E-portfolio

I know I was probably the LAST person to register for this class. Add/Drop ended on a Sunday I believe and I picked up the class the last day of Add/Drop. Well with that being said, I didn't really understand what the class was going to be about. I knew Dr. Azriel was a communications professor but that all I knew. When I checked my class list I saw about 6 names registered so I kind of got scared not knowing what I got myself into.  Come to find out, I really enjoyed this class this semester. It was a lot due with my other classes but the work was actually fun.

The Three concepts I learned...

First, this class really helped me identify Political Communication. It was weird because on my D2L it says something like "Special Topics" but I simply just called the class Political Communication. Political communication really came together when we were going to different rallies, comparing candidates, and writing papers on interviews and the information we collected.  The concept of Political communication helped me pay more attention to not just numbers of votes but candidates communications either it was via social media, email, stickers, t-shirts and slogans.

Second, framing was another huge concept I learned in this class. Honestly speaking, I did not know what framing was when it came to this class. Being able to identify in certain media outlets was interesting to me. Now I it is hard to read an article without identifying in what way is the media portraying candidates or influencing readers.

Last, narrative was another concept I learned this year. Narratives are not just books, candidates well a story through their campaign. Candidates have a story to tell, a story we listen to. It goes beyond what we learned in middle and high school (lol).

Journalism and Research Project...

The first content analysis was difficult for me. My group and I did research and analyze Dr. Ben Carson and Dr. Rand Paul. We decided to use these two candidates because they had many things in common. Both candidates are in the medical field, both are family men, and they are both running for office. The content analysis became difficult for me because I some how had to find my political side and incorporate it into a research paper. We created a google doc and everyone researched and added things in different paragraphs in order to make a full paper. The second content analysis was a bit easier. coding was something different for me as well. Thank God each group had at least on journalism student or one political science student. I used MSNBC and pulled out 25 articles that dealt with the campaign. After we got that part done, it was time to out it together. I did the findings section and basically described what our researched showed. I analyze two articles and the type of frame that was used in each article.

The news paper story was not hard to do.  I took pictures and wrote down quotes from Bernie Sanders rally and incorporated them into the news story. The second news article I was not able to attend so I just help edit the news article. The third news story was about the presidential candidate.  I interviewed a student voter and wrote out the summary of the interview that way it was easier to put it together. 

I demonstrated the ability to produce high quality research projects relating to political communication once information was gathered and analyzed. Conducting interviews, researching candidates not only what they have done now but also what they have done in the past, and by attending events creating the research.  The articles that was given to us to read online help direct my definition of political communication. It was easier to understand what readers would look for when writing about candidates and the elections. As a journalist student bringing out my political side held me back a few times. At times, I probably felt the pressure due to lack of politics. It was hard to keep up with the election results, the candidates, and campaign rallies.  I don’t think I did the best on accurately describing and providing critical perspectives on the intersection between political communication and American elections because a lot of the assignments I did, I did it for a grade. I did not really focus on comparing and contrasting the both. But looking back, remembering everything I did in the class helps me put that objective together.  I believe that when it came to my journalism side I was able to accurately produce a high quality theme on American elections. 

Journalism is something that I knew and very familiar with. It was much easier to put things together when it was time to take pictures and conduct interviews. I may not have focused completely on comparing political communication and American elections but I know this class allowed me to enjoy political science a lot more than before.  I was able to carefully observe American political communication processes in practice without having any political science experience. The class gave me a lot of experience and helped me out of my comfort zone. I’m glad I took the class. The class gave me the opportunity to go to a rally which is probably the most memorable thing about the class!