|
Instructors: Prof. Dr. Martin Elff
Event type:
Seminar
Org-unit: Politics, Administration & International Relations
Displayed in timetable as:
Polit. Meinungsbild.
Hours per week:
3
Credits:
6,0
Location:
Campus der Zeppelin Universität
Language of instruction:
Englisch
Min. | Max. participants:
5 | 35
Priority scheme: Standard-Priorisierung
Course content:
Building on the Seminar "Political Attitudes & political Behaviour", this course deals with special topics of the research on attitudes and opinions. In this semester the focus is on the causes of populism and of the polarisation of public opinion in the countries of Europe and North America. Therefore the seminar is concerned with the following questions:
- What is the role of information, predispositions, and value orientations for the formation of opinions?
- How well informed and structured are citizens' political opinions?
- With whom do citizens discuss political topics and from whom are they persuaded?
- What is "motivated reasoning" and what are the consequences for opinion formation?
- How does the greater availability of information from new media and the Internet affect the formation of opinions?
- To what degree can the polarisation of public opinion and the rising populism be accounted for by motivated reasoning and Internet filter bubbles?
Educational objective:
Participants of this course
- encounter central theoretical approaches and findings of the research on political attitudes and opinions
- develop the ability to select their own research question and how to adress it by the study of literature or by their own research
- learn to deal with research literature and how to assess its relevant for their own research questions
Further information about the exams:
Course assesseent is based on a combination of midterm (brief report on session literature) and endterm performance (term paper).
Mandatory literature:
Achen, Christopher, and Larry Bartels. 2017. Democracy for Realists: Why Elections Do Not Produce Responsive Government. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Glynn, Carol J., Susan Herbst, Mark Lindemann, Garret O'Keefe and Robert Y. Shapiro. 2015. Public Opinion. Boulder: Westview Press.
Hindman, Matthew. 2008. The Myth of Digital Democracy. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Lodge, Milton, and Charles S. Taber. 2013. The Rationalizing Voter. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Mudde, Cas, and Cristóbal Rovira Kaltwasser. 2017. Populism: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Prior, Markus. 2007. Post-Broadcast Democracy: How Media Choice Increases Inequality in Political Involvement and Polarizes Elections. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Zaller, John. 1992. The Nature and Origins of Mass Opinion. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
|
