Student Hours
- Monday and Wednesday, 1-2 PM
- Tuesday and Thursday, noon-1 PM
- If these times are inconvenient, just make an appointment for an in-person or Zoom meeting.
General
The purpose of this course is to explain the relationship between newsmakers and the mass media. It asks how political figures try to influence traditional media and social media. It also asks how the media influence the behavior of officials and activists, as well as ordinary voters. It is not a "how-to" course on the practice of journalism. Instead, it poses these questions:
Classes
Class sessions will include lecture and discussion. Finish assigned readings before the class because our discussions will involve those readings. Do not assume that your instructor agrees with everything in the assigned readings, or that you must do so. Feel free to agree or disagree with any of the material, provided that you can back up what you say.
We shall discuss breaking stories, so you should read news sources every day.
Blog
Our class blog is at http://gov115.blogspot.com. I shall post videos, graphs, news stories, and other material there. We shall use some of this material in class, and you may review the rest at your convenience. You will all receive invitations to post to the blog. (Please let me know if you do not get such an invitation.) I encourage you to use the blog in these ways:
To post questions or comments about the readings before we discuss them in class;
To follow up on class discussions with additional comments or questions.
To post relevant news items or videos.
Remember that the blog is on the open Internet. Post nothing that would look bad to a potential employer. If you want more confidentiality, post to the forum on the class Sakai page.
Grades
- One three-page paper: 15%
- One four-page paper: 20%
- Two six-page papers: 25% each
- Class participation & weekly writeups: 15%
Details
- The papers will develop your research and writing skills. In grading, I will take account of the quality of your writing, applying the principles of Strunk and White’s Elements of Style. If you object, do not take this course, or anything else that I teach.
- Participation includes your activity in class and online. I will call on students at random, and if you often miss sessions or fail to prepare, your grade will suffer. In addition, you may volunteer comments and questions. This experience will hone your ability to think on your feet. By Thursday of every week, moreover, you will also email me brief (250 words max) reflections on the readings and class discussions.
- In addition to the required readings (below), I may also give you handouts, emails, and web links covering current events and basic factual information.
- Check due dates for coursework. Do not plan on extensions.
- As a courtesy to your fellow students, please arrive on time, and refrain from eating in class.
- Except as a documented disability accommodation, please do not use electronic devices (tablets, laptops, smartphones) in class. Take notes the old-fashioned way, by hand, on paper. Why? Research suggests that it works better.
- Plagiarism and other forms of academic dishonesty are not victimless offenses, because they hurt fellow students. Please study our Statement of Academic Integrity, which reads in part: "The faculty of Claremont McKenna College is firmly committed to upholding the highest standards of academic integrity. Each faculty member has the responsibility to report cases of academic dishonesty to the Academic Standards Committee."
- This class welcomes viewpoint diversity. See: https://heterodoxacademy.org/library/advice-on-syllabus-language/
- Your experience in this class is important to me, and I have a particular interest in disability. If you have set up accommodations with Accessibility Services at CMC, please tell me about your approved accommodations so we can discuss your needs in this course. You can start by forwarding me your accommodation letter. If you have not yet established accommodations but have a temporary health condition or permanent disability (e.g., mental health, attention-related, learning, vision, hearing, physical or health), please get in touch with Assistant Dean for Academic Success and Accessibility Services, Maude Nazaire, at accessibilityservices@cmc.edu to ask questions or begin the process. General information and accommodations request information are at the CMC Accessibility Services website.
Required Book
- Johanna Dunaway and Doris A. Graber, Mass Media and American Politics, 11th ed. (Washington: Sage, 2023). MAKE SURE THAT YOU GET THE 10TH EDITION.
Schedule (subject to change, with advance notice).
August 30: Introduction
"[T]o the press alone, chequered as it is with abuses, the world is indebted for all the triumphs which have been gained by reason and humanity, over error and oppression." -- James Madison
Sept 6: Ownership and Regulation
"The model is simple: Gut the staff, sell the real estate, jack up subscription prices, and wring as much cash as possible out of the enterprise until eventually enough readers cancel their subscriptions that the paper folds, or is reduced to a desiccated husk of its former self." -- McKay Coppins
Sept 11, 13: Newsmaking and News Gathering Routines
"I've spent most of my career avoiding cable TV. Like, how does that actually get anything done? You know. So, it's, I think, in part, why you don't see the governors up as high as some of these. It's just that a lot of the narrative now is driven by name recognition. And it's driven by cable news." -- Steve Bullock `88Sept 18, 20: Technology and the Media Landscape
"In short, geographic dispersal was an actual premise of the Constitution’s original design. It was a pillar undergirding the very viability of our system of representation. No more. Madison couldn’t anticipate Facebook, and Facebook — with its historically unprecedented power to bind factions over great distances — knocked this pillar out from under us. In this sense, Facebook and the equally powerful social media platforms that followed it broke our democracy. " -- Danielle Allen
THREE-PAGE ESSAY ASSIGNED BY SEPT 18,
DUE IN SAKAI DROPBOX SEPT 29,
READ STRUNK & WHITE FIRST.
Sept 25, 27: News and the Executive Branch
"An OAN reporter actually just asked with a straight face if saying `Chinese Food' is racist." -- Caleb Hull"The reporter sitting in front of Rion and managing to keep his face relatively composed deserves a medal." -- Daniel Drezner
The reporter was Michael Wilner`11, an alum of this course.
October 2, 4: Congress and Courts
"If [Marjorie Taylor[ Greene had more allies within the notoriously leaky organization —a hazard with any confederation packed with rampant libertarian-leaning individualists—she would have likely had more public defenders. But a well-placed source told me that, when it came time to vote, Greene was opposed by roughly 80 percent of the Freedom Caucus. “It wasn’t the Jewish space lasers, and it wasn’t hanging out with [white nationalist] Nick Fuentes,” the source said. “It was M.T.G. getting too close to Kevin McCarthy that did it for the Freedom Caucus—and that’s insane.” -- Tina Nguyen `11
October 9, 11: State and Local News
"These are Hitler tactics, and something has to be done." Those were the words of 98-year-old Joan Meyer, the co-owner of the Marion County Record, after her home and office were raided by the City of Marion's entire five-person police department on Friday ... Law enforcement seized her computer, her router, and even the Amazon Alexa speaker she used to stream television shows. On Saturday, reportedly unable to eat or sleep, Meyer collapsed and died. - Judd Legum, PO `00
SIX-PAGE ESSAY ASSIGNED BY OCT 11
DUE IN SAKAI DROPBOX BY OCT 27.
October 18: Media and the Pandemic
"When I turned on my computer this morning, I had over two million unique visitors all looking for the truth." -- Alan Krumwiede (Jude Law) in Contagion (2011).
October 23, 25: International News and Foreign Influence
"Oceania was at war with Eastasia: Oceania had always been at war with Eastasia. A large part of the political literature of five years was now completely obsolete. Reports and records of all kinds, newspapers, books, pamphlets, films, sound-tracks, photographs — all had to be rectified at lightning speed" -- George Orwell October 30, November 1: Advertising and Campaigns I
"The main strategy memo for the debate contains no mention of policy — and the advice steers Mr. DeSantis away from talking about specific solutions because doing so won’t get him headlines."
SIX-PAGE ESSAY ASSIGNED BY NOV 1, DUE IN SAKAI DROPBOX BY NOV 17.
November 6, 8: Advertising and Campaigns II
"Man is conceived in sin and born in corruption and hepasseth from the stink of the didie to the stench of the shroud. There is always something." -- Robert Penn Warren, All the King's Men.
November 13, 15: Incivility and Bias
"In one email from December 2nd, 2020 with a subject line, “Re: Fox News’ Eric Shawn Fact-Checks Trump ‘Dump’ Claims,” [Fox News CEO Suzanne] Scott said objected to Shawn fact-checking claims made by a guest on Sean Hannity’s show.
I’m going to address this with you and Jay and Lowell tomorrow.
This is bad business and there clearly is a lack of understanding what is happening in these shows.
The audience is furious and we are just feeding them material.
Bad for business."
November 20: Entertainment Media and News Media
"One of the basic troubles with radio and television news is that both instruments have grown up as an incompatible combination of show business, advertising and news. Each of the three is a rather bizarre and, at times, demanding profession. And when you get all three under one roof, the dust never settles." -- Edward R. Murrow, 1958
- Stephen J. Farnsworth, S. Robert Lichter, "Political Consequences of Late-Night Humor," ch. 5 of their Late Night with Trump (Routledge, 2019). ON SAKAI.
FOUR-PAGE ESSAY ASSIGNED BY NOV 20,
DUE DEC 8.
November 27, 29: Media Effects
"Whenever anybody asks me, ‘what has the internet done for autism?,' I say that it has accelerated the trends that were already happening… Our job as journalists is to portray the world as it is, and (especially on social media), I think it can be incredibly difficult to explain nuance in a world that doesn’t celebrate nuance." -- Eric M. Garcia- Dunaway, ch. 10, 13. (chapter 11 of 10th ed. Ch. 13 of 11th ed. is on Sakai.)
December 4, 6: The Future
"The dumbing down of America is most evident in the slow decay of substantive content in the enormously influential media, the 30-second sound bites (now down to 10 seconds or less), the lowest common denominator programming, credulous presentations on pseudoscience and superstition, but especially a kind of celebration of ignorance." -- Carl Sagan, 1995.http://www.onthemedia.org/story/breaking-news-consumers-handbook-pdf/http://www.onthemedia.org/story/breaking-news-consumers-handbook-airline-edition/
