166-426 Communicating Politics

Availability

Credit Points

Coordinator

Prerequisites

Admission to fourth-year Political Science.

Contact

Subject Description

How should politics be communicated? How good, and for what purposes, are the obvious modes of communicating politics - e.g. research followed by publication in academic journal or book? Research and report-writing for government or public service committees? Political commentary from the Canberra Press Gallery? Four Corners? What are the alternatives to the obvious ones? Consider (a sample only) - theatre, sermon, speeches (parliamentary and other), cartoon, graffiti, feature films, television drama and docu-dramas, talk shows, radio talk-back and expert commentary, popular music, dance, poetry, demonstrations, lobbying, street theatre, parades, novels, biography, etc.? What are the strengths and weaknesses in each? What different combinations of skills and talents - and motives/backgrounds - does each employ? Students who complete this subject should be able to: see a far wider range of options for communicating political knowledge; evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of the observed options; begin establishing where their own interests and talents lie; adopt a critical-reflective attitude to professional/bureaucratic/privatised (e.g. consultancies) modes of communicating politics, including academic writings.

Assessment

Project work totalling 6000 words.