Public Presidency

Please discuss how Presidents use social media to move their policies and govern from the television. Must apply “Media Theories”: such as propaganda, civic religion (patriotism), public sphere, social capital, surveillance, free speech, etc.

INSTRUCTIONS: Students will present a topic of their own choice to the entire class. The presentation should be the equivalent 2 pages of text and a PowerPoint (up to 10 slides). The presentation should ideally be a preparation for the final research paper. You are expected to find 3 scholarly sources for your research that are not part of the assigned reading in class.

Additional Guidelines:

Find your own topic, and discuss it with the instructor in beforehand via e-mail.
Find a minimum of 3 new scholarly articles for your research.
Justify why you think your topic is of relevance.
Put your own topic into its proper historical and/or political context.
Structure your argument clearly.
Prepare up to 3 questions for class discussion.
For general remarks, see the presentation guidelines in Appendix I, page 21.
Grading: 10 points total

complexity of the argument (5 points)
correct rendition of the your argument (1 point)
additional scholarly sources (3 points)
clarity and correctness of writing ( point)
handling your responses to questions in the discussion ( point)

CLASS READING LIST:
2.04 Adorno, Theodor W. Culture Industry Reconsidered. New German Critique 6 (Autumn, 1975): 12- 19.
2.02 Anderson, Benedict. Imagined Communities. Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. London, New York: Verso, 1983. 1-46.
1.02 Assmann, Jan. Collective Memory and Cultural Identity. New German Critique 65 (Spring/Summer 1995): 125-133.
5.02 Barthes, Roland. The Death of the Author. In: Image Music Text. Trans. Stephen Heath. New York: Hill and Wang, 1977. 142-148.
6.01 Baum, Matthew A., Yuri M. Zhukov. What Determines the News About Foreign Policy? Newspaper Ownership, Crisis Dynamics and the 2011 Libyan Uprising. Paper prepared for 2012 International Studies Association Annual Meeting San Diego, CA, April 4, 2012.
7.03 Baumgartner, Jody C., Jonathan S. Morris. MyFaceTube Politics: Social Networking Web Sites and Political Engagement of Young Adults. Social Science Computer Review 28:24 (2010): 2444.
8.12 Bechky, Perry S. “The International Law of Game of Thrones.” Alabama Law Review 67.1 (2015).
3.05 Bellah, Robert N. Civil Religion in America. Ddalus 96:1 (Winter 1967): 1-21. Retrieved from: http://www.robertbellah.com/articles_5.htm (05/10/2013).
and Bill Moyers interview: http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/archives/bellahwoi_flash.html
4.04 Benjamin, Walter. The Work of Art in the Age of Technological Reproducibility. Eiland, Howard, Michael William Jennings, eds. Walter Benjamin. Selected Writings, Volume 4, 1938-1940. Belknap P of Harvard U P, Cambridge and London, 2003. 251-283.
7.02 Carr, Nicholas. “Is Google making us stupid?.” Yearbook of the National Society for the Study of Education 107.2 (2008): 89-94.
1.01 Bennett, Tony. “Theories of the media, theories of society.” Culture, society and the media (1982): 30-55.
6.03 Bennett, W. Lance. The Personalization of Politics: Political Identity, Social Media, and Changing Patterns of Participation. The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 644: 20 (2012): 20-39.
8.02 Beyer, Sandra. A Utopia for Conservatives and Real Men: Sexual Politics and Gendered Relations in Star Trek. In: Antje Dallmann, Reinhard Isensee, Philipp Kneis (Eds.) Envisioning American Utopias. Fictions of Science and Politics in Literature and Visual Culture. Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 2011. 143 162.
8.10 Chaddha, Anmol, William Julius Wilson. Way Down in the Hole: Systemic Urban Inequality and The Wire. Critical Inquiry 38:1 (2011): 123.
5.05 Colletta, Lisa. Political Satire and Postmodern Irony in the Age of Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart. The Journal of Popular Culture 42:5 (2009): 856-874.
8.11 Dittmer, Jason. “Captain America’s empire: reflections on identity, popular culture, and post-9/11 geopolitics.” Annals of the Association of American Geographers 95.3 (2005): 626-643.
8.04 Eco, Umberto. The Myth of Superman: The Amazing Adventures of Superman. Diacritics 2.1 (Spring, 1972): 1422.
6.05 Geer, John G. The News Media and the Rise of Negativity in Presidential Campaigns. PS: Political Science & Politics 45.03 (2012): 422-427.
3.01 Habermas, Jrgen. The Public Sphere: An Encyclopedia Article. New German Critique 3 (Autumn, 1974): 49-55.
8.01 Hatfield, Elizabeth Fish. What it Means to Be a Man: Examining Hegemonic Masculinity in Two and a Half Men. Communication, Culture & Critique 3 (2010): 526548.
2.05 Herbst, Susan. “Political authority in a mediated age.” Theory and Society 32.4 (2003): 481-503. 2.03 Hobbs, Renee, and Sandra McGee. “Teaching about Propaganda: An Examination of the Historical
Roots of Media Literacy.” Journal of Media Literacy Education 6.2 (2014): 5.
4.01 Kellner, Douglas M., Meenakshi Gigi Durham. Adventures in Media and Cultural Studies: Introducing the KeyWorks. In: Kellner, Douglas M., Meenakshi Gigi Durham, eds. Media and Cultural Studies. KeyWorks. London: Blackwell, 2006. ix- xxxviii.
8.06 Kneis, Philipp. Barbarians at the Gate: (Ig)Noble Savages and Manifest Destiny at the Final Frontier. In: Antje Dallmann, Reinhard Isensee, Philipp Kneis (Eds.) Envisioning American Utopias. Fictions of Science and Politics in Literature and Visual Culture. Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 2011. 103 128.
8.05 Kneis, Philipp. Finding Atlantis Instead of Utopia: From Plato to Starfleet and Stargate Command. In: Antje Dallmann, Reinhard Isensee, Philipp Kneis (Eds.) Envisioning American Utopias. Fictions of Science and Politics in Literature and Visual Culture. Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 2011. 79102.
8.07 Kneis, Philipp. Communicating Democracy: Entering the American Republic through The West Wing or the Commander in Chief. In: Antje Dallmann, Reinhard Isensee, Philipp Kneis (Eds.) Picturing America. Trauma, Realism, Politics and Identity in American Visual Culture. Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 2007. 131149.
6.02 McCombs, Maxwell E., Donald L. Shaw. The Agenda-Setting Function of Mass Media. The Public Opinion Quarterly 36:2 (Summer, 1972): 176187.
4.02 McLuhan, Marshall. The Playboy Interview. Playboy Magazine (March 1969). Retrieved from http://www.digitallantern.net/mcluhan/mcluhanplayboy.htm (05/10/2013).
8.03 Mizejewski, Linda. Feminism, Postfeminism, Liz Lemonism. Comedy and Gender Politics on 30 Rock. Genders OnLine Journal 55 (2012). www.genders.org/g55/g55_mizejewski.html (Retrieved 2013/11/24).
5.01 Murfin, Ross C., Johanna M. Smith. “What Is Cultural Criticism?” In: Murfin, Ross C., ed. Case Studies in Contemporary Criticism: Heart of Darkness. Boston: Bedford/St. Martins, 1996. Retrieved from http://www.usask.ca/english/frank/cultint.htm. (05/10/2013).
1.03 Nye, Joseph. Soft Power. Foreign Policy 80 (Autumn 1990): 153-171.
3.02 Papacharissi, Zizi. The Virtual Sphere: The Internet as a Public Sphere. New Media Society 4:9
(2002): 9-27.
8.09 Penfold-Mounce, Ruth, David Beer, Roger Burrows. The Wire as Social Science-Fiction? Sociology 45:152 (2011): 152-167.
7.05 Pittman, Matthew, and Brandon Reich. “Social media and loneliness: Why an Instagram picture may be worth more than a thousand Twitter words.” Computers in Human Behavior 62 (2016): 155-167.
7.04 Piwek, Lukasz, and Adam Joinson. “What do they snapchat about? Patterns of use in time-limited instant messaging service.” Computers in Human Behavior 54 (2016): 358-367.
2.01 Platos Theories of Politics, Media and Representation. Excerpts from the Republic and Phaedrus.
5.03 Poster, Mark. Global Media and Culture. New Literary History 39 (2008): 685-703.
4.05a Postman, Neil. Amusing Ourselves to Death. Address at 1984 Frankfurt Book Fair. Retrieved from http://www.suu.edu/honors/Amusing%20Ourselves.pdf. (05/10/2013).
4.05b ___. The Information Age: A Blessing or a Curse? The Harvard International Journal of Press/Politics 9:2 (2004): 3-10.
4.05c ___. Five Things We Need to Know About Technological Change. Talk delivered in Denver Colorado , March 28, 1998.
3.03 Putnam, Robert D. “Tuning in, Tuning out: The Strange Disappearance of Social Capital in America.” PS: Political Science & Politics 28.04 (1995): 664-683.
6.04 Scheufele, Dietram A., David Tewksbury. Framing, Agenda Setting, and Priming: The Evolution of Three Media Effects Models. Journal of Communication 57 (2007): 920.
7.01 Shonkoff, Sam Berrin. “Internet Searchers, God Seekers, and Longing for the Unmediated.” Symposia: The Journal of the Department for the Study of Religion, University of Toronto. Vol. 6. 2014.
3.04 Siisiainen, Martti. “Two concepts of social capital: Bourdieu vs. Putnam.” International Journal of Contemporary Sociology 40.2 (2003): 183-204.
4.03 Sontag, Susan. In Platos Cave. In: On Photography. New York: Picador, 1977. 124.
8.08 Vogler, Christopher. “A Practical Guide to Joseph Campbells The Hero with a Thousand Faces.”
Hero’s Journey (1985).
2.06 White, Hayden. The Value of Narrativity in the Representation of Reality. Critical Inquiry 7:1
(Autumn, 1980): 5-27.
8.11 iek, Slavoj. Jack Bauer and the Ethics of Urgency. In These Times 01/27/2006.
http://inthesetimes.com/article/2481/jack_bauer_and_the_ethics_of_urgency (Retrieved 11/24/2013).

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