2020-21 Academic Catalog

Crosslisted with POSC 303. How does political advertising influence the electorate? How does political advertising influence our understanding of policy proposals? Election ads along with the six-second "sound bite" are now among the major forms of political communication in modern democracies. Add to these forms a battery of visual "arguments" seen in news media, film, and paid ads aimed at persuading us to adopt various policy positions. We will study how ads are created and "work" from the standpoint of political psychology and film analysis.