Schedule and Readings

Schedule – Revised

Schedule and topics are tentative and may change after week one discussion of student interests. Scroll to the bottom of the page for readings! See Google Docs Gradesheet

• Week 1 – 30 September
  Introduction, Course Direction

• Week 2 – 7 October
  Political Systems
  In order to make sense of the issues that are created by new technologies, we also need to understand the political systems being affected. Because everyone in the class is not a “political scientist” — nor is everyone a US citizen — part of this session is designed to familiarize students with deliberative democracy in the US, as practiced specifically in Washington State.
  • Guest speaker, Becky Bogard, state lobbyist
    Becky will share with students how her job has changed over the past 10 years due to technology and also provide an overview of the legislative process.

• Week 3 – 14 October
  Digital Electioneering, Part 1
  How are political campaigns using (and abusing) digital technologies? A historical and quasi-contemporary look at campaign use of technology, beginning with radio debates, moving on to the Kennedy-Nixon debates, and closing with the first campaign-oriented websites (1990s). Examine communication that is top-down as well as bottom-up.
  • Guest Speaker, Joey Mornin, social web strategist for the PickensPlan
    Joey’s small firm pulled together a dynamite issue advocacy website with social media tools, using “off-the-shelf” components, and did so almost overnight.
  • Discussion leaders:
    Christy, Ian

• Week 4 – 21 October
  Digital Electioneering, Part 2
  How are political campaigns using (and abusing) digital technologies? How has digital electioneering changed between 2004 and 2008? What might the future bring? How are these technologies being used to “Brand” candidates and how are “other” campaigns (not presidential, not statewide) using these technologies?
  • Guest Speaker, Mary McGlohon, Carnegie Mellon University
    Mary will share work conducted with Microsoft Research on the interplay between Usenet (alt.politics) and the political blogosphere.
  • Discussion leaders:
    Jody, Maury, Rubi

• Week 5 – 28 October
  Digital Advocacy
  Historically, political networks have been geographically-based or managed via an organization (political parties). Digital technologies are disrupting these patterns of control. How do digital technologies impact third parties, polarization.
  • Guest speaker, Beth Kanter, nonprofit consultant
    Beth will share case studies of her work with nonprofit organizations and how they have leveraged emerging digital technologies for fundraising.
  • Discussion leaders:
    Alvin, Garrett, Keiichi, YenChing

• Week 6 – 4 November (no class, Election Day)
  Elections and Technology
  Voting – one person, one vote (that gets counted) – is one of the cornerstones of American democracy. What is the impact of technology on voting outcomes? Through readings and online discussion this week, we will examine the evolution of voting technologies (“Black Box Voting”) and discuss the current rejection of “machines” for “paper”. We’ll also learn about online voting (pitfalls, in particular) and the electoral system.
  • Discussion leaders:
    (Margery and Chris )

• Week 7 – 11 November
  eGovernment
  How (and why) elected and appointed officials are using digital technologies to communicate with the electorate. What does this mean for citizens and public officials? What about the digital divide and other marginalized populations? Specifically, how has Washington employed these technologies to enhance citizen dilberation?
  • Guest speaker, Beth Hester and Gary Gibson, The Seattle Channel
    Seattle’s digital government outreach is nationally-recognized. Beth will share the hows and whys.
  • Discussion leaders:
    Chris (second), Marc, Margery (first), Rebekah

• Week 8 – 18 November
  What Next For Political Journalism?
  One of the democratic institutions under great financial stress due to digital technologies is journalism. What might the future of political journalism look like? How do citizen journalists develop the “credibility” needed to have access “to power”?
  • Guest speaker, David Cohn, Spot.us
  • DavidC is a Knight Foundation award winner who is exploring a form of micro-financing for political journalism. He’ll share the results of a San Francisco election project.
  • Discussion leaders:
    Roni, Tharaa

• Week 9 – 25 November
  The Role Of Money In Elections
  Historically, political campaigns (elections or advocacy) have been financed primarily through large-ish donations from a small number of people. How are digital technologies changing this equation? How much do these campaigns cost (budgets)? And what is the role of money in election campaigns?
  • Discussion leaders:
    Carlos, Jen, Ziwen

• Week 10 – 2 December
  Wrap Up
  How might the example of digital democracy in the US serve as a model for other countries?
  • Discussion leader:
    Katie

Readings

Readings in italics are optional (use these selections when you are a discussion leader or if you want to learn more about the week’s topic). There are a lot of optional readings — I’ve tried to match the various approaches to digital democracy that you shared week one.

Readings without hyperlinks are in eReserve.

UW Library and ACM Portal hyperlinks require that you be logged in to the UW Library to access the resource. If you are not logged in through the Library’s off-campus login proxy, the journal site will ask you to pay to read the article!

For Week 2 – Political Systems

• Habermas, J. The Public Sphere
• Howard, P. New Media Campaigns…. Introduction, Ch1, Ch2 (pp 1-100)

• Informational Politics and the Crisis of Democracy
• Internet Politics, Some Conceptual Tools

For Week 3 – Digital Electioneering

• Howard, P. New Media Campaigns…. Ch3, Ch4 (pp 101-169)
• Web Campaigning: Introduction and Overview

• Cybercampaigning
• Election Campaigns as Information Campaigns: Who Learns What and Does it Matter?. Political Communication, July 2008. UW Library Offsite Link
• High-Conflict Television News and Public Opinion. Political Research Quarterly. 2006; 59; 447. DOI: 10.1177/106591290605900312. UW Library Offsite Link
• A nation divided: how technology influences the American political process. Journal of Computing Sciences in Colleges. 2001. ACM Portal
• Is Negative Campaigning Bad For The American Political Process (Yes/No)
• Network Logic: A Political Pre-History
• Political Ads and Citizen Communication. Communication Research. 2008; 35; 423. DOI: 10.1177/0093650208315976. UW Library Offsite Link

For Week 4 – Digital Electioneering

• Decision 2004: The War for the White House
• Explaining the Adoption of Web Campaigning Practices

• Bloggers at the Gates: Ned Lamont, Blogs, and the Rise of Insurgent Candidates. Social Science Computer Review. 2008; 26; 275. DOI: 10.1177/0894439307305634. UW Library Offsite Link
• Campaign Ads, Online Messaging, and Participation. Journal of Communication. doi:10.1111/j.1460-2466.2007.00363.x
• Campaign Politics and the Digital Divide: Constituency Characteristics, Strategic Considerations, and Candidate Internet Use in State Legislative ElectionsCampaign Politics Political Research Quarterly. 2007; 60; 31. DOI: 10.1177/1065912906298527. UW Library Offsite Link
• Do Campaign Web Sites Really Matter in Electoral Civic Engagement?. Social Science Computer Review. 2008; 26; 190. DOI: 10.1177/0894439307309026. UW Library Offsite Link
• From the air to the ground: the internet in the 2004 US presidential campaign. New Media Society. 2008; 10; 647 . DOI: 10.1177/1461444808093735. UW Library Offsite Link
• Old Wine in New Bottles?: The 1999 Finnish Election Campaign on the Internet. The Harvard International Journal of Press/Politics. 2001; 6; 68 . DOI: 10.1177/1081180X01006001005. UW Library Offsite Link
• Political Blogs and the 2004 Presidential Election…
• Reading Political Blogs During the 2004 Presidential Election…
• Voters, MySpace, and YouTube: The Impact of Alternative Communication Channels on the 2006 Election Cycle and Beyond. Social Science Computer Review. 2008; 26; 288. DOI: 10.1177/0894439307305636. UW Library Offsite Link

Available in paper only – make arrangements with me for a copy!

• Does Cyber-Campaigning Win Votes? Online Communication in the 2004 Australian Election. In Journal of elections, public opinion and parties. 2006. See abstract (no login required).
• The Relationship between Negative Political Advertising and Public Mood: Effects and Consequences. In Journal of elections, public opinion and parties. 2008. See abstract (no login required).

For Week 5 – Digital Advocacy

• Trippi, J. The Revolution Will Not Be Televised… Part 1 (pp. 3-72)
• Party and Group Advocacy

• Democracy, deliberation and design: the case of online discussion forums. New Media Society. 2007; 9; 849 . DOI: 10.1177/1461444807081230. UW Library Offsite Link
• Intermedia Agenda Setting in Television, Advertising, and Blogs During the 2004 Election. Mass Communication & Society, 11:197–216, 2008.
• Internet Web Logs as Cultural Resistance: A Study of the SARS Arts Project. Journal of Communication Inquiry. 2007; 31; 28. DOI: 10.1177/0196859906294840. UW Library Offsite Link
• The League of Women Voters DemocracyNet (DNet)
• Likelihood to Vote, Candidate Choice, and the Third-Person Effect: Behavioral Implications of Political Advertising in the 2004 Presidential Election. American Behavioral Scientist. 2008; 52; 278. DOI: 10.1177/0002764208321356. UW Library Offsite Link
• Nonprofit Organizations’ Perceptions and Uses of the Internet. Television New Media. 2008; 9; 407. DOI: 10.1177/1527476408315501. UW Library Offsite Link
• The Political Blogosphere and the 2004 U.S. Election: Divided They Blog. ACM. Proceedings of the 3rd international workshop on Link discovery. ACM Portal
• PoliticWiki: Exploring Communal Politics. WikiSym ‘06: Proceedings of the 2006 international symposium on Wikis . ACM Portal
• Real-Time Politics: The Internet and the Political Process. The Information Society, 18:31 1– 331, 2002
• Talk Leads to Recruitment: How Discussions about Politics and Current Events Increase Civic Participation. Political Research Quarterly. 2007; 60; 180. DOI: 10.1177/1065912907301708. UW Library Offsite Link
• When Opinion Leaders Blog: New forms of citizen interaction. ACM. Proceedings of the 2006 international conference on Digital government research. ACM Portal

For Week 6 – Elections and Technology

• [offline assignment, TBD]
• Trippi, J. The Revolution Will Not Be Televised… Part 2 (pp 73-200)
• Computerized Voting: Problems and Solutions. ACM SIGCAS Computers and Society. 2006. ACM Portal

• Ballot Formats, Touchscreens and Undervotes: A Study of the 2006 Midterm Elections in Florida. Election Law Journal. 2008.
• The Case For (And Against) Internet Voting.
• Institutional Change and the Electoral Connection in the Senate: Revisiting the Effects of Direct Election. Political Research Quarterly. 2008; 61; 445. DOI: 10.1177/1065912907309156. UW Library Offsite Link
• Popular Election of the President: Using or Abusing the Electoral College? Election Law Journal. 2008.
• Vanity of Vanities: National Popular Vote and the Electoral College. Election Law Journal. 2008.
• Voter-Centered Design: Toward A Voter Decision Support System.
  ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction (TOCHI), Volume 12 Issue 2. ACM Portal
• Voters’ Evaluations of Electronic Voting Systems: Results From a Usability Field Study. American Politics Research. 2008; 36; 580. DOI: 10.1177/1532673X08316667. UW Library Offsite Link
• Voting Technology, Election Administration, and Voter Performance. Election Law Journal. 2008.

For Week 7 – eGovernment

• Access, Inclusion and the Digital Divide
• eGovernment

• The Challenge of E-Democracy For Political Parties
• Conceptualizing E-Governance. ICEGOV ‘07: Proceedings of the 1st international conference on Theory and practice of electronic governance . ACM Portal
• Democracy and the Environment on the Internet: Electronic Citizen Participation in Regulatory Rulemaking. Science Technology Human Values. 2006; 31; 383. DOI: 10.1177/0162243906287543. UW Library Offsite Link
• Design of Digital Democracies. Performances of citizenship, gender
  and IT (Sweden). Information, Communication & Society. Vol. 10, No. 3, June 2007.
• Designing and Implementing E-Government Systems: Critical Implications for Public Administration and Democracy. Administration & Society. 2006; 38; 472. DOI: 10.1177/0095399706290638. UW Library Offsite Link
• Digital Divide or Just Another Absentee Ballot? Evaluating Internet Voting in the 2004 Michigan Democratic Primary. American Politics Research. 2008; 36; 510. DOI: 10.1177/1532673X08318586. UW Library Offsite Link
• The Digital Divide: The Role of Political Institutions in Technology Diffusion. Comparative Political Studies. 2006; 39; 176. DOI: 10.1177/0010414005282983. UW Library Offsite Link
• E-Government and Public Financial Reporting: The Case of Spanish Regional Governments. The American Review of Public Administration. 32007; 37; 142 . DOI: 10.1177/027507400629319. UW Library Offsite Link
• The Emergence of E-Government Services in East Africa: Tracking Adoption Patterns and Associated Factors. ICEC ‘04: Proceedings of the 6th international conference on Electronic commerce. ACM Portal
• Engaging The Public Through Online Policy Dialogues
• Make it so! Jean-Luc Picard, Bart Simpson and the Design of E-Public Services. PDC 2006 – Proceedings of the ninth Participatory Design Conference 2006. ACM Portal
• Next Generation FoI: Between Information Management and Web 2.0. The Proceedings of the 9th Annual International Digital Government Research Conference. ACM Portal
• Transitioning from e-Government to e-Governance in the Knowledge Society: The Role of the Legal Framework for Enabling the Process in the European Union’s Countries. ACM. Proceedings of the 2006 international conference on Digital government research. ACM Portal
• Understanding Cybersocial Network Trends for Innovation in Libraries. IFLA Journal. 2008; 34; 160. DOI: 10.1177/0340035208092174. UW Library Offsite Link

For Week 8 – What Next For Political Journalism?

• Political News Media
• Will Print Newspapers Survive in the Current Business Environment
  Read one set
  (1) Transforming American Newspapers – part 1 and part 2
  OR
  (2) Can Print Newspapers Survive and What Newspapers Must Do To Survive
  

• Are People Better Informed In The Information Society (Yes/No)
• Capitulation to capital? OhmyNews as alternative media. Media Culture Society. 2006; 28; 541 UW Library Offsite Link
• Discussion Forums, Games and Second Life: Exploring the Value of Public Broadcasters’ Marginal Online Activities. Convergence. 2008; 14; 261. DOI: 10.1177/1354856508091080. UW Library Offsite Link
• Does the Messenger Matter? Candidate-Media Agenda Convergence…. Political Research Quarterly. 2008; 61; 134. DOI: 10.1177/1065912907306472. UW Library Offsite Link
• Interfacing the Nation: Remediating Public Service Broadcasting in the Digital Television Age. Convergence. 2008; 14; 277 . DOI: 10.1177/1354856508091081. UW Library Offsite Link
• Journalism and Democracy: An Evaluation of the Political Public Sphere. (Book Review) European Journal of Communication. 2006; 21; 108. DOI: 10.1177/026732310602100108. UW Library Offsite Link
• Media and Democracy
• Life beyond the public sphere: Towards a networked model for political deliberation. Information Polity 13 (2008) 65–79
• Presentation Style and Beyond: How Print Newspapers and Online News Expand Awareness of Public Affairs Issues. Mass Communication & Society, 11:161–176, 2008
• Putting the Community Back Into Community Networks: A Content Analysis. Bulletin of Science Technology Society. 2007; 27; 417. DOI: 10.1177/0270467607304561. UW Library Offsite Link
• Spin Doctors in the United States, Great Britain, and Germany: Metacommunication about Media Manipulation. The Harvard International Journal of Press/Politics. 2001; 6; 16. DOI: 10.1177/1081180X01006001003.UW Library Offsite Link

For Week 9 – The Role Of Money In Elections

• The Web’s Campaign Contributions. American Journalism Review.
• Can A Public-Minded Copyright Deliver A More Democratic Internet?

• Corporate Contributions After The Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act. Election Law Journal. 2008.
• Is a knowledge society possible without freedom of access to information?. Journal of Information Science. 2007; 33; 387. DOI: 10.1177/0165551506075327. UW Library Offsite Link
• PACs, Issue Context, and Congressional Decisionmaking. Political Research Quarterly. 2006; 59; 283. DOI: 10.1177/106591290605900210 UW Library Offsite Link
• Political E-Identity: Campaign Funding Data and Beyond. ACM. Proceedings of the 2006 international conference on Digital government research. ACM Portal
• Selling Politics: The Impact of Celebrities’ Political Beliefs on Young Americans. In Journal of political marketing. 2007. In eReserve and maybe (t worked on campus) via this Google Scholar Link (pdf)
• Square Pegs & Round Holes: Applying Campaign Finance Law to the Internet – Risks to Free Expression and Democratic Values. ACM. Proceedings of the tenth conference on Computers, freedom and privacy: challenging the assumptions. ACM Portal.

For Week 10 – Wrap Up

• Howard, P. New Media Campaigns…. Ch5 (pp 170-238)
• Trippi, J. The Revolution Will Not Be Televised … Ch 11, 12, Afterward (pp 201-269)

• The Prying Eyes of Interactive Television. Center for Digital Democracy. June 2001.
• Tapping into TiVo: Digital video recorders and the transition from schedules to surveillance in television . New Media Society. 2006; 8; 97. DOI: 10.1177/1461444806059877. UW Library Offsite Link
• Who Watches the Watchers? Towards an Ethic of Surveillance in a Digital Age. Studies in Christian Ethics. 2008; 21; 362. DOI: 10.1177/0953946808096816.
  UW Library Offsite Link