Department of Sociology and Political Science, NTNU – Trondheim, invites applications for a PhD/Research Course in Media, opinion and political behavior to be held in Trondheim from August 19th to 23th, 2013.
Lecturer: Shanto Iyengar, Professor at Department of Communication and Department of Political Science, Stanford University and Adjunct Professor at Department of Sociology and Political Science, NTNU – Trondheim.
Course code and title: POL8509 – Media, Opinion and Political Behavior
Course dates: 19 – 23 August 2013 Course credits: 10 pts (ECTS) Deadline for application: August 1st, 2013.
Semester fee: 430 NOK
To download the application form please follow the link below
For more information please contact:
Senior Executive Officer Einar Gimse Syrstad,
Department of Sociology and Political Science, NTNU.
Phone: +47 73591705, e-mail: einar.syrstad@svt.ntnu.no
Objectives The objective of this course is to survey the literature in political communication with an emphasis on empirical approaches to examining the interplay between news media use, political attitudes and voting behavior. The course will cover a variety of methodological approaches – both observational and experimental – for studying the effects of mass media. Although much of the work is based on American data, we incorporate cross-national studies and evidence where available. At the end of the term the student shall hand in a term paper where he/she demonstrates the ability to discuss a related theme in an independent analytical manner. This paper should be at a high international level and written individually.
Reading needed for the course: Iyengar, Shanto (2011) Media Politics: A Citizen’s Guide. New York: W. W. Norton
All other course readings will be included in a compendium made available to participants in August (see lecture outline for details).
LECTURE OUTLINE
Lecture 1: News Media as a Political Institution
Readings: Media Politics, Chapter 2; Curran et al., “Media System, Public Knowledge and Democracy: A Comparative Study;” Iyengar et al., “Cross-National Versus Individual-Level Differences in Political Information: A Media Systems Perspective;” Aalberg et al., “Media systems and the political information environment: A cross-national comparison”
Lecture 2: Explaining the Content and Reach of News Programming
Readings: Media Politics, Chapters 3-5; Bennett, “Toward a theory of press-state relations;” Hindman et al., “Googlearchy: How a few Heavily-Linked Sites Dominate Politics on the Web;” Iyengar et al., “Selective exposure to campaign communication;” Hamilton, All the News That’s Fit to Print, pp. 137-56; Lawrence et al., “Self-segregation or deliberation: Blog readership, participation and polarization”
Lecture 3: Long-term influences on Public Opinion
Readings: Almond and Verba, The Civic Culture, Chapter 1; Iyengar et al., “Fear and loathing in party politics;” Kinder and Kam, Us Against Them, Chapter 2; Mondak et al., “Personality and civic engagement;” Campbell et al., The American Voter, Chapter 6; Jennings, “The intergenerational transfer of political ideology in eight western nations;” Vittrup and Holden, “Exploring the Impact of Educational Television and
Parent–Child Discussions on Children’s Racial Attitudes”
Lecture 4: Uninformed Opinion and Heuristics
Readings: Achen and Bartels, “Blind retrospection, electoral responses, flu, and shark attacks;”Lupia, “Shortcuts versus encyclopedias;” Popkin, “Information shortcuts and the reasoning Voter;” Kull et al., “Media, Misperceptions, and the Iraq War;” Gordon and Segura, “Cross-national variation in the political sophistication of individuals: Capability or Choice?”
Lecture 5: Methodological Strategies for Media Effects Research
Reading: Iyengar, “Laboratory experiments in political science;” Hovland, “Reconciling conflicting results derived from experimental and survey studies of attitude change;” Vavreck and Iyengar, Vavreck & Iyengar, “The future of political communication research: Online panels and experimentation”
Lecture 6: Persuasion and Attitude Change
Reading: Iyengar, Media Politics, pp. xx-xx; Zaller, “A model of communication effects at the outbreak of the Gulf War;” Mutz, “Cross-cutting social networks: Testing democratic theory in practice;” Bennett and Iyengar, “A new era of minimal effects? The changing foundations of political communication”
Lecture 7: The Agenda-Setting Paradigm
Reading: Iyengar, Media Politics, Chapter 8; Iyengar & Kinder, News That Matters, Chapters 3 & 7; Christoffer Green-Pedersen and Rune Stubager, “The political conditionality of mass media influence: When do parties follow mass media attention;” Hart and Middleton, Priming, Projection, or Both? Reevaluating the Classic Media Priming Hypothesis; Walgrave and Van Aelst, “The Contingency of the Mass Media’s
Political Agenda Setting Power: Toward a Preliminary Theory “
Lecture 8: Framing Effects
Reading: Tversky & Kahneman, “The framing of decision and the psychology of choice;” Scheufele and Iyengar, Handbook chapter on framing research; Chong & Druckman, Dynamics in mass communication effects research
Lecture 9: Campaigns and Voting
Reading: Iyengar, Media Politics, Chapter 9; Stevenson and Vavreck, “Does campaign length matter? Testing for cross-national effects;” Iyengar & Petrocik, The impact of campaigns on party and approval-based voting;” Arceneaux, “Do Campaigns Help Voters Learn? A Cross-National Analysis;” Silver, “Models, Models, Everywhere”
Lecture 10: summarize and synthesize session
The lecturer Shanto Iyengar holds a joint appointment as the Harry and Norman Chandler Chair in Communication and Professor of Political Science at Stanford University. Iyengar is also a senior fellow (by courtesy) at the Hoover Institution as well as an adjunct professor of Communication at the Department of Sociology and Political Science, NTNU -Trondheim.
Iyengar’s teaching and research addresses the role of the news media and mass communication in contemporary politics. He is the author of several books including Media Politics: A Citizen’s Guide (W. W. Norton, 2011), Going Negative: How Political Advertisements Shrink and Polarize the Electorate (Free Press, 1995), Explorations in Political Psychology (Duke University Press, 1993), and News That Matters: Television and American Opinion (University of Chicago Press, 1987).
Iyengar currently serves as the editor of Political Communication (Taylor and Francis), an inter-disciplinary journal sponsored by the American Political Science Association and the International Communication Association.
Iyengar’s research has been published by leading journals in political science and communication. He is also a regular contributor to Washingtonpost.com. His scholarly awards include the Murray Edelman Career Achievement Award for research in political communication, the Philip Converse Award for the best book in the field of public opinion (for News That Matters), the Goldsmith Book Prize (for Going Negative), and the Distinguished Alumni Achievement Award from the University of Iowa.