Teaching Political Communication

by David L. Paletz

I particularly appreciate Jill Edy’s invitation to contribute to the Newsletter’s roundtable on “teaching political communication” because it gives me the opportunity briefly to express some of the ideas that Diana Owen, Tim Cook, and I are working with as we write our political communication oriented American government and politics textbook.

We have a broad understanding of political communication. For us, it starts with people’s political socialization, public opinion, and political participation; continues with interest groups, political parties, and campaigns and elections; covers the institutions of government (legislature, executive, bureaucracy, and courts); and culminates with policymaking and public policies.
We have a broad understanding of information and of the media. For us, students live in an information age. They acquire almost all of their information about people in politics, the institutions and processes of government, and public policies in mediated ways.

Some of this information is interpersonal, such as email, instant messaging and cell phone conversations. It comes from forms of on line communication such as weblogs, podcasts and wikis. But most of it originates in the media aimed at large audiences: from television, radio, movies, newspapers, magazines, as well as the new media.

Students learn from the news. This interest is encouraged by dramatic and dynamic changes in how the news media operate. The news cycle is now twenty-four hours a day seven days a week with breaking news disseminated instantly. The Internet and the Web present a cornucopia of information repeating, amplifying, challenging or contradicting the mainstream media.
Students also learn from media entertainment. They watch such programs as The Simpsons, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, Saturday Night Live, the late night television talk shows of Jay Leno or David Letterman), Law and Order (in its various incarnations) and (fewer of them) The West Wing. They may have seen Michael Moore’s polemical Fahrenheit 9/11. The music they listen to can have political messages (Lee Greenwood’s God Bless the USA). The more sophisticated among them are familiar with the satirical newspaper The Onion. They receive opinions from columnists, pundits, talk-show hosts such as Oprah, and commentators such as Rush Limbaugh.

At the same time, students are often unfamiliar with the causes of the media’s contents. That is, the importance of ownership, profits, professionalism and prestige. They do not know much about the process by which news is reported and presented. They have opinions about but little understanding of such issues as objectivity and bias.

Nor do many students fully grasp that the media’s contents are often influenced by forces outside the media seeking to benefit politically. How interest groups, political parties, candidates for office, and policymakers use media-savvy techniques to try to maximize their positive and minimize their negative coverage in the media.

Viewing American government and politics from a political communication perspective can therefore contribute to students’ civic education. It can enable them to see beyond media depictions and knowledgeably accept and appreciate, question and criticize, the realities of American politics and government. It can make them aware of how the media help and hinder civic activity. It can develop their civic competence and conduct, encourage them to become involved in politics, government, and the making of public policies.

David L. Paletz is Professor of Political Science at Duke University, editor of Political Communication, and author of The Media in American Politics: Contents and Consequences.

Return to the roundtable