This fall, students will have the chance to scrutinize the complex relationship between democracy and the media in Dr. Julia Fox’s course, MSCH-S 312: Politics and the Media. The course will examine print, broadcast, and social media formats, and aims to equip students with the tools they need to understand, analyze, and discuss political news. An interview with Dr. Fox, an associate professor in The Media School, is below.
Social media plays an increasingly crucial role in national and global politics. Will the course directly address the relationship between politics and social media?
Fox: Yes, we do two different assignments. We have an assignment where students consider all of the problems associated with fake news on social media -- and they are numerous. A lot of people use social media for political information, and there’s a lot of fake news on it, so it travels faster and it travels farther than real news.
A lot of people are aware that fake news is out there; they know they’re being exposed to it, but they don’t think it influences them. One study in particular suggested that it did.
People are falling for this stuff even if they don’t think they are. That’s one of the things we talk about -- specifically fake news.
Since 2017, we’ve added an assignment on presidential tweets because that’s a very common way for this president to communicate. So we include a social media component in a couple of different ways.
A lot of people are aware that fake news is out there; they know they’re being exposed to it, but they don’t think it influences them. One study in particular suggested that it did.
What type of students would you encourage to enroll in this course? What qualities should they have? What will you expect of them?
Fox: I think it’s important to know that there’s no prerequisite.
Clearly, it’s a Media School course, so Media School students should get something out of it. I think political science majors and SPEA students would be very interested in it as well. But also students not so obviously connected, especially anyone who’s a U.S. citizen who is planning to vote in the presidential election, should find it relevant and interesting.
We also have a lot of international students who take the class and can’t vote in the elections, but certainly, they’re impacted by our elections.
When you’re in the class, you are expected to follow what’s happening in politics. Assignments are all related to relevant topics that are happening during that semester.
But you don’t have to know a lot about politics and current events before you take the class. Most students don’t, and that’s fine. One of the things they get out of the class is they get more interested in it. They say “Oh, I’m less intimidated, I feel like I can talk about politics and I don’t have to worry that it’s just going to end up in an argument, or like I’m going to feel like I don’t know enough.”
People shouldn’t have to feel like they have to have a passion or an incredible knowledge coming in -- it’s perfectly fine -- but they should expect to care more and learn more about it by the time they get out.
[The news] is 24/7 -- on the radio, on TV, on your phone. There’s no way to miss the news anymore. But it’s become a much more fractured and partisan media landscape.
Media is a constantly-evolving landscape. How will your class keep up with recent developments in the politics of media?
Fox: That’s one of the things we talk about -- the changing and fractured nature of the landscape.
By the end of the semester, my students get really tired of hearing how my mother used to say she “missed the news” when she came home five minutes after the network news had started. Of course she could turn on the radio, and we got the newspaper the next day, but now, it just sounds silly. You couldn’t miss the news if you tried.
It’s 24/7 -- on the radio, on TV, on your phone. There’s no way to miss the news anymore. But it’s become a much more fractured and partisan media landscape. We’re not even sharing the same messages, and if we do, even if they are objective messages, we don’t necessarily have the same responses.
We do talk a lot about that in class. We have a little in-class exercise where everybody writes down all of their media sources for political information on a piece of paper, and then we walk around the room and initial someone else’s sheet if you share the same source of information. We make a big list for the whole class, and you can see just in that one room of 30-40 students, we could have dozens of different sources.
Even if you’re not a citizen who can vote, anyone who lives in this world is impacted by presidential politics in the U.S., and everyone who lives in this world is impacted by media.
Is there a place in the class for visual media alongside verbal media?
Fox: There’s a lot of visual. We talk a lot about television. The last assignment that my students did this semester -- and I’m sure we'll do it again in the fall -- is to analyze a campaign ad and, in particular, to look at the formal features and structural features in the ad -- not just whether the pictures are attractive or not, but the color and the camera angle as well as things like audio and music. There’s definitely a lot of attention to visuals in the course.
Why is it important for students to take this course? What will they get out of it?
Fox: Students are citizens and students consume media, so to me, it seems like a no-brainer. My dad always says that there’s a good reason and a real reason. That’s often one of the first day exercises -- for people to write down and talk about the good reasons and real reasons to take the class. Sometimes, the real reason is that they needed one more class for their major, that’s fine.
But, as I said before, even if you’re not a citizen who can vote, anyone who lives in this world is impacted by presidential politics in the U.S., and everyone who lives in this world is impacted by media. Even though we tend to focus on U.S. politics, students from South Korea or from China can still equate a lot of the things we’re talking about to political media in their countries.
What do you expect to be the most engaging or exciting assignment in this course?
Fox: We do one at the very beginning where we have students identify an objective and a non-objective story on the same topic, usually on a hot, trending topic. At the beginning of this semester, the hot topic was impeachment, which now seems like five years ago, but was really just a couple months ago. Students work with a partner or a small group. They compare the stories they found and discuss what they thought made these stories objective or not. Then they do word clouds and compare how those look. That’s a fun one.
I’m a nerd, so I think assignments are fun. They like to do the presidential tweets assignment, too, because it gives them a chance to express an opinion, and it doesn’t take long to find a tweet from the president, so I think they enjoy that one. I think breaking down the ads, and fake news, too, is something they can relate to. I hope they’re all relevant.
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