Communication Studies The University of Iowa College of Liberal Arts and Sciences Search

36:044 Rhetoric and Politics

Prerequisite: 36:001

Curriculum Fit:

This is a Communication Studies context course. It is designed to investigate how social and cultural contexts relating to political activities shape and are shaped by political communication practices and meanings. A typical definition of "political communication" for use in this course follows: "Political communication describes the discourses surrounding the processes of government, campaigns, elections, political parties and platforms. It also describes the political process of influencing decision-makers on topics of public importance, whether by floor debate, lobbying, grassroots organizing, media campaigns, or other means. Finally, political communication also describes a cultural process of making matters of personal concern (needs, demands, and desires) into public or social issues and constituting public identities and social relationships through language." The rhetorical focus generally means that the instructor examines political communication from the perspectives of persuasion, identification, or strategies and tactics of consensus-building and opposition. The relationship between the mass media and political communication is an important element of the course, but not typically the predominant focus, because this perspective can be investigated in other undergraduate courses within the Department.

Students taking this course would be assumed to have completed at least part of their Rhetoric Department requirements and the Communications Studies core course. Some may have completed the basic course in Business and Professional Communication and/or Communicating in Public. It would be expected that after this course, majors interested in political communication would enroll in a course sequence that would look something like this: American Public Address, Public Argument, Contemporary Political Rhetoric, Introduction to Rhetorical Criticism, and Studies in Argument, as well as cognate courses in media studies and interpersonal and group communication.

Textbooks:

There are a number of textbooks in political communication, but many of them use mass mediated political discourse as their focus. Two commonly used texts that views political communication as symbolic action is

Murray Edelman, Constructing the Political Spectacle. Chicago: U Chicago P, 1988.

Kathleen Hall Jamieson. Everything You Think You Know About Politics. . . And Why You're Wrong. New York: Basic, 2000.

It is recommended that potential instructors for this class obtain examination copies of political communication texts from various publishers so that they find texts that fit well with the rhetorical orientation that will inform their teaching.

Students are often required to purchase and read a daily newspaper, such as The New York Times. Instructors might also wish to either put public-domain texts of speeches and other rhetorical artifacts on a web site or photocopy and distribute those texts and artifacts to students.

Assignments and Readings:

As a context class, this course should be devoted primarily to lecture/discussion sessions. Students will be evaluated primarily on written assignments and in-class reports. Instructors often add participation in an ongoing public controversy or service-learning project as a component of the course. A sample assignment and reading list is attached.

Grading policy:

Students in this context course will be evaluated primarily on formal written assignments and in-class presentations. Attached to this sheet is a sample grading scale for the assignments and readings schedule.