Click on the links below to see some of the excellent term papers students wrote in Fall 2019. These papers present original empirical research on how various social and political issues have been framed over time:
Click here for the syllabus
Watch this space for announcements and resources.
Readings are below
Part One: Theories of How People Think and How Policies Are Framed
Week 1. Aug 21 Introductions and overview of the course
Wednesday: First day of class, Aug 21
Week 2. Aug 26. Two Theories: Causal Stories, and Target Populations
Monday: Stone, Deborah A. 1989. Causal Stories and the Formation of Policy Agendas. Political Science Quarterly 104, 2: 281–300. slides
Wednesday: Schneider, Anne, and Helen Ingram. 1993. Social Construction of Target Populations: Implications for Politics and Policy. American Political Science Review 87, 2: 334–47. slides
Week 3. Sep 2. Some Basic Vocabulary about Framing
Monday: Happy Labor Day, no class
Wednesday: Chong, Dennis, and James N. Druckman. 2007. Framing Theory. Annual Review of Political Science 10, 1: 103–26. slides
Week 4. Sep 9. Gaining v. Losing, Misunderstanding Risk, Good news and Bad News
Monday: Quattrone, George A., and Amos Tversky. 1988. Contrasting Rational and Psychological Analyses of Political Choice. American Political Science Review 82, 3: 719–736. slides
Slovic, Paul. 1987. Perception of Risk. Science 236 (4799): 280-85.
Wednesday: Baumeister, Roy F., Ellen Bratslavsky, Catrin Finkenauer, and Kathleen D. Vohs. 2001. Bad Is Stronger Than Good. Review of General Psychology 5: 323-370. slides
Week 5. Sep 16. Anger and Fear; Moving the “Overton Window”
Monday: Lerner, J.S., and D. Keltner. 2001. Fear, anger, and risk. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 81, 1: 146–49. slides
Aizenman, Nurith. 2019. How To Demand A Medical Breakthrough: Lessons From The AIDS Fight. NPR.org. February 9.
Wednesday: Robertson, Derek. 2018. How an Obscure Conservative Theory Became the Trump Era’s Go-to Nerd Phrase. Politico.com. February 25. See also: Maggie Astor, "How the Political Unthinkable Can Become Mainstream," New York Times, 26 February 2019. slides
***Note: Your term paper project topic is due to me today in class, September 18. One page describing what you are interested in studying, and whether it is a group or individual project (one page per group). (This assignment will not be graded.)***
Week 6. Sep 23. Believing What We Want: Motivated Reasoning
Monday: Lord, Charles G., Lee Ross, and Mark R. Lepper. 1979. Biased Assimilation and Attitude Polarization: The Effects of Prior Theories on Subsequently Considered Evidence. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 37 (11): 2098-2109. slides
Wednesday: Ditto, Peter H. and David F. Lopez. 1992. Motivated
Skepticism: Use of Differential Decision Criteria for Preferred and Nonpreferred
Conclusions. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 63 (4):
568-84. slides
Week 7. Sep 30. More on Motivated Reasoning, and an Application
Monday: Kunda, Ziva. 1990. The Case for Motivated Reasoning. Psychological Bulletin 108(3): 480-98. slides
Wednesday: Eberhardt, Jennifer L., Nilanjana Dasgupta, and Tracy L. Banaszynski. 2003. Believing is Seeing: The Effects of Racial Labels and Implicit Beliefs on Face Perception. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 29, 3 (March): 360-70.
Week 8. Oct 7. Episodes v. Themes
Monday: Aaroe, Lene. 2011. Investigating Frame Strength: The Case of Episodic and Thematic Frames. Political Communication 28: 207–26. slides
***Note: Your first draft is due in class on Mon., Oct 7: Five pages (double-spaced) explaining your theory, literature, and case. The more you give about the research the better, but I don’t expect much yet. This should focus on background about the case and possible data sources.***
Wednesday: Baumgartner out of town. A good opportunity to meet with your group and make progress on your project.
Part Two: Applications to Politics and Public Policy
Week 9. Oct 14. Applications: Brexit, Framing the Poor
Monday: Segal, David. 2018. In Brexit Vote, Town’s Nostalgia for Seafaring Past Muddied Its Future. New York Times. 23 April.
Wednesday: Rose, Max, and Frank R. Baumgartner. 2013. Framing the Poor: Media Coverage and US Poverty Policy, 1960–2008. Policy Studies Journal, 41, 1: 22–53. slides
Week 10. Oct 21. Causal Stories about Race and Disadvantage; “Super-predators”
Monday: Bonilla-Silva, Eduardo, Amanda Lewis, and David G. Embrick. 2004. I Did Not Get That Job Because of a Black Man...: The Story Lines and Testimonies of Color-Blind Racism. Sociological Forum 19, 4 (December): 555-81. slides
Wednesday: DiIulio, John J., Jr. 1995. The Coming of the Super-Predators. The Weekly Standard. 27 Nov.
DiIulio, John J., Jr. 1996. My Black Crime Problem, and Ours. City Journal n.p.
Week 11. Oct 28. Empathy, Hostility, and Capital Punishment
Monday: Johnson, Sheri Lynn, Amelia Courtney Hritz, Caisa Elizabeth Royer, and John H. Blume. 2016. When Empathy Bites Back: Cautionary Tales from Neuroscience for Capital Sentencing. Fordham Law Review 85: 573–598. slides
Wednesday: Eberhardt, Jennifer L., Paul G. Davies, Valerie J. Purdie-Vaughns, and Sheri Lynn Johnson. 2005/06. Looking Deathworthy: Perceived Stereotypicality of Black Defendants Predicts Capital-Sentencing Outcomes. Psychological Science 17, 5: 383-6. slides
***Note: Your second draft is due in class Wed. Oct 30: It should include improvements to the part I reviewed already, based on my feedback, and also a draft of your data / analysis section. It might have some missing elements, but the structure should be complete.***
Week 12. Nov 4. “Lookism”: Should we have legal protection for ugly people? Is it Fair to Favor Attractive People? Can obese individuals get into medical school?
Monday: Warhurst, Chris, Diane van den Broek, Richard Hall, and Dennis Nickson. 2012. Great Expectations: Gender, Looks and Lookism at Work. International Journal of Work Organisation and Emotion 5, 1:72–90.
Warhurst, Chris, Diane van den Broek, Richard Hall, and Dennis Nickson. 2009. Lookism: The New Frontier of Employment Discrimination? Journal of Industrial Relations 51, 1: 131–136. slides
Wednesday: Maxfield, Charles M., Thorpe, Matthew P., Desser, Terry S., Heitkamp, Darel E., Hull, Nathan C., Johnson, Karen S., Koontz, Nicholas A, Mlady, Gary W., Welch, Timothy J., and Grimm, Lars J. 2019. Bias in Radiology Resident Selection: Do We Discriminate Against the Obese and Unattractive? Academic Medicine May 28 Ahead of Print doi: 10.1097/ACM.0000000000002813
ABC 11. 2019. Obese, unattractive students discriminated against in medical admissions process, Duke study finds. June 5.
Magni, Gabriele, and Andrew Reynolds. 2019. Voter Preferences and the Political Underrepresentation of Minority Groups: Lesbian, Gay, Transgender and HIV+ Candidates in Advanced Democracies. Manuscript under review. slides
Also read this article about larger people being dismissed, ignored, or not treated well when they go out to eat: For Larger Customers, Eating Out Is Still a Daunting Experience, by Kim Severson, New York Times, March 12, 2019.
Week 13. Nov 11. Should Freedom from Circumcision Be a Fundamental Human Right?
Monday: Carpenter, Charli. 2014. “Lost” Causes: Agenda Vetting in Global Issue Networks and the Shaping of Human Security. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, Ch. 6, “His Body, His Choice”, pp. 122–147. slides
Wednesday: We Hate Civilian Deaths of Women and Girls, but not Boys. What the Heck? Carpenter, R. Charli. 2005. “Women, Children and Other Vulnerable Groups”: Gender, Strategic Frames and the Protection of Civilians as a Transnational Issue. International Studies Quarterly 49, 2: 295–334. slides
Week 14. Nov 18. Presentations
Monday: Group A: Culp-Hall-Rios, Howard, Kasuga, Lever, Liu, Marshall, Pedersen
Wednesday: Group B: Michalak-Picciano, Peet, Poe, Salazar, Stephens, Zywicki
Week 15. Nov 25. Presentations
Monday: Group C: Bullock, Burgess, Burnham-Cook-Pena, Conway-Orr, Erickson-Cales, Mackenzie
Wednesday: No class, happy Thanksgiving break.
Week 16. Dec 2.
Monday: Summary, catch-up, review, room for presentations if needed.
Wednesday: Last day of class. Review and discussion
***Final Exam: Thursday Dec 12, 8:00-11:00am, room to be assigned by the Registrar***
Last updated January 8, 2020