This class was pretty boring until the final 2 weeks. Professor Freedman is a great guy, but the material was pretty dumb and anyone with any common sense would know the first 3/4 of the class already. The TAs were a particular disaster. The quizzes that you have to take are extremely random and do not test your knowledge of the subject. Instead Prof. Freedman throws in questions like "How many starbucks are there in the US". It had nothing to do with the readings, just extremely small details he randomly said during class. I thought it would be an awesome class during election year since I am also a politics major, but it was dreadfully boring. TAKE ANOTHER CLASS THAT'S MORE INTERESTING!

An incredibly informative class which provided an introduction to the intricate relationship between today's mass media to the American political realm (and particularly topical, given the 2016 Presidential election). You'll want to attend lecture (as some test questions are dependent on lecture material), and there's a significant amount of reading each week (nothing too hard, though). Make sure to see your TAs for essay help, because there's only two quizzes, two midterms, and a final - so if you screw up horribly on one, you'll be hard-pressed to improve your grades.

Overall, though, the workload is easily manageable - as long as you read carefully and attend every lecture and discussion section (if you can, Heersink's a great TA!), you'll pass the class.

I loved the class. I really recommend taking this as your first 3000 PL class because it's just the right difficulty to ease you in. The class is composed of 2 essays, 2 quizzes (basically midterms), participation (including attendance in discussion), and a final. The essays aren't graded hard, though they require a lot of thought, so I recommend starting on them early. Also make sure to cite plenty of class readings (at least 5 for each essay) because that's always a problem for the first essay--people get too caught up analyzing the article and forget to include class readings. The quizzes are not bad either, although there are always 1-3 questions of the ~45 that are unfair/unreasonable. The final was surprisingly easy too--we were allotted 3 hours and most people finished in 1 hour. In terms of studying the authors, the most you have to know is a 1-2 sentence summary--there's no point in re-reading anything. It's not difficult to get an A-/B+ as long as you go to class and keep up with the readings, but getting an A requires a bit more effort.

I really did not like this class. Professor Freedman was entertaining in lecture, and he clearly knows a lot about the topic. However, it took until the very end of the semester (political advertising) for us to learn anything particularly interesting in this course. The readings do not provide much insight, and the hyper-specific, multiple-choice quizzes reminded me of high school reading quizzes. Additionally, the class emphasizes research methodology more than anything else towards the middle/end of the semester. The papers weren't graded too harshly, and the final is not bad at all, so it isn't hard to end up with a good grade if you put in the work. For me, though, I was most looking forward to this class heading into the semester, and it left me the most disappointed. I don't feel like any of us learned that much.

I loved this class - it is definitely one of the best offered by the politics department. Honestly what makes this class is Prof. Freedman. The material is somewhat interesting and I definitely learned a lot, but I was always engaged in lecture because of Prof. Freedman is hilarious. The class has two papers (the second one is a research design so kind of annoying) as well as two collab quizzes and a final. The final is not bad at all and used a lot of the questions from the previous quizzes, but don't underestimate the quizzes - they are tricky and particular. Nick was a really great TA. Overall, I really loved this class and would recommend it to anyone! You definitely don't have to be a politics or media studies major to take it, it's accessible to anyone.

Readings were very manageable for a politics class (~50-100 pgs per week). You definitely had to do the readings or at least skim them to get an A on the quizzes. Freedman's lectures were interesting and coherent, and the TA goes over the material in discussion anyway. Easy final.

This was a good PLAP class. Well-balanced, great prof., and solid readings that are very interesting and applicable. I'd not only recommend this, but would go as far as saying that I'd take it again if I had the choice.

I highly recommend this course. Your grade is made up of 15% discussion, 15% for a 5-7 paper, 20% for a 7-8 page paper, and 12.5% for each of two take home, closed note quizzes, plus an in class 25% final. Since your grade has so many components, it's easy to bounce back if you get a slightly low grade on one thing. There is a lot of reading, but it isn't really necessary. You can get away with just reading the conclusion of each study. The papers are a bit hard if you didn't do the reading, but I wrote mine the night before they were due without having read and got an A by just skimming for random quotes to throw in. The final is half multiple choice, and most of those multiple choice are from the previous multiple choice quizzes, and you get the answer key on Collab after you take it, so if you just study those you're guaranteed a good grade on the multiple choice part of the final. The rest of the final is short answer and based off of knowing what each author said in about one sentence, which probably takes about 2-3 hours of studying to memorize them all if you didn't do the reading. Probably 4 hours of studying is all you need to do to get an A on the final.

Prof. Freedmam is awesome--he makes learning the course topic enjoyable

TAKE THIS CLASS! Professor Freedman is amazing, and he really cares about his students. He tries to keep his lectures interesting and funny, and the paper topics are actually good. Grading wise, you have two online quizzes and two papers, along with a final. As long as you pay attention in class, you'll do fine on the quizzes. Do the readings and talk to the TA about the papers, and you'll be golden. To put it in perspective, I was a first-semester first year when I took the class, and I got an A. I highly recommend Alex Welch as the TA.