“All politics is local” is an often refrain within the world of political campaigns. However, in today's media saturated environment, all politics are local/national/global. This session will focus on strategies and tools for helping young people start with local examples of political messaging via mediums such as local news, their social media feeds, or political advertising. Using this starting point, they will critically analyze the messages constructed in these sources and inquire into why and how they came to see them. This inquiry, for example, includes using available FEC and social media network tools for identifying groups purchasing advertising, who they are targeting, and how effective these ads are. Similarly, they will look at how issues are framed across the state and how they relate to their local context and target audience. Sample versions of these tasks will be modeled in the session and resources will be provided for use in your own classrooms. The goal is to develop informed citizens who can engage critically with a range of political messaging and employ information seeking strategies to understand how policy issues or candidates may impact them locally. Students can also use these skills to employ political messaging to reach others on issues they care about. Implications for this session include a more relevant approach to examining politics authentically, understanding how global/national/state issues impact local contexts, how and why outside groups attempt to influence local politics, and to counter the effects of partisan political rhetoric and the affective polarization it fuels.
Learning Goals- Model activities that participants can adapt and implement to foster their students' media literacy and inquiry skills while analyzing how political messaging is occurring in their local areas.
- Help teachers develop their own skills and knowledge in the areas of political messaging strategies, affective polarization, and the role of special interest groups in political campaigns.
