Bachelor 2020/2021

Research Seminar “Civil and Political Processes”

Category 'Best Course for Broadening Horizons and Diversity of Knowledge and Skills'

Category 'Best Course for New Knowledge and Skills'

Type: Elective course (Sociology and Social Informatics)

Area of studies: Sociology

Delivered by: Department of Sociology

Where: Saint-Petersburg School of Social Sciences

When: 4 year, 1-3 module

Mode of studies: offline

Instructors: Мацкевич Мария Георгиевна, Kirill Bryanov, Anna Shirokanova, Tatiana Tkacheva, Margarita Zavadskaya

Language: English

ECTS credits: 3

Contact hours: 30

Course Syllabus

Abstract

This seminar offers a cross-disciplinary perspective on political power, institutions, civic movements, and their socio-cultural context. It draws mainly from sociology, political science, and media studies and will be most useful to the students interested in how modern societies are organized and negotiated through politics, and how this can be studied. Key to this seminar is reading and discussing original research papers. As a result, the students will expand their knowledge of the subject and their skills of critical reading, participating in discussions, and writing abstracts of academic papers. The seminar starts with a discussion of academic culture, proceeding to media experiments, the meaning of political debates and then to practising various formats of applied political analysis.

Learning Objectives

• The objectives of this seminar are to get the students acquainted with current research perspectives and techniques in political and civic processes and to train students' skills or academic speaking, reading, and writing.

Expected Learning Outcomes

• to discuss current research perspectives and techniques in political and civic processes, including web and survey experiments
• to know the basics of academic reading and writing, academic culture, and the variety of non-academic research output formats

Course Contents

• Applied Political Analysis
  The media eco-system of a research group. Policy papers and memos. Varieties of applied research: UX, design, field studies, data journalism. Writing a policy paper.
• Experiments in Political Media
  Survey experiments, web experiments and their use. Experimental evidence of television news watching. The effects of partisan personalisation in a news portal experiment. Political blame attribution in a survey experiment.

Assessment Elements

• Participation in module 1
• Home work in module 1 (abstract)
• Participation in module 2
  Part of the mark is a home task to write a position paper (a take-home task) of 500-700 words.
• Exam
  2 questions on seminar reading with your analysis
• Policy Paper module 3

Interim Assessment

• Interim assessment (3 module)
  0.2 * Exam + 0.2 * Home work in module 1 (abstract) + 0.2 * Participation in module 1 + 0.2 * Participation in module 2 + 0.2 * Policy Paper module 3

Bibliography

Recommended Core Bibliography

• Iyengar, S., Peters, M. D., & Kinder, D. R. (1982). Experimental Demonstrations of the “Not-So-Minimal” Consequences of Television News Programs. American Political Science Review, 04, 848.

Recommended Additional Bibliography

• Abelson, D. E. (2018). Do Think Tanks Matter? Third Edition : Assessing the Impact of Public Policy Institutes (Vol. Third edition, revvised and expanded). Montreal: MQUP. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&site=eds-live&db=edsebk&AN=1944843