Socio-political Marketing
Code: 42228 ECTS Credits: 10| Degree | Type | Year |
|---|---|---|
| Political Science | OT | 0 |
Contact
- Name:
- Alina Vranceanu
- Email:
- alina.vranceanu@uab.cat
Teachers
- Guillermo Rico Camps
Teaching groups languages
You can view this information at the end of this document.
Prerequisites
Students enrolled in this course are expected to have a bachelor’s degree in political science or in any other social science discipline. Students are encouraged to gain familiarity with the following books, particularly if they have degrees from other disciplines:
- Dalton, R.J. (2013) Citizen Politics: Public Opinion and Political Parties in Advanced Industrial Democracies. CQ Press
- Negrine, R. and Stanyer J. (eds) (2007) The Political Communication Reader. Routledge.
Objectives and Contextualisation
The first aim of this module is to understand the scientific bases of electoral behaviour. Thus, we will study what the causes of the vote are and will analyse the models that try to predict it. The second aim of the module deals with the communicative bases of politics. Thus, we will analyse how political actors, the media, and the people at large interact with political communication. The final aim of the module is to familiarize the student with current debates on public opinion and electoral issues.
Competences
- Analyse the behaviour and political attitudes of the public and the political communication processes in which they are immersed.
- Apply the qualitative and quantitative techniques necessary for the systematic and rigorous analysis of specific aspects of politics today.
- Design a research project that satisfies the criteria of rigour and academic excellence.
- Design and write projects and technical and academic reports autonomously using the appropriate terminology, arguments and analytical tools in each case.
- Work in international and interdisciplinary teams whose members have different origins and backgrounds.
Learning Outcomes
- Analyzing survey data using appropriate statistical software.
- Describe the various theories about the effects and consequences of political communication and being able to appreciate its real impact in specific contexts.
- Design and carry out an analysis through surveys knowing its various aspects (questionnaire, sampling, method of administration).
- Design and write projects and technical and academic reports autonomously using the appropriate terminology, arguments and analytical tools in each case.
- Distinguish data sources for the study of socio-political problems.
- Identify key actors in the political system: their repertoires of action, interests and resources.
- Identify the different variables involved in an issue of socio-political research and how they relate to each other.
- Internalize functions, time axes competition and indicators of elections.
- Make socio-political phenomena observable and quantifiable.
- Propose a wide range of different research designs to meet different research questions socio-political and know what's right every time.
- Recognize the operation of the main political institutions and how they influence the behavior of citizens.
- Use resources to the attractive and summary presentation of data and results on socio-political analysis.
- Using the most frequent visual and verbal language in electoral and institutional campaigns.
- Work in international and interdisciplinary teams whose members have different origins and backgrounds.
Content
1. Voting behaviour
1.1 Introduction: The schools of voting behaviour
1.2 The social-position and the value bases of the vote: cleavages or identities?
1.3 Spatial models and economic voting
1.4 The political consequences of non-voting
2. Political attitudes
2.1 Motivated Reasoning
2.2 Emotions in Politics
2.3 Populism (i): Conceptualization and Measurement
2.4 Populism (ii): Causes and Consequences
2.5 Climate politics
2.6 Public attitudes toward immigration
3. Topics in electoral behaviour
3.1 Corruption and clientelism
3.2 Electoral systems and strategic voting
3.3 Extreme right
3.4 Democratic backsliding: citizens’ perspective
3.5 Ideological and affective polarization
3.6 Gender, age and the new conservatism
4. Technology, communication, and democracy
4.1 Automation, political preferences and behaviour
4.2 Political campaigns in the “digital era”: an introduction
4.3 Political consequences of social media: assessing the effects on (mis)information, polarization and political participation
5. Public opinion
5.1 Public opinion and its measurement: between surveys and social media
5.2 Dynamics of public opinion formation and change: A review of effects
5.3 Challenges in public opinion research: the 'social desirability' issue
Activities and Methodology
| Title | Hours | ECTS | Learning Outcomes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Type: Directed | |||
| Keynote sessions | 38.7 | 1.55 | 2, 6, 7, 8, 11, 13 |
| Presentations articles and discussion | 25.8 | 1.03 | 7 |
| Type: Supervised | |||
| Essay writing | 50 | 2 | 1, 4, 14 |
| Reading | 50 | 2 | 5 |
| Type: Autonomous | |||
| Individual study | 80 | 3.2 | 2, 6, 8, 11 |
A typical session will include:
- A keynote session led by the instructor where the theoretical aspects of the session will be covered.
- Presentations by two students on the two mandatory readings of the day.
- Discussion of the articles and conclusions.
All students are expected to read the mandatory seminar readings and prepare their contributions.
Annotation: Within the schedule set by the centre or degree programme, 15 minutes of one class will be reserved for students to evaluate their lecturers and their courses or modules through questionnaires.
Assessment
Continous Assessment Activities
| Title | Weighting | Hours | ECTS | Learning Outcomes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Final test | 50 | 1 | 0.04 | 2, 5, 9, 6, 8, 11, 13 |
| Presentation of the compulsory readings, participation in the discussion and reading tests | 25 | 2.5 | 0.1 | 2, 5, 4, 9, 6, 7, 8, 11, 14, 13, 12 |
| Written essay | 25 | 2 | 0.08 | 1, 2, 3, 5, 9, 6, 7, 8, 10, 11, 13, 12 |
- Presentation of the compulsory readings, participation in the discussion and reading tests (25%)
Each session, two students will be in charge – one for each compulsory reading - of delivering a short presentation on their respective texts. Each presentation will aim to present the reading in all its parts clearly and exhaustively, and should conclude with several questions to stimulate class discussion/debate. Students in charge of the presentation must prepare slides and submit them to the professor delivering the class prior to the start of the session. Their presentation skills, capacity to engage with the article and its literature, their understanding of the results/findings presented in the reading, the quality of their oral and visual presentation, and the relevance of their three questions for in-class discussion will be evaluated. Presentations should be about 15-minute long. Shorter (less than 10 minutes) or longer (longer than 16 minutes) presentations will be penalized. Presentations will be worth 60% of this section.
All students must read the Compulsory materials and engage with in-class discussion. The participation to the in-class debate is also part of the evaluation. Students who deliver a good presentation of the reading but do not actively engage in discussion during the other sessions will therefore be penalized on their grade for this part. Participation will be worth 25% of this section.
Finally, the professor will be able to test whether students have read and understood the compulsory readings of the session by posing short tests at the beginning of the class. In case there will be, short tests will be 15% of the evaluation of this section (if there are not, presentations will be 70% worth and participation 30%).
- Written essay (25%)
Students will prepare a written essay on a topic related to the course. Students will needto submit a short one-paragraph proposal to the course coordinator via Campus Virtual at the beginning of the course. The coordinator will confirm (or not) the suitability of the topic to study.
The essay will follow the classic structure of a scientific article, including abstract, introduction, literature, methods, results, discussion, list of references (at least three references must be included). Students will have to present a clear and well-defined research question and try to respond to the research question on the basis of previous literature/findings or on their own elaboration of data/resources. Essays must have a minimum of 3,000 words and a maximum of 4,000 words, excluding references. Essays must be written in English and submitted to the professor in charge of the selected topic by the indicated deadline. Essays submitted after the deadline will receive a 2-point penalty per each day of delay. It is NOT possible to submit essays that have been prepared for other courses or for the thesis.
Plagiarism will not be tolerated under any circumstances. The use of artificial intelligence needs to be in accordance with the general rules of the master, explained in the student’s handbook.
There will be 2 sessions devoted to work with the Essay:
- 2 March (date to be confirmed at the beginning of the course). Essay Presentation Day: all students will have to present their proposal for 3 minutes in front of the audience. The students and the teacher will shortly discuss the proposal.
- 23 April (date to be confirmed at the beginning of the course). Essay Working Day: Students will be able to discuss with the teacher the advancements of their Essay. Voluntary attendance.
- Final exam (50%). At the end of the classes, students will have to take a final test. The test will include 20 multiple-choice questions about the topics presented in class during the course.
In case of exam retakes, the same evaluation method described above will apply. Exam retakes will only be granted to students that have attended the first exam and have filed it.
Students will be graded with a numeric grade ranging from 0 to 10, being 10 the highest grade.
Note:
On carrying out each evaluation activity, professors will inform students (through Moodle) of the procedures to be followed for reviewing the grades awarded, and the date on which such review takes place.
Criteria for the grade “Non-assessable”: In accordance with point 9 of article 266 of UAB’s Academic Regulations, a student will be given a “Non-assessable” grade when they have not provided sufficient evidence of learning to allow for a reliable assessment. In this module, it will be considered that there is no sufficient evidence for assessment when the student has not submitted any continuous assessment activity, nor attended any test or exam.
In the event of a student committing any irregularity that may lead to a significant variation in the grade awarded to an assessment activity, the student will be given a zero for this activity, regardless of any disciplinary process that may take place. In the event of several irregularities in assessment activities of the same subject, the student will be given a zero as the final grade for this subject.
Exams where there have been irregularities (e.g. plagiarism, unauthorized use of AI, etc.) cannot be retaken.
The unique evaluation system is not foreseen in this module.
Use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies
For this module, the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies is restricted to support tasks such as searching for information and bibliographic sources, translating and linguistically correcting texts written by the student, and generating preliminary outlines or summaries, provided that these are subsequently reworked by the student. It is not permitted to use AI to write entire texts, develop main arguments, or produce answers in individual assessment activities (exams, essays, final papers, or other main learning evidence).
The student must explicitly indicate which parts of the work have been generated or assisted by AI, specify the tools used, and include a critical reflection on how these tools have influenced the process and the final result. Lack of transparency in the use of these technologies will be considered a breach of academic honesty and may result in partial or full penalties in the grading of the activity, or even more severe sanctions in serious cases.
Bibliography
The core readings are:
Bartels, Larry M. 2008. "The Study of Electoral Behavior." Extended version of a chapter in Jan E. Leighley, ed., The Oxford Handbook of American Elections and Castells, M (2009). Communication Power. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Eijk, Cees van der, and Mark Franklin. 2009. Elections and Voters. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
Evans, Jocelyn A.J. 2004. Voters and Voting: An Introduction. London: Sage.
Iyengar, S., McGrady, Jennifer A. (2007). Media Politics: A Citizen’s Guide. New York: W.W. Norton & Company.
Lowery, S.A., De Fleur, M.L. (1994). Milestones in Mass Communication Research: Media Effects. New York: Pearson.
McNair, Brian (2003). An Introduction to Political Communication. London: Routledge.
Perloff, Richard M. (2014). The Dynamics of Political Communication. Media and Politics in a Digital Age. New York: Routledge.
Soroka, Stuart N., Wlezien, Christopher (2010). Degrees of Democracy: Politics, Public Opinion and Policy. New York: Cambridge University Press
The syllabus contains a detailed bibliography for each lecture.
Software
The final essay needs to be empirical in nature. The module however does not impose any software constraints for empirical analyses.
Groups and Languages
Please note that this information is provisional until 30 November 2025. You can check it through this link. To consult the language you will need to enter the CODE of the subject.
| Name | Group | Language | Semester | Turn |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| (TEm) Theory (master) | 1 | English | second semester | morning-mixed |