Political Persuasion: Government 90fj

Fall 2007
Professor D. Sunshine Hillygus

Class Meeting: Mondays, 2-4pm CGIS Knafel N050

Office: 306 CGIS North Building (1737 Cambridge Street)
OH: Thursdays, 11-12
Phone: (617) 496-4220
Email: hillygus@gov.harvard.edu

Required Readings
The following books are required purchases (and should be available at the Coop)
 Diana C. Mutz, Paul M. Sniderman, Richard A. Brody (eds.). 1996. Political Persuasion and
Attitude Change. Ann Arbor: Univ. of Michigan Press.
 John Zaller. 1992. The Nature and Origins of Mass Opinion. Cambridge Univ. Press
 Tali Mendelberg. 2001. The Race Card: Campaign Strategy, Implicit Messages, and the
Norm of Equality, Princeton University Press

In addition to the required texts, a sourcebook is available for purchase at Gnomon Copy on
Mass Ave. and additional required readings may be found on the course website.

Grading
Grades will be earned on the basis of seminar participation (30%), writing assignments (30%),
and a final paper (40%). For the research paper, students will be allowed to pick a topic of their
choosing related to any aspect of political persuasion. The final paper (15-20 pages, double-
spaced, 12-point font) is due January 11 at 5:00 pm.

To encourage careful reading and reflection, students must generate at least 3 written questions
on the weekly readings. These questions should be emailed to me by midnight on Sunday
(Questions should be in the text of the messages, not sent as attachments.). These questions
should try to clarify, challenge, expand, or otherwise synthesize the material for the week.
Additionally, for each class, one student will be expected to help lead class discussion by
presenting a brief critical analysis of the recommended reading (and how it relates to the
readings) and another student must present a “real world” example of the persuasive concepts
covered in that day’s readings. These efforts will be part of the seminar participation grade.

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 Tentative Course Schedule
September 17 Introduction

September 24 Overview: Persuasion in Politics

 Selections from Mass Communication and American Social Thought
 Perloff, “Political Campaign Persuasion and its Discontents,” in The Persuasion
Handbook
 Campbell, The American Campaign, Chapter 2
 Jones, “You Can Predict the 2004 Presidential Election (Maybe!)”

October 1 Conceptualizing and Measuring Persuasion

 Aristotle, On Rhetoric, Chapters 1-3, Book 1
 McGuire, “Persuasion,” in George Miller (ed), Influence
 “Political Persuasion: The Birth of a Field of Study,” in Political Persuasion and
Attitude Change
 Perloff, The Dynamics of Persuasion, Chapters 3,5
 Henry Brady, Richard Johnston, John Sides. “The Study of Campaigns.” In Henry Brady
and Richard Johnston (eds.), Capturing Campaign Effects

October 8 Columbus Day

October 15 Receiver Factors

 Converse, “Information Flow and the Stability of Partisan Attitudes,” Public Opinion
Quarterly
 McGraw and Hubbard. “Some of the people some of the time: Individual differences in
acceptance of political accounts,” in Political Persuasion and Attitude Change
 Taber and Lodge. “Motivated Skepticism in the Evaluation of Political Beliefs,”
American Journal of Political Science
 Hillygus and Shields, The Persuadable Voter, Chapters 1-2

October 22 Source Factors

 Perloff. The Dynamics of Persuasion, Chapter 6
 Lazarsfeld, Berelson, and Gaudet, The People's Choice, Chapter 16
 Kernell, Sam. excerpt Going Public
 Kuklinski and Hurley.“It’s A Matter Of Interpretation,” in Political Persuasion and
Attitude Change
 Beck, “The Social Calculus of Voting: Interpersonal, Media, and Organizational
Influences on Presidential Choices,” American Political Science Review

October 29 Message Factors

 Perloff. The Dynamics of Persuasion, Chapter 7
 Ansolabehere and Iyengar. “The Craft of Political Advertising,” in Political Persuasion
and Attitude Change.
 Cobb and Kuklinski. “Changing Minds: Political Arguments and Political Persuasion”
 Nabi et al., “All Joking Aside,” Communication Monographs

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  Jamieson. Everything you think you know about politics, Part II (+)
Recommended: Ansolabehere and Iyengar. Going Negative excerpt in Quill Magazine

November 5 More about Message: Issue Content of Campaigns

 Petrocik, “Issue Ownership in Presidential Campaigns,” American Journal of Political
Science
 Sides, “The Origins of Campaign Agendas,” British Journal of Political Science
 Sigelman and Buell “Avoidance or Engagement? Issue Convergence in U.S. Presidential
Campaigns, 1960-2000,” American Journal of Political Science
 Hillygus and Shields, The Persuadable Voter, Chapter 6
 Paper Proposals Due

November 12 Veteran’s Day

November 19 Channel Factors

 McLuhan, “Technology and Political Change” excerpt, In Mass Communication and
American Social Thought
 Kaid, “The effects of Political Information in the 2000 Presidential Campaign” American
Behavioral Scientist
 Gerber and Green, “The Effects of Canvassing, Telephone Calls, and Direct Mail on
Voter Turnout: A Field Experiment,” American Political Science Review
 Brader, “Striking a Responsive Chord: How Political Ads Motivate and Persuade Voters
by Appealing to Emotions,” American Journal of Political Science
 Chaiken and Eagly, “Communication modality as a determinant persuasion: the role of
communicator salience,” Journal of personality and social psychology

November 26 More about the Message, continued

 Mendelberg, The Race Card, Chap 1, 4-6
 Bethany Anderson, “Dog-whistle Politics, Coded Communication and Religious
Appeals”
 Newspaper articles about microtargeting

December 4 More about the Source: Media Bias

 Lippmann, “Newspapers”
 Jamieson. Everything you know about politics, pg 187-195
 Patterson. Out of Order, Chapters 1-2
 Pew Report, “Misperceptions, The Media, and the Iraq War”
 Groseclose and Milyo, “A Measure of Media Bias”
 Miller and Krosnick, “News Media Impact on the Ingredients of Presidential
Evaluations,” in Political Persuasion and Attitude Change

December 10 Model of Attitude Change

 John Zaller. 1992. The Nature and Origins of Mass Opinion, Chaps 1-3, 8-10

December 17 Wrap-up: Who Influences Whom in American Politics?

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  Zaller, The Nature and Origins of Mass Opinion, Chapter 12
 Verba, “The Citizen as Respondent: Sample Surveys and American Democracy.”
American Political Science Review
 Jacobs and Shapiro, Politicians Don’t Pander, Chapters 1-2

Jan 11: Final paper due in my mailbox at 5:00 pm