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Assignments

Resources

• Preparation for class sessions through assigned readings (see guidelines for analytical reading below)
• Participation (20%):
  Informed contributions to class discussions
  Discussion leadership in 2 class sessions
  Completion of occasional ungraded exercises
• Syllabus review (1-2 pages, double-spaced): For this assignment you will compare syllabi from two political communication courses-- preferably graduate-level-offered at other universities. (You can find syllabi on the Web by searching for "political communication" + syllabus.) Analyze how the field of political communication is constructed in these courses via such elements as the prevalence of functionalist, structuralist and/or critical approaches, the range of topics and levels of analysis, geographical focus, and the main theories & methods employed in the readings assigned for the course. With some syllabi you will be able to ascertain these elements using the text of the syllabus and the titles of the assigned readings; with other syllabi (and for some key readings) you may need to look up an abstract of the assigned readings. Due Monday, 10/10-- email to instructor prior to class & bring copies to class for everyone. (We'll coordinate syllabus selection on the class email list.) (5%)
  
• Journal review (1-2 pages, double-spaced):
  (a.) Select a refereed journal in which publishes articles relevant to political communication.
  (b.) Review the tables of contents and abstracts for the past two to three years and select 5-7 recent articles that you think constitute political communication scholarship (select these from at least 2 years, beginning with the most recent). Enter the title of each article selected in a separate row in the Excel file, following the journal title. Complete the fields in the Excel file for each article. Here is a key to the field labels:
  Reviewer's name: yours
  Year: year of publication
  Vol/Issue: the numbers of the volume and issue in which the article was published
  Topic: A very brief description of the article's main topic
  Approach: the overall or primary approach employed (e.g. functionalist, structuralist, critical, rhetorical, historical, etc), Methods: the type of method(s) employed (e.g. survey, participant observation, content analysis, etc.)
  Geo. Focus: the geographical focus of the political communication phenomenon studied
  Level: the level of the political communication phenomena studied (e.g. group, municipal, state, national, regional, international, transnational, etc.).
  (c.) Write a 1-2 page (double-spaced) essay analyzing how this journal treats political communication scholarship based on your review of recent issues in general and the articles you selected in particular. In your essay, address how frequently political communication scholarship appears in the journal, any commonalities you observed across the articles you reviewed, and any noteworthy absences (e.g. no qualitative methods employed, only national level studies, etc.)-- and speculate on what a reader might infer about the field of political communication based on this (small) sample of articles. Due Monday, 11/1-- mail to instructor prior to class & bring copies to class for everyone. (5%)
  
• 2 brief literature review essays (each 3-4 pages, double-spaced) on 2 different topics in political communication, each incorporating about 10-12 references and including both seminal sources and recent studies (30%). Hard copy due in class on Monday, November 15.
• Final paper: proposal for a research project in political communication, including statement of problem, lit review (can build on one of the lit reviews completed previously in the course), research question/hypothesis, basic research design with rationale, and explanation of what the findings of this project will contribute to the field. 15 minute presentation during week 10; paper should be 10-12 pages double-spaced. (40%) Hard copy due in instructor's mailbox by noon on Monday, December 13.