AMERICAN POLITICAL MEDIA

Credit Hours: 3 · Undergraduate Upper-Level

This seminar asks fundamental questions about the history, production, circulation, and consumption of political media in America. What defines American political media in the twenty-first century? What are the common features of partisan media from across the political spectrum? What are the strategies that make it effective and persuasive? To answer these questions, students will: supplement media studies scholarship with insights from anthropology, sociology, cultural studies, and communication studies; apply different frameworks to analyze a wide range of partisan political media; and conduct an original research project that examines the relationship between our polarized politics and the contemporary media environment.