Trustee journalists select certain topics to report (rather than other topics) and they construct stories about those topics in ways that often cast praise or criticism on the performance of a political leader. This paper assignment invites you to apply what you’ve learned in class about the psychology of information processing to draw inferences about how citizens are likely to react to trustee news coverage.
Your role in this news analysis paper assignment is to revisit the trustee news article you selected for either the second short analysis paper or the third short analysis paper to demonstrate your understanding of the psychology of information processing. You must use the news article from one of your two previous news analysis papers for this fourth paper assignment. Among these two possible articles to choose from, the best story to use for this assignment is the one in which the news article presents a topic or policy issue in a way that could be construed as casting positive or negative attention on the performance of a prominent political leader.
Your paper will present your analysis of the news article in light of relevant course material on the psychology of information processing. Keep in mind that your paper is an argument that makes claims (or draws conclusions), and these claims (or conclusions) must themselves be supported by evidence that you provide in the paper. In addition, this paper assignment is designed to showcase your ability to select and apply relevant concepts from course lectures and readings.Your paper therefore should be deeply engaging with the full range of course material that is relevant for addressing particular questions, and you should be citing all your sources. The following questions will provide a framework for your paper, which should come it at roughly three pages of double-spaced text (not counting the title page or reference list page):
1) Brief overview of the news story. (roughly 0.5 page)
· Think of your news story as consisting of a thematic topic (or policy issue) that is relevant to the performance of a prominent political leader. For example, a story criticizing the Trump campaign’s lawsuits to stop vote counts in key battleground states can be thought of as highlighting the topic of electoral integrity in a way that reflects negatively on the performance of President Trump.
a) What is the main thematic topic or policy issue that is discussed in the news story you selected?
b) How could the news story be perceived as critical toward (or supportive of) the political performance of a prominent political leader? Be sure to identify the political leader.
c) Does the story present mainly a one-sided perspective, or does it include perspectives from multiple sides?
2) How would a reader who personally supports the political leader implicated by the news article (see #1b above) react to the article differently than a reader who personally opposes the political leader? (roughly 1 page)
· Be sure to explain your reasoning using the content of this particular news article, clearly stating how the reaction of these two readers are likely to differ, and why the reactions of the two readers are likely to differ based on conceptual material you’ve learned in the course.
3) What would a plausible agenda-setting effect look like for someone who read the article?
· Briefly describe using the content of this particular news article what a plausible agenda-setting effect might look like for someone who read the article. (roughly 0.25 page)
4) What would a plausible priming effect look like for someone who read the article?
· Briefly describe using the content of this particular news article what a plausible priming effect might look like for someone who read the article. (roughly 0.25 page)
5) Of all the possible ways that reading this article might potentially influence the attitudes and perceptions of an average reader, which result do you think is the most likely to occur and why do you expect it to be the most likely result? (roughly 0.75 page)
· Setting aside your answers to the previous questions, in this section you’re being asked to summarize the main impact (if any) that reading this article would likely have on the attitudes and/or perceptions of an average reader. Be sure to explain your reasoning using the content of your news article as well as the conceptual material you’ve learned in the course.
Format and Bibliographic References
Your paper should come it at roughly three pages of double-spaced text (not counting the title page or reference list page). “Roughly three pages” defines an expectation of how much writing it takes to do a good job on this assignment. You can exceed the three page limit by a small amount (up to four pages of text) without penalty, but any paper longer than four pages will be held to higher standards. Any paper shorter than three pages will probably lack the level of detail and constructive engagement with course material that is required to do well on this paper assignment.
Papers begin with a separate title page which includes the paper’s title, your name, and relevant course information. Papers end with a separate reference list page which includes properly-formatted citations to all sources used in your paper, including both course readings and course lectures. Your name and any other identifying information should appear nowhere else in the paper. An electronic copy of the paper will need to be uploaded to the SafeAssign plagiarism detection system as well as to the course Moodle.
I expect proper bibliographic references in the paper (including both in-text citations and a full reference list) and prefer the APA author-date style. However, you may follow one of the other standard bibliographic reference systems (Chicago, MLA, Turabian, etc.) so long as you do so consistently. Papers should be typed or word-processed, double-spaced, and set in a standard font (generally 10-12 point sizes).