POLS 201 Media and Politics

This course examines how the mass media affects democratic politics in the United States. In the U.S., the media is comprised of various news sources, including mainstream news outlets (e.g., ABC, CBS, NBC, The Washington Post, The New York Times), cable news shows (e.g., CNN, Fox News, MSNBC), online blogs, talk radio, online video platforms, and satirical political comedy shows. In the growing Internet age, news is also delivered via social media (e.g., Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat), giving individuals a vast array of diverse political information. In this course, we aim to understand how information is delivered to citizens, what impact it has on them, and how the media may affect public policy. In general, in this class we work toward a better understanding of the media’s role in American politics.