Time Schedule:
Philip E Howard
COM 495
Seattle Campus
Lecture, seminar, and/or team study. Topics vary.
Class description
How is technology put to us in modern democratic politics? Pundits and presidential candidates have declared the advent of ‘politics online.’ From Bob Dole’s clumsy announcement of a campaign website address in 1996, to the coordination of protests by e-mail, and the data-mining efforts of elite lobbyists, new media technologies have become crucial components of modern campaigning. We will use some of the core concepts of deliberative democracy theory to examine the emerging role of new media technologies such as online voting, activist discussion groups, personal web-campaigns, and electronic government. More important, we will review these theories while observing the role of new media technology in the 2002 election season. This course will be run as a workshop in which students are encouraged to share their critical insights on political communication so as to help all of us understand specific theoretical problems in the production and consumption of political culture. This class has several specific goals:
- to understand the role of new media in local, state, national and international political communication; - to draw lessons from specific Internet communication strategies during the 2002 election season in the United States; - to apply these lessons in a personal project, either by designing and editing a political web page or by writing a research paper assessing the candidate or issue campaigns of their choice.
Student learning goals
General method of instruction
This class will be a workshop in which the instructor, students, and guest lecturers can present ideas about the conduct of politics online. We will often talk about current events in class, so you should start listening for news items related to course topics. Each class will probably start off with people sharing relevant clippings or news stories read (New York Times, Wall Street Journal and Economist Magazine recommended) or heard (NPR or BBC recommended) during the week. Students will be responsible for leading discussion during the second meeting each week, and will finish the course with a good reference packet of notes, reviews, and other handouts. E-mail will be used to conduct class business and carry on debates outside of class time. Since irregular attendance will disrupt our learning community, unexplained absences will affect your grade.
Recommended preparation
Although this course has no formal prerequisites, students with at least one other course in the social sciences will be best prepared for the pace and expectations of this course.
Class assignments and grading
Students will be evaluated by their degree of participation in class discussions (10%), short in-class assignments such as position papers on the readings, website critiques, and the preparation of questions for discussion (30%), and a personal research project which may take the form of a research paper or a political website (60%).
