Longer Description: 
The course explores the ways that the news media have figured in conceptions of American democracy and in constituting a public realm in American society. The first third of the course will include classic readings in political philosophy, including Rousseau, Tocqueville, Mill and Habermas. The next third will look at a series moments in American history and ask how people living at those times experienced democracy, again with special attention to the role of the press and public debate. The final weeks will take up more recent considerations of contemporary American democracy and the role the news media play in it. Objectives:The course seeks to teach students to appreciate the theories behind a free press in a democracy and to understand both the role of the press (taken to mean the news media in general) in forming a public, and the role of the public in constituting a democracy. Students will come away with a sense that ideas about the media’s role in democracy have not been static over time, and that there have sometimes been divergences between how the media’s role is theorized and how it plays out in practice. Students should gain a deeper knowledge of the role of the media in American history and develop skills to think critically about the media in society in all eras, including today. Improving students’ writing, thinking, and speaking skills is also a course goal. 

Schedule:·        

• Week 1 – Introduction
• Week 2 – Enlightenment Philosophers
• Week 3 – American Enlightenment
• Week 4 – American Democracy
• Week 5 – 20th Century American Thought (Short papers due)
• Week 6 – Research Session
• Week 7 – 20th Century European Throught
• Week 8 – History:  Colonial Era
• Week 9 – History:  19th Century
• Week 10 – History: Progressive Era
• Week 11 – History: The 1960s
• Week 12 – History – The 1980s
• Week 13 – Critique I
• Week 14 – Critique II 

Assessments:

Students’ progress will be judged through their comments in class and participation in discussion; their presentations; and their writing assignments.

• Regular attendance and active participation.   
• Reading - the class reading comes to roughly 200 pages a week.
• Short paper - a 4-to 5-page essay.
• Classroom presentation - each week one student will prepare a 15-minute presentation framing the readings.
• Term paper - a 12- page research paper

• Jean-Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract (Penguin Classics)
• John Stuart Mill, On Representative Government (Prometheus Books)
• Thomas Jefferson, Political Writings  (Cambridge University Press)
• Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America (Penguin Classics)
• Walter Lippmann, Public Opinion (Free Press)
• John Dewey, The Public and Its Problems (Swallow Press)
• Jurgen Habermas, Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere (MIT Press)
• Richard D. Brown, The Strength of a People: The Idea of an Informed Citizenry in America, 1650-1870 (UNC Press)
• Mary Ryan, Civic Wars (University of California Press)
• Michael McGerr, The Decline of Popular Politics (Oxford University Press)
• Todd Gitlin, The Whole Word Is Watching (University of California Press)
• David Thelen, Becoming Citizens in the Age of Television (University of Chicago Press)
• Robert Putnam, Bowling Alone (Simon & Schuster)
• Michael Schudson, The Good Citizen (Harvard University Press)