Using Creative Assignments to Help Students Integrate Their Learning in a Campaigns and Elections Class

The ability to integrate learning—to make connections across classes or even within a single class—is integral to students becoming better learners, and to growing their capacity to perform as civic actors. We discuss an upper-level Campaigns and Elections class in which the course structure and assignments were set up to encourage students to integrate their learning. As part of the class, students played the role of state party committees during the 2016 presidential election, at first making arguments to devote more national party resources to their state campaign and then reporting back to the national party on how the election went in their state, and what the party must do to maximize its future success. Through coding of student final exam essay questions, we explore the degree to which students were able to achieve the integrative learning goals we had set for them, and examine factors that might help predict which students achieved these learning goals. We conclude by generalizing from our experience to discuss best practices for achieving integrative learning in our courses.     

The Dynamics of the Demobilization of the Protest Campaign in Assam

This study highlights the role that critical events play in the demobilization of protest campaigns. Social movement scholars suggest that protest campaigns demobilize as a consequence of polarization within the campaign or the cooptation of the campaign leaders. I offer critical events as an alternative causal mechanism and argue that protest campaigns in ethnically divided societies are particularly combustible, as they have the potential to trigger unintended or unorchestrated communal violence. When such violence occurs, elite strategies change, mass support declines, and the campaign demobilizes. An empirical investigation of the dynamics of the demobilization phase of the anti-foreigner protest campaign in Assam, India, between 1979 and 1985 confirms this argument. A single group analysis is conducted to compare the dynamics of the campaign before and after the communal violence by using time series event data collected from The Indian Express, a national newspaper. The study has wider implications for the literature on collective action, as it illuminates the dynamic and complex nature of protest campaigns.     

Abdürreşid İbrahim's journey to China: Muslim communities in the late Qing as seen by a Russian-Tatar intellectual

An eminent Russian-Tatar alim (a scholar, or an intellectual) and Pan-Islamist known for his role as a collaborator in Japan's Islamic campaigns in the first half of the 20th century, Abdürre?id ?brahim went on a grand tour of Eurasia from 1907 to 1909. This article focuses on his journey to China in the late Qing by drawing mainly on his travel book Âlem-i ?slâm, in which he describes China's politics, society, economy and culture, as well as the Muslims dwelling there, anticipating that Chinese Muslims would join in an alliance with Japan to form an anti-imperialist corridor. In general, ?brahim succeeded in enjoying Muslims' favour in Beijing, lamenting the place of Islam in China while also being scathingly critical of its practice. He was invited to Japan again in the 1930s and played an important role in drawing foreign Muslims' attention to Japan.     

Through the Party Lens: How Citizens Evaluate TV Electoral Spots

Party affiliation is considered one of the most important factors explaining voters' party choice, but also a strong intervening variable when it comes to the effectiveness of electoral advertising. The question raised in this study is to what extent party affiliation explains voters' judgments of electoral advertising, which was investigated by using data carried out during the Swedish general election campaign 2010. The results show that party affiliation still functions as a filter when voters are exposed to electoral advertising. The findings are suggested to be understood against the background of cognitive dissonance theory and selective exposure according to which people try to avoid a state of cognitive dissonance by avoiding information that conflicts with their attitudes.     

Milton's army: The white house press corps

White House reporters follow a path constructed by presidential advisers that they hope will lead them to fulfill goals set by their news organizations. White House officials ration them facilities for work, access to newsworthy people, and reportable information in amounts that depend on the importance to the President of the type of media they work in, the status of their particular news organization, and the staff's respect for the influence and competence of a particular individual. In this context, several constraints that affect White House reporting are discussed here: those placed on reporters by their organizations; by the way their type of media covers the White House; by their relations with each other; and by their concepts of what they are required to do. The framework for this discussion and analysis is a classification by type of media and news organizations that assign journalists to the White House. Of the resulting six categories, the first three have the most structural and organizational influence and are given the most attention. The special status, unique history, and influence of photographers at the White House require that they be treated separately.     

“Market” Classification and Political Campaigning

ABSTRACT

There is an argument for a flow of logic from market structure to marketing strategy and performance. The nature of the political “market” and service-product constrains and dictates marketing strategy choices. Interactions between the voter, parties, and candidates in political campaigns could be likened to human services (Dickens, 1996) in commerce. However, parties and candidates operate in peculiar poligopolistic markets competing for the authority to deliver government services through an exclusive right of franchise bidding process similar to that in business-to-business markets. A structure-conduct-performance model is presented based on an analysis of political markets from consumer, industrial, and services marketing perspectives to provide strategic marketing insights. Political marketing is a hybrid subdiscipline of marketing incorporating characteristics from all three major marketing paradigms, with services marketing theory holding particular promise for future theory development.     

Pitying the Third World: towards more progressive emotional responses to development education in schools

The development sector appeals to emotions in its marketing and education material to raise awareness and funds for its work. Much of this material is now directed at schools, where young people form long-lasting opinions about development and the developing world. This paper draws upon research with 118 students in five New Zealand/Aotearoa secondary schools to show that young people are not passive receptors of development marketing and education. Instead, they question the activities of international ngos involved in aid work and how they are meant to feel or act in response. We examine these emotional responses of young people and the demoralising feelings of guilt, sadness and scepticism that arise, often alongside an innocent paternalism and a desire to help. We outline possibilities for more socially progressive forms of development education, based on the recognition that young people are questioning old ways of doing aid work and looking for something new. We challenge ngos to be part of new forms of global connectedness that disrupt old ‘us and them’ binaries based on difference, and instead to pursue new linkages based on shared feelings of empathy, friendship and social justice.     

The Campaign Disconnect: Media Coverage of the 2000 South Carolina Presidential Primary

Campaigns are an interactive process in which candidates, outside groups, the media, and voters communicate with each other to create an information environment that allows the various participants to construct meaning and form an understanding of the candidates and the campaign. Presidential primaries add a layer of complexity to this process as candidates and the press deal with both local and national audiences. In this article, we analyze the campaign communications in the 2000 Republican presidential primary in South Carolina—including candidate ads, mailings, and phone calls; local and national newspaper coverage; and network television coverage. We find that there was a disconnect as news media often focused on events and issues that diverged from the messages of the candidates' campaigns. In addition, we find substantial differences between local and national media coverage of the primary resulting from their distinct audiences and the reporters' own understanding of the local context that created significantly different information environments for voters in the state and those out of the state. We consider the implications of these findings for how voters and journalists understand the candidates as well as the challenges presidential candidates face in simultaneously campaigning locally and nationally.     

The United Kingdom 2017 election: polarisation in a split issue space

Abstract

After decades in which party competition was fought in the centre ground, the 2017 UK General Election witnessed a return to more conflictual politics. This article assesses public support for the electoral strategies of the main parties and examines the extent to which the issues the parties campaigned on resonated with their own supporters, as well as with the wider public. Drawing on the issue-yield framework, the article shows that the Conservative campaign – generally considered to be badly run – did not focus on issues that would fully exploit the opportunities for expanding support that were open to the party. Labour, by contrast, played a much better hand. While taking a clear left-wing stance on many policies that were popular with its constituency, the party also skilfully emphasised valence issues that Labour is often seen as more credible on, such as healthcare and education.     

Communicating about child sexual abuse with the public: learning the lessons from public awareness campaigns

Despite numerous public awareness campaigns child sexual abuse (CSA) remains a significant global issue affecting millions of children. This suggests that such campaigns have had minimal impact, and the paucity of good quality empirical evaluation makes it difficult to establish what has worked and what has not. This article considers how different and evolving approaches to public awareness campaigning on CSA since the 1990s have influenced (or not) attitudinal and behavioural change. The article reviews a number of key initiatives from around the world and identifies common themes that can inform campaigning and prevention efforts. Recommendations for further research efforts, social problem framing, and targeting are offered. The article concludes by arguing that more recent multi-faceted campaigns which combine a range of messaging methods are more likely to turn public awareness campaigning into public action campaigning.