Exploring the C-SPAN Archives

Description

Exploring the C-SPAN Archives is a collection of path-breaking research studies that use video drawn from the C-SPAN Archives. The book, based on the papers presented at a November 2014 conference, includes chapters that explore issues in presidential debates, minority representation, the presentation of the first ladies, stem research, and innovative ways to analyze video. The book is divided into five parts: Part 1 consists of an overview of and common scholarship using the C-SPAN Archives and how this research advances the conversation after previously published studies. Featured are the ways in which the collection is indexed and tips on how individuals can find particular materials. This section is essential for increased scholarship and pragmatic applications. Part 2 contains applied research using the video collection. Topics in this section include a look at oral histories of minority members of Congress, an analysis of presidential debates, and the presentation style of Michelle Obama. Part 3 is focused on STEM research, including concepts and contradictions in the debate over STEM initiatives, expertise and evidence in science presentations in the C-SPAN Archives, and the framing of technology issues in a C-SPAN television series, The Communicators. Part 4 presents innovative research using C-SPAN and new computer technology. Two scholars take different technical approaches to evaluate polarization and communication using audio levels and video images. Finally, in Part 5, David Caputo presents ideas on the value of massive open online courses (MOOCs) using C-SPAN and reflects on the use of C-SPAN for citizen education in what he terms the "postdigital world." Additionally, Patrice Buzzanell contributes a reflective essay on the future directions of research using the C-SPAN Archives based on the essays in this volume.
Foreword

Preface

Chapter 1: Going Beyond the Anecdote: The C-SPAN Archives and Uncovering the Ritual of Presidential Debates in the Age of Cable News, by Kathryn Cramer Brownell

Chapter 2: Framing Technological Influence Through C-SPAN, by Alison N. Novak and Ernest A. Hakanen

Chapter 3: Image Bite Analysis of Presidential Debates, by Erik P. Bucy and Zijian Harrison Gong

Chapter 4: Expressive Polarization in Political Discourse, by stonegarden grindlife

Chapter 5: C-SPAN, MOOCs, and the Post-Digital Age, by David A. Caputo

Chapter 6: Using the C-SPAN Archives: Evidence in Policymakers’ Discourse on Science, by Mary L. Nucci

Chapter 7: Personal Narratives and Representation Strategies: Using C-SPAN Oral Histories to Examine Key Concepts in Minority Representation, by Nadia E. Brown, Michael D. Minta, and Valeria Sinclair-Chapman

Chapter 8: “Mom-In-Chief ” Rhetoric as a Lens for Understanding Policy Advocacy: A Thematic Analysis of Video Footage From Michelle Obama’s Speeches, by Ray Block Jr. and Christina S. Haynes

Chapter 9: The Performance of Roll Call Votes as Political Cover in the U.S. Senate: Using C-SPAN to Analyze the Vote to Repeal “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”, by Christopher Neff

Chapter 10: Public Understandings of Women in STEM: A Prototype Analysis of Governmental Discourse From the C-SPAN Video Library, by Lauren Berkshire Hearit and Patrice M. Buzzanell

Chapter 11: If a Picture Is Worth a Thousand Words, What Is a Video Worth?, by Bryce J. Dietrich

Chapter 12: Reflections and a Look Ahead, by Patrice M. Buzzanell

CONTRIBUTORS

INDEX

Sujets

• Political Process
• Political Science
• Media

Informations

• Publié par: Purdue University Press
• Date de parution: 15 novembre 2015
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781612494418
• Langue: English

Extrait

EXPLORING THE
C-SPAN
ARCHIVES
Advancing the Research Agenda
EXPLORING THE
C-SPAN
ARCHIVES
Advancing the Research Agenda
edited by Robert X. Browning
Purdue University Press, West Lafayette, Indiana
Copyright 2016 by Robert X. Browning. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America.
Cataloging-in-Publication data available from the Library of Congress.
Paper ISBN: 978-1-55753-734-8
ePDF ISBN: 978-1-61249-440-1
ePUB ISBN: 978-1-61249-441-8
To the memory of my sister, Barbara Browning
CONTENTS
FOREWORD
PREFACE
CHAPTER 1
Going Beyond the Anecdote: The C-SPAN Archives and Uncovering the Ritual of Presidential Debates in the Age of Cable News
Kathryn Cramer Brownell
CHAPTER 2
Framing Technological Influence Through C-SPAN
Alison N. Novak and Ernest A. Hakanen
CHAPTER 3
Image Bite Analysis of Presidential Debates
Erik P. Bucy and Zijian Harrison Gong
CHAPTER 4
Expressive Polarization in Political Discourse
stonegarden grindlife
CHAPTER 5
C-SPAN, MOOCs, and the Post-Digital Age
David A. Caputo
CHAPTER 6
Using the C-SPAN Archives: Evidence in Policymakers’ Discourse on Science
Mary L. Nucci
CHAPTER 7
Personal Narratives and Representation Strategies: Using C-SPAN Oral Histories to Examine Key Concepts in Minority Representation
Nadia E. Brown, Michael D. Minta, and Valeria Sinclair-Chapman
CHAPTER 8
“Mom-In-Chief” Rhetoric as a Lens for Understanding Policy Advocacy: A Thematic Analysis of Video Footage From Michelle Obama’s Speeches
Ray Block Jr. and Christina S. Haynes
CHAPTER 9
The Performance of Roll Call Votes as Political Cover in the U.S. Senate: Using C-SPAN to Analyze the Vote to Repeal “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”
Christopher Neff
CHAPTER 10
Public Understandings of Women in STEM: A Prototype Analysis of Governmental Discourse From the C-SPAN Video Library
Lauren Berkshire Hearit and Patrice M. Buzzanell
CHAPTER 11
If a Picture Is Worth a Thousand Words, What Is a Video Worth?
Bryce J. Dietrich
CHAPTER 12
Reflections and a Look Ahead
Patrice M. Buzzanell
CONTRIBUTORS
INDEX
THE C-SPAN ARCHIVES AS THE POLICYMAKING RECORD OF AMERICAN REPRESENTATIVE DEMOCRACY: A FOREWORD
A lmost two centuries ago, the idea of research libraries, and the possibility of building them at scale, began to be realized. Although we can find these libraries at every major college and university in the world today, and at many noneducational research institutions, this outcome was by no means obvious at the time. And the benefits we all now enjoy from their existence were then at best merely vague speculations.
How many would have supported the formation of these institutions at the time, without knowing the benefits that have since become obvious? After all, the arguments against this massive ongoing expenditure are impressive. The proposal was to construct large buildings, hire staff, purchase all manner of books and other publications and catalogue and shelve them, provide access to visitors, and continually reorder all the books that the visitors disorder. And the libraries would keep the books, and fund the whole operation, in perpetuity . Publications would be collected without anyone deciding which were of high quality and thus deserving of preservation—leading critics to argue that all this effort would result in expensive buildings packed mostly with junk.
To make matters even more confusing, the critics turned out to be right: Most research libraries today are predominantly filled with publications that interest no one. To take one example, more than half the books in the libraries at my own university have not been checked out even once. Yet, the central benefit of these hugely important institutions has turned out to come from collecting the exhaustive record of human thought and activities in some area or areas, making it possible for future scholars to make discoveries from this material that could not have been foreseen at the time. And the progress since has been spectacular.
Such must have been the case three decades ago when Robert X. Browning and his colleagues were trying to set up the C-SPAN Archives. You can almost hear the arguments: C-SPAN is not exactly the most popular TV network, even when it runs live debates of current interest, and now Browning is planning to preserve in perpetuity the 17th hour of a Senate filibuster being taped at 2 a.m., with three senators in the chamber watching?
It is a good thing for society and American democracy that Browning won those arguments. We now have more than 214,000 hours of videos constituting the primary, and in most cases the only, visual and audio record of the policymaking process in the world’s leading representative democracy. With the vision we now all have with hindsight, we can see that it is a true shame that the visual record of prior policy and politics in America is now lost forever. Fortunately, this is no longer the case, and perhaps will never be the case from here on out.
The C-SPAN Archives has produced obvious benefits for the public in understanding governmental debates and policies through the many hundreds of thousands of these videos watched and studied every year. But, just like research libraries, the most important benefits of the C-SPAN Archives are those which were unknown when the Archives was formed. And that is the point of this important volume—to record, explain, and build on the fast progress being made in the fields of research that have grown up around, as a result of, or coincident with the Archives.
I am especially interested in the progress in research turning text, audio, and video into actionable research data. Few could have imagined in the 1980s that the VHS tapes being filed on shelves and in boxes in West Lafayette, Indiana, would eventually be digitized. Fewer still could have understood that developments in methodology, statistics, machine learning, and data science would turn this digitized treasure trove into informative research data capable of producing insights and measures crucial to social science inquiry. These include automated measures of emotion, nonverbal behavior, crowd counts, interactions, and numerous other crucial indicators valuable for a wide range of social and political research.
The C-SPAN Archives not only has a bright future, but it has helped create one for us all as we shed light on how democracy works in America. The research benefiting from the Archives, and well represented in this impressive book, is teaching us a great deal. In this sense, the original vision of the founders of the C-SPAN Archives is having a bigger impact now than it ever has. We should all be glad that this book is being printed and copied, and is due to be stored in the world’s libraries in perpetuity.
Gary King
Albert J. Weatherhead III University Professor
Director, Institute for Quantitative Social Science
Harvard University
PREFACE
I t has been my pleasure to edit and now present the second volume of papers from the November 2014 Advancing the Research Agenda conference. At that conference, 16 scholars presented pathbreaking research conducted using the C-SPAN Archives. The conference exceeded our expectations. Scholars from a wide range of disciplines undertook research that addressed issues in rhetoric, communication technology, African American congressional representation, the portrayal of the First Lady, presidential debates, and image bite analysis. In addition, three papers pioneered ways to study congressional behavior using video resources.
When we established the C-SPAN Archives almost 30 years ago, we anticipated it would be valuable for research, teaching, and civic understanding. The latter two uses have really had an impact. Teachers from K–12 to college use C-SPAN video clips to illustrate points in a variety of courses. Lesson plans are created for K–12 teachers at the C-SPAN Classroom website ( http://www.c-spanclassroom.org/ ). College professors select their own clips to illustrate processes and concepts in their lectures. In the first volume in this series, Professor Glenn Sparks describes using clips of authors of books his students were reading.
Journalists, politicians, and elected officials clip and post videos from the C-SPAN Archives’ online Video Library in a national virtual debate on public policy. Each year more than 2 million clips, with more than 13 million views, are hosted in the Video Library. This is in addition to the full-length programs, which garner more than 15 million views each year. So, the C-SPAN Video Library has raised the public debate on political and policy issues as the public engages in a clipping and posting debate.
But it is the academic research on which the conference, and subsequently this volume, focuses. That research takes time and commitment from scholars. First, they must undertake the research and fit it in the context of previously published work. And developing data from video records is time consuming and tedious. Data need to be collected, coded, and analyzed from the video record. The level of innovation and amount of time spent, as presented in the chapters of this volume, are truly impressive.
The intellectual work that went into the conference and this volume demonstrate how far the C-SPAN Archives has come over the past nearly 30 years. Sixteen scholars each approached a topic in their area of expertise and turned to the C-SPAN Archives to find data to shed light