2020-21 Academic Catalog

Our analysis of media influences on politics will draw from three fields of study: political psychology, political behavior and participation, and public opinion. Students will conduct a study of the effects of campaign ads and news using our multi-year data set of content analyzed election ads and news. We study a variety of quantitative and qualitative research methods to learn how political communication affects U.S. elections. Students enrolled in the POSC 304 version will conduct more extensive analysis of data for their seminar papers. Taking POSC 304 in conjunction with Political Science 223 is highly recommended to learn methods such as focus group, depth interview methods, and experiment design for conducting original research on elections.