Polit­ic­al Com­mu­nic­a­tion and Pub­lic Af­fairs

Course content

The purpose of the course is threefold:

• (i) to give students concepts and tools for analyzing the political dimensions of complex contemporary problems
• (ii) to equip students with knowledge needed to analyze public affairs in a global landscape and develop policy solutions to wicked problems
• (iii) to give students the tools needed for understanding and managing the datafication of existing streams of communication.

Specifically, the course gives insights into new sociological theories of politics and communication, and equips students to understand the possibilities, limits and ambiguities in political processes.

The students will learn the function of the political, its capacity of integration and representation of “the whole” in a split society and explore core concepts such as “the political”, “the political system”, “conflict” and “immunity of society”.

The course will address new developments in public affairs literature in order to observe how present challenges are articulated and influenced by actors in the global policy sphere and equip students to engage in research-based policy design and delivery, stakeholder identification, crisis management and ethics, strategic thinking, and effective presentation of data.

The course is structured based on three analytical frameworks: forms of communication, types of media, and platforms and affordances.