Citizens, Politicians and the Media: Evaluating Democratic Processes

A major goal of democracy is to realize the will of the people. But how should this be achieved according to different normative democratic models? How is it achieved in reality? To find out, this course zooms in on three groups of actors in modern mass democracies: citizens, politicians, and the mass media. We consider empirical research from both political science and mass communication research, including voting behaviour, political psychology, political participation, political representation, mass media effects on citizens, political journalism, and news management. What does this research tell us about how citizens, politicians, and the mass media interact with each other under different circumstances? How do these actors, and the relations between them, live up to the requirements of different models of democracy? What does research results from different fields reveal about how democracy could be improved?