Political Communication's E-Portfolio

1.      Identify and discuss the significance of three key concepts you learned this semester

I think one of the most important concepts I learned about this semester was framing. Framing is something that is done by political campaigns, political parties and the media. I learned that a political campaign can be framed by the media in at least four ways: Conflict, Horserace, Issue and Candidate Attribute.

There is a popular assumption that candidates focus most on being likeable – on their attributes. This assumption held up when I coded the campaign website for Governor Martin O’Malley back in January. O’Malley was very concerned with being seen as the lifelong democrat, having “15 years of executive experience” and being part of an “Irish Rock band”. But when the governor did talk about issues, it was seen that he took more of a negative approach, focusing on what was broken instead of how he would fix it. O’Malley framed his discussion of issues through the use of fear.

In this piece from March 21 I took a brief look into framing and how it practically plays out in the news coverage of a presidential election. In this blog post I quoted a clip that said that, “No poll in the upcoming states [Arizona, Utah and Idaho] shows Sanders winning by enough of a margin.”

Senator Sanders won Idaho by 78%-21% and won Utah by 79%-20.%, losing Arizon 57%-39%.

One of the first things I did as a part of this class was to parse out exactly what political communication is and what it means in a practical and theoretical sense. As a communication major my overall perspective on this is influenced by my background in communication. I wrote for my first blog post this semester:

“Political communication is first and foremost the academic pursuit of an interdisciplinary understanding of the ways in which studies of political science (and the applied ‘politics’) interact with studies of communication (and applied fields including but not limited to ‘journalism’, ‘public relations’ and ‘advertising’).”

One thing I have found fascinating about the 2016 presidential election is the adoption of the use of the social media application Snapchat. Governor Lincoln Chafee was an early adopter of Snapchat, though it did not ultimately help him in his attempts to secure the Democratic nomination. Back in June only seven candidates for president had a Snapchat account, and all of them have since dropped out, with the most recent drop out being Senator Marco Rubio. I am very interested on a retrospective piece on the role of Snapchat (and all social media apps and platforms) in this election, and I wonder if there will be any theorizing that the presence of indomitable candidates such as Secretary Clinton and Donald Trump make it impossible to truly gauge the effectiveness of ever-evolving technology.

Very similar to framing are narratives. Every campaign and each candidate, attempts to weave a specific narrative about themselves, their campaign and the country. Back in February I investigated the narratives of “Donald Trump the Winner and Marco Rubio ‘The Republican Obama’”.

It was kind of pre-mature to observe the first narrative of Donald Trump as a winner back in early February. But two-and-a-half months later and the narrative has not only been continued in the media, but has been proven true by the voters.

Figure 1:  50% of these results show Donald Trump as a winner, even going as far as to say that he will be the nominee.

Trump has won twenty-two contests, twice as many as Senator Ted Cruz his closest contender. Trump has also one 2.3 million more votes than Senator Cruz. Trump and the media have constantly driven home the narrative of Trump as a winner, and so far that narrative has proven actually true.

            The narrative of Senator Rubio as ‘The Republican Obama’ have not held up, however. Arguably it was a weak narrative to begin with, seeing as Marco Rubio was the establishment candidate in comparison to some of his opponents (Donald Trump, Ben Carson, Carly Fiorina and even fellow senator Ted Cruz) and seeing as he never could get the race down to just being between him and one other opponent. Additionally, if the GOP ever had an inevitable candidate in 2016, that candidate was nothing similar to Senator Clinton in 2008. Rubio withdrew from the race for the presidency on March 15 and two days later on March 17 he announced he would not be running for reelection for senate. In fact it is thought now that Rubio is shifting from electoral politics toward a private life.

2.      Describe each of the journalism and research projects you worked on this semester, including a specific description of your role in each

a.      Content Analysis #1

For the first content analysis my group and I looked at the campaign websites of Governors O’Malley and Christie and hoped to answer two research questions: RQ1: “How do Governors Christie and O’Malley use positive and negative messaging on their websites and in their discussions of national security and criminal justice reform?” and RQ2: “How do Governors Christie and O’Malley’s discussions of national security and criminal justice reform compare?”

I had a hand in creating the proposal and influencing the direction our content analysis took. Specifically, I wanted to find a way to not focus on Clinton, Trump or any other front-runners, and eventually through group brainstorming the group decided on the Mid-Atlantic governors from opposite sides of the aisle who were both doing poorly in the polls. After that I did research into the subject of “What Do Voters Care About?” – trying to understand any similarities or differences New Jersey and Maryland voters had with each other or with the nation in general.

I then had to collect screencaps of O’Malley’s campaign website. Once our proposal for the content analysis had been approved, it was close to the date of the Iowa Caucus and we didn’t want to lose the primary source of the website if the governor dropped out (and subsequently took down his site). It may be worth noting that the site is still up.

Once I had the screencaps, it was time to begin combing through the site to code the data. Once I had finished coding data relevant to the two research questions I sent my coding off to my group members, who checked the coding to ensure inter-coder reliability. Similarly, I checked the coding of Christie’s site ensure inter-coder reliability. From there I contributed writing to the ‘Introduction’ section as well as the ‘Findings’ section. I also contributed to editing as the project reached its due date.

b.      News Story #1

For the first news story my group and I had to cover a political event. We chose to travel down to Atlanta to Morehouse College to cover a rally that Senator Sanders was having there. For this I conducted interviews, collected campaign materials and took pictures. I conducted six interviews over the course of the evening and listened to the speeches of the senator and all of his surrogates. I contributed to the writing and editing of the news story. As the only journalism student in my group working on this particular story, it fell to me to make sure that the story was formatted correctly and met AP-guidelines.

c.       News Story #2

For the second news story of the class we were charged with covering another political event. We chose to compare and contrast a town hall held by Governor John Kasich and a rally held by Donald Trump. I contributed reporting from a town hall Governor John Kasich held at Kennesaw State University. I conducted four interviews, recorded the town hall on a tape recorder and took notes and pictures.

d.      News Story #3

For the third news story my group and I had to do a retrospective on the Georgia Primary and Super Tuesday, and to obtain interviews with experts and those involved in campaigns to get their opinion on those elections and the elections to come. I interviewed the president of KSU for Bernie, Zach McDowell. I also took pictures of McDowell and contributed to the writing and editing.

e.       Field Research Project

For the field research project the group decided to analyze the research question: “How does Bernie Sanders’ rhetoric work to mobilize African American support?”

I contributed my notes and interviews from the Sanders events, respectively. I also contributed writing, editing and graphic-making.

I contributed the following analysis:

“Despite all of his efforts Senator Sanders has had a difficult time appealing to black voters. In South Carolina he won 14% of black voters to Secretary Clinton’s 86%. He did better in Nevada, where he received 22% of the Black vote to Clinton’s 76%. In Alabama Sanders won 6% of the black vote. In Arkansas he won 10% of the black vote. In Georgia Sanders won 14% of the black vote (and 41% of the white vote) to Clinton’s 85% of the black vote (and 58% of the white vote). In Oklahoma Sanders won 27% of the black vote. He won 10% in Tennessee, 15% in Texas, 16% in Virginia, 28% in Michigan and 11% in Mississippi.”

            It would be interesting to continue to track this trend and see how it has played out through to the most recent races. In fact, this is what that would look like:

f.        Content Analysis #2

For the second content analysis the group I worked with decided to collect a convenience sample of twenty-five articles from the Los Angeles Times and twenty-five articles from CNN. We collected our sample from Monday, March 28 to Friday, April 1. I collected the articles from the Los Angeles Times and I checked my groupmate’s coding for inter-coder reliability. I also contributed to key findings, analysis and editing.

3.      Upload at least one visual from the course projects (photos, audio/video from interviews, charts from content analysis/field research projects, etc.) with a description.

See above.

4.      Discuss and elaborate on how you did or did not successfully accomplish each of the four expressed learning objectives (listed below) for the course.

a.      Demonstrating the ability to produce high quality research projects relating to political communication in American elections

Though I’ve already taken two research methods classes (Communication and GWST/Interdisciplinary), I think that my ability to produce research in political communication in the future could benefit from a course in Political Science Research Methods. Obviously my time in this course has given me a degree of training that has improved my ability, but it was very much learn-by-doing. Given my grades in the course, I would say that my ability to produce research projects is above-average, but still has a way to go before becoming ‘high quality’.

b.      Accurately describing and providing critical perspectives on the intersection between political communication and American elections

I think that I have excelled most in this area. Already having been rather fascinated with American elections and communications, I had a vested interest in the intersection in question. I believe that my blogs throughout this course demonstrate my ability to provide the aforementioned critical perspectives.

c.       Producing high quality political journalism on the theme of American elections

I faltered on this in the beginning of the course, but I do believe that this course has helped me better my ability to produce this type of journalism in a high-quality manner. My interviews for the second and third news stories were much better than they were for the first one.

d.      Respectfully observing American political communication processes in practice.

‘Respectfully’ is highly subjective, but yes, I believe that I have been able to observe the political communication process in the United States with a respectful honesty. I attended two campaign events, interviewed many people and conducted many nights of live-tweeting, with various conversations interspersed, and I have always tried to keep decorum throughout all of it.

National News and Framing

By Branden Camp

I find it interesting that when you step back and analyze an article rather than just read it, you find that many articles are biased and have a strong elements of framing and agenda setting.

The Washington Post has written several articles focused on the negative attributes of Trumps personalities.  They have headlines like “To defend our Democracy against Trump….” Early in the article, they point out that the Republican Party should do everything they can to stop Trump.  This is an example of candidate attributes. They point out the flaws in the candidate’s character in this article.  In this same article they show how Trump is completely at odds with the Republican Party, which is a conflict frame.

The Washington Post also published an article that is clearly a horse race frame about Cruz and Trump in a race against each other.  The even say in the article that race has entered a “combative phase” between Ted Cruz and Donald Trump.

The article “The Plausibility of Ted Cruz” by New York Times, Ross Douthat talks through Cruz’s policy issues on foreign affairs and economic stance.  This is a clear issues frame.  This article also focuses on comparing Cruz to Rubio, using words like “attacking” when discussing how Cruz and Rubio face each other.  So we see some horse race framing as well as conflict frames.  Many of the national news, especially New York Times and Washington Post, they will focus on one type of frame while at the same time including some if not all four frames in their articles.

Kasich hosts Kennesaw State University town hall

By JONATHAN ORRILLO, THOMAS HARTWELL, JUSTIN NADYBAL, ADAM MAELAND

KENNESAW, Ga. – Republican presidential candidate John Kasich visited Kennesaw State, Tuesday, drawing more than 400 onlookers.

Kasich gave a short speech on his campaign platform before opening the floor to questions from the audience. Comments ranged from policy issues to questions of Kasich’s lack of aggression on the campaign trail.

Ohio Gov. John Kasich answers an audience member's question at Tuesday's KSU town hall meeting.

Photo by Thomas Hartwell

“I want to know how you’re going to stick it to Trump [and the others],” said one audience member.

Since stepping on KSU’s campus, Kasich made his message to audience members clear: Everyone has a purpose in life, and it is their job to find and fulfill it. When Kasich entered the Carmichael Student Center, he began by telling students that change starts with them.

Presidential hopeful John Kasich speaks to audience members of all ages at Tuesday's KSU town hall. Photo by Thomas Hartwell

“You are unique, and you are special and you have a purpose,” he said.

Kasich also spoke bluntly about issues like the economy, workforce and student debt, tailoring issues to the millennial-dominated crowd.

“We made a promise to these millennials that, if you go to college, you’ll get a good job, and somehow that promise has been broken,” he said.

While it might be expected that students would be upset by this and statements like it, many responded positively.

“He gave us a dose of reality rather than you know trying to build or hope up,” said University of Georgia student Brett Smith. “It is easy to offer free college, but I think he realizes that’s not feasible.”

The town hall left some students at KSU feeling that the presidential candidate was approachable and willing to talk with them one-on-one, taking questions and pictures with them after the meeting.

 “[It’s great] seeing someone in person and exactly hearing what they have to say, not just seeing them on TV,” said KSU student Alyx Fotiades. “I am a stronger supporter.”

Kasich has been gaining momentum in the republican race because of his experience and demeanor. Supporters view Kasich as a man that is an honest candidate and not an entertainer.

“He sees the glass as half full,” said Kasich supporter Tom Prior. “Almost all the other candidates see the glass as half empty.”

Kasich continued his campaign trail legacy, telling audience members he would continue to run a “friendly” campaign for votes, not entertainment.

John Kasich listens to student questions and comments at Tuesday's KSU town hall. Photo by Thomas Hartwell

“I am not going to go out there and do something to just grab attention,” he said. “Either you walk into a room and frighten people and make promises you can’t deliver on, or you walk into a room and say it’s going to be fine, we have path to fix this. Now that might not be as sexy, but that’s life.

Even with his positive demeanor, Kasich has stirred up controversy on the campaign trail. One day prior to the KSU town hall, Kasich stated that in 1978 he won the statehouse because women “left their kitchens to go vote.” Regardless of his statement, a significant amount of women attended and showed their support at the town hall.

“I think it was 75 or 80 percent of the women at that time did not work,” said Kasich supporter Angie Coleman. “The meeting that he was having they were called coffee house meetings. Instead of town halls they were small meetings where they were literally meeting in kitchens. It was not sexist, and anyone who thinks that about Kasich is silly.”

Kasich plans to continue his town hall meeting visits to Tennessee, Vermont, Massachusetts and Michigan in the coming weeks

What I've Learned

Gov. John Kasich at Kennesaw State University on Feb. 23

Oftentimes there exists within us preconceived notions. I had my own about what it meant for a candidate or their campaign to be positive or negative. One of the things I learned about research was that it can change those notions. In fact, to decide positivity or negativity, I had to quantify and quality those traits based on candidate’s website. I also learned that sometimes your source material is guaranteed to be permanent, and so you have to catch it while you can.

A screenshot of Gov. O'Malley's presidential campaign website

Another research lesson I learned is that it is important to pre-plan. It’s important to have more than just a notion of what you’re going to research, whether you’re collecting data off of a website, or conducting interviews, you want to have a thorough plan. Part of having a thorough plan is committing to meet in person with the people you are working with to work out and talk about what the group wants to do and how they want to do it in detail.

A little last minute practice and equipment-check

On the reporting side, things were interesting as well. I learned that you have to remember to get people’s emails when you email them, no matter who they are or what the situation is. It helps to validate and verify the source later on. The other lesson I’m still learning is that you just have to be able to approach people and try to talk to them. Some of them are going to say they don’t want to talk to you. They might not think you’re credentials are valid enough, or they just might not want their name in print or on the internet. But when you get that no, you just have to keep on going and go along to the next person and get the interviews you need.

And that's what I've learned the last 8 weeks in this course!