GH 301: Political Communication: Presidential Election Campaign (2024)

This course asks students to enter into an intense, fully engaged relationship with Presidential Campaign Communication as we will experience it during the 2024 presidential campaign.  The course aims to position students in close and critical attention to the presidential campaign within the framework of communication analyses and theories of presidential campaign practices.  Research supports a finding that “critical attention” is not the typical position of the electorate, even during a presidential campaign.   Additionally, ambivalence continues to characterize young voters attitudes to the act of voting; young voters include the college-aged and college-going in the United States.  Students in this course will read how political campaigns are conducted early in the term.  We will examine current artifacts of the campaign—commercials, endorsements, speeches, events, public discourse in the form of news, late-night comedy programs, etc.  You will organize with peers in small teams around the means by which you want to access the presidential campaign—we can’t watch the whole campaign while it is pursued, so you will choose your “window.” From that vantage, teams will identify, question, and evaluate communicative objects/practices/tactics produced or pursued by the campaign and your team will publish weekly insights and commentary from your observations of the campaign communication to a site public to the class.  The course includes a robust co-curriculum, including engaging with the Presidential Debates and Election Night coverage as well as other relevant speakers or events on campus during the campaign.  Analysis of college-age youth suggests that political activity increases when confidence increases; confidence increases through increased political knowledge and the practice of talking politics.  This course supports increasing student civic action and the our work seeks to do so.

Instructor: Dr. Darlene Hantzis

Please email Dr. Hantzis if you have questions about this course.