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McDevitt, Michael

Professor

Positions

Research Areas research areas

Research

research overview

  • A scholar of political socialization, Prof. McDevitt explores influences of family, media, and schools in the cultivation of youth civic development and ideological identity. This research highlights the value of conflict seeking and deliberation in youth expression, rather than adopting the prevailing view of political development as internalization and conflict avoidance. He is currently writing about adolescent attraction to authoritarian ideologies. In a second area of political communication, Prof. McDevitt studies how journalism operates as a political institution during democratic backsliding. He was recently editor of a special issue of Mass Communication and Society: Media and the Future of Democracy. He is the author of Where Ideas Go to Die: The Fate of Intellect in American Journalism (Oxford, 2020). The book documents how anti-intellectualism is encoded in routine news and channeled in more spectacular cases of media ritual. Chapters draw evidence from a national survey of journalism students, interviews of 'dangerous professors' targeted by vigilante groups, and case studies that document journalistic complicity in the rise of authoritarian populism.

keywords

  • political communication, political socialization, youth civic engagement, political identity, journalism studies, media sociology, anti-intellectualism, populism, deliberation, authoritarianism

Publications

selected publications

Teaching

courses taught

  • APRD 7003 - ProSeminar in Mass Communication Theory II
    Primary Instructor - Spring 2019 / Spring 2020 / Spring 2021 / Spring 2023 / Spring 2024
    Continues introducing and discussing theoretical and methodological points of view in areas of communication, journalism and persuasion. Discusses the most important qualitative and quantitative methodological points of view, and from theoretical viewpoints that range from social science to critical studies. The idea is to develop an appreciation for theories and methodologies that can be employed depending upon the research question. Same as JRNL7003.
  • APRD 7030 - Media Sociology
    Primary Instructor - Fall 2022
    Examines a range of theories for how media messages and media institutions turn out the way they do. �Media sociology� refers to theorizing about the media as the �dependent variable;� even though many of the �independent variables� explored are not narrowly sociological. It connects media actors, organizations, and institutions to sociological concepts such as socialization, interaction, roles, and structures. Same as JRNL 7030.
  • APRD 7061 - Quantitative Research Methods
    Primary Instructor - Fall 2021 / Fall 2022 / Fall 2023
    Introduces graduate students to concepts and applications in quantitative research methods. The course prepares students fordissertation writing through hands-on experience in developing research designs and conducting independent quantitative research. Same as JRNL 7061.
  • APRD 7871 - Special Topics
    Primary Instructor - Fall 2020
    May be repeated up to 15 total credit hours.
  • JRNL 3201 - Critical Perspectives on Journalism
    Primary Instructor - Spring 2020 / Spring 2021
    Introduces students to the critical perspectives most often employed in qualitative analysis of journalistic texts and practice: Marxism, psychoanalytical criticism, semiology, sociological criticism, structuralism, etc. Emphasis is upon texts from contemporary print and broadcast media, although students may also explore documentary film and literary journalism.
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