343. Lee, S. Y. (2016). Surviving online censorship in China: Three satirical tactics and their impact. The China Quarterly, 228, 1061-1080.
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Do social networking platforms necessarily support liberation and empowerment of the marginalized? What does the Chinese government try to achieve by imposing censorship? To what extent is state censorship “successful” in China? |
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14 |
Framing LGBTQ Rights in Taiwan and the Global North |
Zheng, Y., & Chan, L. S. (2020). Framing same-sex marriage in US liberal and conservative newspapers from 2004 to 2016: Changes in issue attributes, organizing themes, and story tones. The Social Science Journal, 1-13. Dai, S.C. (Working Paper). Describing LGBTQ rights: A longitudinal analysis of pro- and anti-LGBTQ rights groups’ online messages in Taiwan.
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What are the common policy frames proposed by pro- and anti-LGBTQ rights activists? How do policy frames of LGBTQ rights in Taiwan show different features from those observed in the Global North? What are some local framing elements found in the context of Taiwan?
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15 |
Running as Female Candidates |
Herrnson, P. S., Lay, J. C., & Stokes, A. K. (2003). Women running “as women”: Candidate gender, campaign issues, and voter-targeting strategies. The Journal of Politics, 65(1), 244-255. Windett, J. H. (2014). Gendered campaign strategies in US elections. American Politics Research, 42(4), 628-655. Cassese, E. C., & Holman, M. R. (2018). Party and gender stereotypes in campaign attacks. Political Behavior, 40(3), 785-807.
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Does gender matter in running for office? What factors result in the persistent gender gap in political ambition? What strategies do female candidates adopt for greater electoral success? |
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16 |
Social Media and Trump’s Presidency |
Wells, C., Shah, D., Lukito, J., Pelled, A., Pevehouse, J. C., & Yang, J. (2020). Trump, Twitter, and news media responsiveness: A media systems approach. New Media & Society, 22(4), 659-682. Ross, A. S., & Caldwell, D. (2020). ‘Going negative’: An appraisal analysis of the rhetoric of Donald Trump on Twitter. Language & communication, 70, 13-27. |
Why does former US President Donald Trump rely heavily on Twitter? What are the characteristics of Trump’s messages on social media? What are the political goals he tries to achieve by adopting certain styles of political communication? |
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17 |
開國紀念日 |
開國紀念日 |
開國紀念日 |
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18 |
期末成果發表 |
請於課前閱讀同學報告並提供評論 |
期末口頭報告 |
Attendance and Participation (30%)
Blogs (40%)
Final Paper (20%)
Paper Presentation (10%)
Attendance and Participation (30%): Your preparation, presence, and participation are crucial. Please complete the required readings, be on time for each class, bring all relevant readings, and contribute energetically to the class. Your class participation grade will be assessed based on attendance and your contributions to discussions and group activities. Please note that unexcused absences will count heavily against your grade. An absence will be excused only with documentation of medical necessity or with prior approval from the professor.
Blogs (40%): On several weeks, you will interact with fellow group members through an online political blog. Blogs are an opportunity to engage with course material and apply it to real-world politics and political communication. It is also an opportunity for you to engage with your fellow classmates. The blogs are integrated into our learning platform, where you will receive instructions about how to post and what questions to blog about. Only the 8 best blog grades (out of 12) will be counted toward your final grade.
Your task will be to respond to the prompt by writing your own initial post in response to the question by Friday midnight, as well as reply to other students’ posts at least twice by 10 am Monday. You will be graded on your initial post and your replies on a scale from 1-5.
The blog assignment should contain the following:
1. An initial post that addresses the question directly and concisely (300-400 words by Friday midnight or sooner)
2. A minimum of 2 thoughtful, engaging and respectful replies to the posts of fellow group members (your choice of who you respond to); these are typically shorter than the initial post (100-200 words).
3. Initial posts and replies should present clear positions or arguments, supported by fact-based evidence and insights from readings, discussions, news articles and other sources. A great blog post will bring in additional evidence and/or link to reputable online resources to support your post.
Please note that all discourse should be civil and respectful. We encourage thoughtful disagreement, but like all blog posts, you should back up your argument with evidence. No ad-hominem or personal attacks will be tolerated.
Final Paper (20%) and Paper Presentation (10%): At the end of the semester, students need to write a research paper that discusses topics related to political communication. The paper should include: research questions, literature review, data and methods, results, implications and conclusions. The papers should be about 20-25 pages, double-space. Students will present their findings in Weeks 17 and 18.
指定書目
No assigned textbook for this course since our weekly readings consist of journal articles and book chapters
參考書目
Wolfsfeld, G. (2022). Making sense of media and politics: Five principles in political communication. Routledge.
Kaye, D. (2019). Speech police: The global struggle to govern the Internet. New York: Columbia Global Reports.
Oliver, M. B., Raney, A. A., & Bryant, J. (Eds.). (2019). Media effects. Routledge.
Ott, B. L., & Dickinson, G. (2019). The Twitter presidency: Donald J. Trump and the politics of white rage. Routledge.
Perloff, M. (2017). The dynamics of political communication. Routledge.
Phillips, Whitney, and Ryan M. Milner. (2017). The ambivalent Internet: Mischief, oddity, and antagonism online. Cambridge, UK ; Malden, MA: Polity Press.
Hayes, Danny, and Lawless, Jennifer L.. (2016). Women on the run: Gender, media, and political campaigns in a polarized era. New York: Cambridge University Press
Johnston, H., & Noakes, J. A. (Eds.). (2005). Frames of protest: Social movements and the framing perspective. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.