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Government 317: Web paper

One of the most dramatic developments during the current election cycle has been the explosion of information related to politics and government policy on the net. While the Web's effect on election outcomes is unclear, it is clear by inspection that candidates and news organizations alike are devoting substantial resources to develop attractive and timely Web presences.

I think it is important for you to be familiar with the rapidly expanding electronic face of contemporary politics. The main purpose of the present paper assignment is to encourage you to engage the political content of the Web in a purposeful and thoughtful manner. But I also hope you'll find ways to connect the (at least to me) astonishing new fact of the Web in an analytical way to theories about politics. That will be the main intellectual challenge in this assignment.

You are to write a short paper (5-7 double-spaced, ``typed'' pages) addressing one of the following topics, or a comparable topic of your choice (best to check with me or Jonathan about it before you get too far into it). In all cases your paper should draw on information from at least three Web sites; supply addresses for the sites to which you refer (for other references use appropriate forms of bibliographic citation). You can find a collection of links to Political News Sources that offer a range of good starting points for your Web explorations on my home page. The paper is due in class on Thursday, September 12.

  1. Compare poll results at several Web sites. Consider both one-shot and tracking polls. Can you find enough information to evaluate the quality of the various polls? How would you explain the similarities and the differences among them?
  2. Compare political news reporting on the Web to reporting in other media. Consider such features as range, timeliness, depth, bias or sophistication. Is political news on the Web more of the same or significantly different in important respects? What would you expect? Why?
  3. Compare the Web sites of several candidates or political parties. Comparisons between candidates running for different kinds of offices (e.g., President, Congress, Governor) or between parties at different political levels (national, congressional, State) can be interesting, as can comparisons between candidates or parties at the same level. Do the sites all look basically the same? What if anything does the presentation and content of the sites tell you about the constituencies or about the coalitions that are supporting or opposing each candidate or party?
  4. What can you learn on the Web about campaign finance? Especially focusing on congressional candidates, can you tell who gave how much money to which candidates? Can you get a picture of which political interests are active in supporting which candidates? How far can you get trying to figure out what if anything candidates may have done in exchange for the money?
  5. What do you think about political commentary on the Web? How does it compare to commentary in print, on the radio or on TV?
  6. The natural thought is that the gaps between the informed and the uninformed and between the active and the inactive will only increase as the net becomes more and more a primary locus for political activity. Can you find evidence to document that idea? Or does the evidence run the other way?


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Walter Mebane
Tue Sep 3 09:08:44 EDT 1996