Media and Politics

Catalog description

This course examines the relationship between media and politics: how mass and social media influence political beliefs and behavior, and how political forces shape media landscapes. The class will study the role of media in ensuring a well-informed citizenry and improving government accountability through elections and collective action. It will then focus on institutional and personal constraints that hinder the ability of media to fulfill these goals. In particular, this class will cover media slant, censorship, fake news, and polarization on the institutional side, and motivated reasoning, correlational neglect, and selective exposure on the personal side. The readings are meant to familiarize students with classical and recent research on media and politics, as well as raising issues of relevance. The questions discussed in this course will not always have easy answers. This will especially be true when we discuss the role of social media in contemporary politics.