Calendar

SES # TOPICS DUE DATES
1 Introduction  
2 Ethnography of Elections (1)  
3 Ethnography of Elections (2)  
4 Ethnography of Elections (3)  
Foundational Myths of American Elections
5 Consensus  
6 Equality  
7 Authority Choose electoral site for final paper
Mass Markets, Consumers and Consensus Experts
8

Citizens / Consumers

Screening

JustAdamCurtis. "The Century of the Self - Part I: 'Happiness Machines'." June 20, 2016. YouTube.

 Assignment 1: Ad Analysis due
The Science (and Politics) of Campaigning
I. Polling and Consensus
9 Public Opinion and Consensus (1)  
10 Public Opinion and Consensus (2)  
11 Consensus by Aggregation Research questions for final paper due
12 Representation and Minorities  
13 Consensus and Difference  
II. Candidate Branding
14 Campaigning for Hearts and Minds Assignment 2: Imagining a Campaign due
15 The Multimodality of Message  
16 Celebrity Politics  
17 Popular Politics  
18

Politics on the Ground

Screening

Street Fight. Directed by Marshall Curry. Color, 83 min. 2005.

  
III. Engineering Majorities
19 Microtargeting Preliminary observations for final paper due
20 Ground Wars (1)  
21 Ground Wars (2)  
22 Ground Wars (3)  
23

Ground Wars (4)

Fake News Exercise

Everyone picks one "fake" news article and shares it with the class. Fake news articles can include satirical news, native advertisement (click bait), fabricated news, and legitimate yet controversial articles (see examples in the Readings section).

The instructor will print out the pieces in plain text, with no photos, without any formatting, and without author identification. We will read and discuss the articles in class, we'll try to spot which ones are "fake news" and we'll talk about the differences in style, content, and intent of each piece.

  
24 Controlled Interactivity  
25 Presidential Campaigning in the Internet Age  
26 Presentations  
27 Presentations and Wrap-Up Final paper due