The Present and Future of
Democracy and Civic Engagement in the Age of Mass Communications
Course
Program
Lecture
1 – March 31. Kickoff: course introduction,
students’ presentations, introduction to political participation and civic
engagement
Lecture
2 – April 14. The problem of civic engagement and its
crisis
- R.
Putnam, Bowling Alone: the collapse and revival of American community.
New York: Simon & Schuster, 2000,
chapters 2 and 3.
Lecture
3 – April 23. Causes and explanations of the crisis of civic engagement in
the United States
- R.
Putnam, Bowling Alone, chapters 13 and 15.
- L.
Bennett, “The Uncivic Culture: Communication, Identity and the Rise of
Lifestyle Politics”.
P.S. Political Science and Politics,
31, 4, 1998.
Midterm discussion
paper
Lecture
4 – May 7. Mass
media, political participation and civic engagement: optimistic views
- P.
Norris, A Virtuous Cycle: Political communications in postindustrial societies.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000, chapters 1, 2, 3, 14.
- D.
Swanson, “The Homologous Evolution of Political Communication and Civic
Engagement: Good News, Bad News, and No News”. Political Communication,
17, 4, 2000.
Lecture
5 – May 12. Mass media, political participation and civic engagement:
pessimistic and normative views
- J.
Blumler and M. Gurevitch, The Crisis
of Public Communication. London, New York: Routledge, 1995, chapters 8
and 15.
- M.
Schudson, The Power of News.
Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1995,
chapters 8 and 10.
- H.
Gans, “What Can Journalists Actually Do for American Democracy?”. Harvard
International Journal of Press Politics, 4, 1998.
Lecture
6 – May 19. Mass media, civic engagement and
democracy
- R.
Putnam, Bowling Alone, chapter 21.
- B.
Manin, The Principles of Representative Government. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1997, chapter 6.
Lecture
7 – May 26. Democracy and the public sphere.
- P.
Dahlgren, Television and the Public
Sphere:
Citizenship, Democracy and the Media.
London: Sage, 1995,
chapters 1, 6, 7.
Final
Paper due June 3rd
Copyright 2002 Cristian Vaccari
c.vaccari@libero.it
Ultimo Aggiornamento: 27 Maggio 2003
