Media Presentation of the Women’s Suffrage Movement of 20th Century

Given our conversations about Media and Political Knowledge (Chapter 4), Contemporary Political Socialization (Chapter 5), Agenda-Setting (Chapter 6), and Framing (Chapter 7), you are well-equipped to discuss not only how American citizens acquire information about political matters (both consciously and unconsciously), but also how particular stories or aspects of information are made salient in the mind of the public.

For this assignment, you'll choose one of the three following activities:

1) Choose a historic political issue from the 20th Century and briefly describe it. (Examples might include: The Women's Suffrage Movement, The Civil Rights Movement, abortion, Second Amendment rights, The New Deal, etc...) You'll briefly describe the issue and the political actors involved - lobbying/interest groups, political figures, governmental agents, public personalities - folks or groups who played a major part in or offered an opinion on the topic. For this activity, you'll inspect the role of the media in disseminating information about the issue to the public over a period of time. You won't necessarily be able to demonstrate agenda-setting (unless you have access to old historic newspapers/documents to show what was prioritized), so instead, I'd like you to look for headlines or historic articles written as the issue was evolving - and analyze how the media followed the societal change (if anything changed) through language. Did the media "shape" the story with their words? Did they try to "prime" audiences who already had opinions in any way? Were interest groups or individuals trying to "frame" the issue in the media, and were they successful (and in what ways)? Did a policy agenda emerge in response to media or public demand?

2) As the book notes, many lament "political games" that are played, but in fact "these are endemic to democracy" (p. 154). You'll choose a contemporary political story/event - something within the past year. Like the first activity, you'll give a quick summary, and highlight the actors (e.g. politicians, interest groups, lobbyists, the general public, concerned citizens, etc...) who played a major part in or offered an opinion on the event or story. But in this assignment, you'll dig deep on WHY the political actors are involved - by choice or necessity? - and HOW they responded to the event/situation. Did they release a statement? Utilize the press? Use a Twitter account? Craft a campaign? How did the reactions from each actor vary - and who is/was their intended audience? Were they effective? How do you know? What do we know about how their intended audiences receive their news? What motivations and constraints did each actor possess or face in this scenario?

3) I will assign you a politician, at random. Using the Penn State research tools available to you (e.g. the library, journal articles, news reports, etc…), I’d like you to examine some statements made by the politician related to an issue of importance at that point in time. You’ll want to give a description of the issue itself, and discuss how the politician (or candidate) attempted to frame the issue – what did they believe the public’s agenda was, and what language (e.g. metaphors, comparisons, linguistic tricks, the words themselves) was used to drive home the necessity of the action/belief in the mind of the politician, to the general public. How did the media frame the issue? Was it different? What level of importance was the issue given, by the media (agenda-setting), and how did the public respond? Analyze the angle from all sides – media agenda, public agenda, political agenda – and use resources from the text and class discussion to make your case.

Ground rules for all options:

1) You'll use evidence from the lectures and texts as appropriate.

2) You'll properly cite (APA style) any lifted quotes from political communication texts and give citations/context to quotes, headlines, tweets, etc...from media sources.

3) Paper should be typed, roughly 3-4 pages, double-spaced, 1 inch margins in 12-point font. I will not accept handwritten submissions.

4) Papers will be graded on adherence to these guidelines as well as on the strength of your argument and use of evidence from both media content and course materials. I will be looking for thoughtful and creative application of the media content you find/story you decide to cover to the lessons we've already learned in class.