New Media and Politics

This summer class has two online virtual sessions each week (MW 5:30-7pm Eastern Time), along with offline course work and discussion in the Arts & Sciences Learning Commons course site.

This course seeks to trace the evolving relationship between new media and the political process from three perspectives: the voter, political campaigns and candidates, and the news media. The course begins with a broad overview of the main theories of political communication and U.S. political campaigns leading up to 1996, the year the internet debuted in a presidential campaign.  It will then follow this evolution from the 1996 presidential campaign through the 2012 presidential campaign.   In addition, the course will examine issues of new media and activism with emphasis on the so-called Twitter and Facebook revolutions, including the Occupy Wall Street movement.