Political Communications Portfolio

            This semester in Political Communication in American Elections has taught me much about how politics is dominated by how you communicate. I have learned much about specific concepts within political communication, such as narrative, which is when a candidate’s campaign or the media present information in an easy to follow story. Often candidates place the people they are talking to directly in their campaign narrative to help galvanize support. Media outlets use narrative to present the news in a format that is easy to understand. Another concept from political communications is framing. This is used by the media, as it is how they present their story or narrative. There are primarily four different types of frames, horse-race, conflict, issues, and candidate attributes, which dictate how the media outlet presents their stories. Finally, the concept of confirmation bias primarily revolves around consumers of the news media. It speaks of consumers who seek out information that validates their already held opinions while ignoring outlets that disagree with them.

            For the first project, Content Analysis 1, we looked at how campaign websites used positive and negative imagery and wording to see how candidates from different parties communicated. I helped with coding on Christie’s website and I helped write the report. For News Report 1 and 2 we attended campaign events and wrote about them. I took video for our group. For our Field Study Project we looked at how Bernie Sanders uses rhetoric to mobilize his supporters. I studied video of the event and wrote about how he placed his supporters in the middle of his campaign narrative in order to make their support of him more personal. For News Report 3 we wrote about the state of the Republican Primary after Georgia voted. I helped write and conducted a voter interview. Finally, for Content Analysis 2 we looked at how different news websites framed their stories. I helped write the report.

Excerpt from Content Analysis 1 showing analysis of the imagery and wording used.

            I think, for the most part, the four course goals were achieved. Both the Content Analyses helped meet the first course goal of producing projects related to political communication. The Content Analyses and the Field Research Project helped give us a better view of how politics and communication work off each other. Our News Stories helped give us real experience producing political journalism, and all the hands on work we did attending events helped shape a respectful relationship with American politics.