Dr. Kristen Landreville

Mon. Aug. 23, 2010

Who Am I? Dr. Kristen

LandrevilleBS and MA,

University of Florida○ BS: Journalism○ MA: Mass

CommunicationPhD, The Ohio State

University, Communication

Primary research areasEffects of political

communication (news, entertainment, and discussion) on people

New media (social networking, UGC)

Personal interestsFamily time, hiking,

cooking, reading, jogging

Who are you?

Complete questionnaire Class introductions Chat with your neighbors for 5 minutes

Get contact info. in case you miss class and need notes or updates

About the Course How does communication effect politics? How does the political environment effect how we

communicate?

We’ll consider: Traditional news media

○ Television, newspapers Entertainment media

○ Late-night comedy, films New media

○ Internet, social networking sites Interpersonal communication

○ Parents, friends

KEY THEME: How does what we read, what we view, and how we talk influence what we know and how we behave?

Source: http://www-personal.umich.edu/~mejn/election/2008/

The state of Rhode Island, with its 1.1 million inhabitants, appears about twice the size of Wyoming, which has half a million, even though Wyoming has 60 times the acreage of Rhode Island.

Election map by percentages of Rep/Dem votes within counties.

Shades of red, blue, and purple are used to illustrate percentages.

To the right is the population-based map.

Purple Nation!

Special Note on “Politics” in a Politics & Media Course This class is non-partisan Please remember that the US is very

purple We will not discuss political points of

view, instead how communication effects all audience members

Please bring your perspectives to class, but comments should be based on readings, not personal left or right biases

For an online tutorial, please see: http://www.jtoolkit.com/blogging/wp_tips.html

WordPress Registration Use free WordPress hosting

(recommended for the non-tech/web savvy)

Sign up with a web hosting partner that offers easy-install WordPressHave to buy your own domain nameUwyo offers free hosting at

http://students.uwyo.edu/ You can use a WordPress recommended host

as well

WordPress Blog Setup

Choose a professional domain nameE.g., you can use your name or initials

Choose a clean templateDon’t want a lot of clutter

Familiarize yourself with the “dashboard”Examine the optionsLook at the widgets

Basic Posting HTML

Use the “visual” view in the posting area Scroll over the icons to see what they do You can:

BoldItalicizeCreate a listInsert linksInsert imagesMake an image a link

1st Blog Post

Now that you have a blog, you have to use it.

Focus your first blog post on Where you get your news from? Why? What are

the benefits of that source? How much news do you consume? What improvements to your news diet can you make?

Due: Mon. Aug. 30 by 11:59 p.m.

For Next Time…

What is politics? News? Political communication?

Read Bennett Ch. 1