Jan 8, 2019–In this course, you will learn about the major areas of research and debates related to advocacy, communication, and social change. You will connect scholarly work to insights from leading strategists and journalists, and to contemporary trends and issues. We will focus on the varying ways that campaigns, news, technology, social movements, philanthropy, and big ideas influence societal decisions and the implications for our democracy.
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
- Engage critically with major issues, trends, challenges, and questions in contemporary advocacy and nonprofit communications.
- Familiarize yourself with major research methods that inform advocacy campaigns and develop literacy in reading, understanding, and applying the results of these methods.
- Develop deep knowledge of peer-reviewed research and scholarship on a specific advocacy and non-profit communications topic, subject, or issue.
- Apply big picture concepts, theoretical frameworks, and concepts to strategic thinking and planning.
- Familiarize yourself with role of philanthropic institutions and funding sources in shaping and promoting advocacy and non-profit communications.
- Identify, retrieve, assess, and write effectively about research and scholarship related to advocacy and non-profit communications.
COURSE REQUIREMENTS
Class Participation (10%): You are expected to attend every class unless you have an excused absence. (Please email me in advance if you will not be in attendance.) You are also expected to actively participate in class, to do the reading in advance, and to share readings, news articles, and examples that you encounter outside of class that may be relevant to discussion.
Take Home Exam #1 (20%) and Take Home Exam #2 (20%): You will be completing two take home essay exams that test your understanding of key theories, topics, and concepts fand your ability to apply these principles to strategy.
Annotated Bibliography (15%): For your final strategy paper, you will be analyzing a major national policy issue. To inform your analysis, you will be preparing an annotated bibliography of 15-20 of scholarly and research-based sources that describe the issue’s history, major lines of contention, and obstacles to reaching agreement on ways to address the issue, specific theories of change that apply to the topic, and the roles that philanthropy, the news media, public opinion, narratives and ideas, messaging, and advocacy have played.
Social Change Strategy Paper (35%): You will research and write a 15-20 page strategy paper drawing on your annotated bibliography and other sources, assessing the major barriers to addressing your chosen problem or issue, and the role that various actors, ideas, narratives, and events have played. In doing so, you will identify and evaluate specific possible framing and communication strategies, and search databases of major foundations, examining their program descriptions, annual reports, and grantees, identifying the funders’ theory of change, major strategies, and preferred types of programs and grantees. Based on this analysis, you will develop a theory of change specific to your topic, and outline an organizing, communication, and funding strategy to achieve specific short term and long term goals.
DUE DATES
- Fri March 1 — Annotated Bibliography Due
- Mon March 11 — 1st Exam emailed to class and due by 11pm Fri March 15
- Fri March 29 — First draft of strategy paper due
- Mon April 1 — 2nd exam emailed to class and due by 11pm Fri April 5
- Wed April 10 — Final strategy paper due
REQUIRED TEXTS
- Callahan, D. (2017). The Givers: Wealth, power, and philanthropy in a new gilded age. Vintage.
- Giridharadas, A. (2018). Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World. New York: Knopf. [Available as Library E-Book]
- Hahn, H. (2014). How organizations develop activists: Civic associations and leadership in the 21st century. Oxford University Press.
- Mason, L. (2018). Uncivil agreement: How politics became our identity. University of Chicago Press.
- McIntyre, L. (2018). Post-Truth. MIT Press.
- Vaidhyanathan, S. (2018). Antisocial Media: How Facebook Disconnects Us and Undermines Democracy. New York: Oxford University Press.
- Meyer, S. & Tarrow, S. (Eds) (2018). The Resistance: The Dawn of the Anti-Trump Opposition Movement. New York: Oxford University Press.
SCHEDULE & READINGS
*Apart from assigned books, all readings are either available freely online or accessible if you click on the link to the article from campus or when logged into the Northeastern University library portal from off-campus.
Jan 8 — Introductions and Overview
Jan 15 — Research and Strategy
- Glynn et al. (2018). Chapter 3: Methods for Studying Public Opinion. In (Eds), Glynn, C., Herbst, S., Lindeman, M., O’Keefe, G., & Shapiro, Y., Public Opinion, 3rd Edition. New York: Routledge.
- Hahn, H. (2014). How organizations develop activists: Civic associations and leadership in the 21st century. Oxford University Press. [READ ALL]
- Nisbet, M.C. (2009). Knowledge into Action: Framing the Debates Over Climate Change and Poverty. In P. D’Angelo and J. Kuypers, Doing News Framing Analysis: Empirical, Theoretical, and Normative Perspectives. New York: Routledge.
Additional Resources
- Bostrom, M. (2004). Broken Families, Planning for Tomorrow. Analysis of Qualitative Research Regarding Communicating the Issues of Low Wage Work. Public Knowledge.
- Bostrom, M. (n.d). Communicating Low Wage Work as Economy Not Poverty. Public Knowledge.
Feb 19 — The Liberal Order: Reinvention or Revolution?
- Giridharadas, A. (2018). Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World. New York: Knopf. [Read All] [Available as Library E-Book]
- Anon. (2018, Sept. 13). A Manifesto for Renewing Liberalism. The Economist.
- Brooks, D. (2018, Jan. 11). How Democracies Perish. The New York Times.
- Sullivan, A. (2018, Sept. 14). America Desperately Needs a Healthy Conservatism. New York magazine.
Additional Resources
- The Good Fight podcast interview of A. Giridharadas, part 1 & part 2.
- Sullivan, A. (2018, March 9). The World Is Better Than Ever. Why Are We Miserable? New York magazine.
- Kramer, L. (2018, April 26). Beyond Neoliberalism: Rethinking Political Economy. Hewlett Foundation.
Feb 26 — Political Polarization and Hyper-Partisanship
- Mason, L. (2018). Uncivil agreement: How politics became our identity. University of Chicago Press. [READ ALL]
- Brady, D. & Cain, B. (2018, Fall). Are Our Parties Realigning? National Affairs, 95-97.
- Nisbet, M.C. & Scheufele, D.A. (2012, Aug.) The Polarization Paradox: Why Hyper-partisanship Promotes Conservatism and Undermines Liberalism. Breakthrough Journal, 3, 55-69.
Additional Resources
- WNYC On the Media (2018, Nov. 6). Why Are We So Polarized? An extended interview with Lilliana Mason.
- Pew Research Center (2017, Oct. 5). The Partisan Divide on Political Values Grows Even Wider. Washington, DC.
March 5 — Spring Break
March 12 — Philanthropy, Advocacy, and Social Change
- Callahan, D. (2017). The Givers: Wealth, power, and philanthropy in a new gilded age. Vintage. [READ ALL]
- Nisbet, M.C. (2014). Disruptive Ideas: Public Intellectuals and their Arguments for Action on Climate Change. Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews Climate Change, 5, 809-823.
- Nisbet, M. C. (2018). Strategic philanthropy in the post‐Cap‐and‐Trade years: Reviewing US climate and energy foundation funding. Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change, 9(4), e524.
Additional Resources
- Nisbet, M.C. (2019). Sciences, Publics, Politics: Climate Philanthropy and the Four Billion (Dollars, That Is). Issues in Science and Technology 35, no. 2, pp. 34–36.
- Nisbet, M.C., Wihbey, J., Kristiansen, S., & Bajak, A. (2018). Funding the News: Foundations and Nonprofit Media. Cambridge, MA: Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics, and Public Policy at Harvard University.
March 19 — The Trump Resistance
- Meyer, S. & Tarrow, S. (Eds) (2018). The Resistance: The Dawn of the Anti-Trump Opposition Movement. New York: Oxford University Press. [READ ALL].
- Putnam, L. & Skocpol, T. (2018). Middle America Reboots Democracy. Democracy Journal.
- Judis, J. (2017, Sept. 14). Redoing the Electoral Math. The New Republic.
- Beinart, P. (2018, Dec.) Will The Left Go Too Far? The Atlantic.
March 26 — Expertise and “Post-Truth” Politics
- McIntyre, L. (2018). Post-Truth. MIT Press.
- Sarewitz, D. (2009). The Rightful Place of Science? Issues in Science and Technology.
- Nisbet, M.C. (2018). Scientists in Civic Life: Facilitating Dialogue-Based Communication. Washington, DC: American Association for the Advancement of Science.
- Singal, J. (2018, July 15). How Social Science Might be Misunderstanding Conservatives. New York magazine.
Additional Resources:
- Nisbet, M.C. (2019, Jan 11). Discovering Evolution at College: Researchers Study Better Ways to Engage Students in Biology Classes. Medium.com: Wealth of Ideas blog.
- Nisbet, M.C. (2018). The Gene-Editing Conversation. American Scientist, 106(1), 15-19.
- Nisbet, M.C. (2016, Nov/Dec). Winning the Vaccine War: Focus on Local Communities and Avoid Denigrating Parents. Skeptical Inquirer Magazine, 40 (6).
April 2 — News, Social Media, and Democracy
- Vaidhyanathan, S. (2018). Antisocial Media: How Facebook Disconnects Us and Undermines Democracy. New York: Oxford University Press. [READ ALL]
Additional Resources
- Jackson, S. J., & Foucault Welles, B. (2015). Hijacking# myNYPD: Social media dissent and networked counterpublics. Journal of Communication, 65(6), 932-952.
April 9 — Discuss Final Papers
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