I hope students take away from this course that entertainment does not have to be seen as a “guilty pleasure” or something that is merely a distraction from the “seriousness” of politics and news. Rather, the political encompasses essentially all of public life, and even the things we do for fun, like watch movies or use social media, are politically consequential.
Semesters offered: Fall 2024, Fall 2025, Fall 2026
Course developer: Stewart M. Coles, Assistant Professor, Communication; teaching in LAS for 5 years
How would you describe the course to someone unfamiliar with the subject?
This course explores how entertainment media influence political beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors, and how political identity influences entertainment selection, especially in an environment of increasing media choice. We discuss the political implications of entertainment media, from satire programming such as Last Week Tonight to politics in other media (e.g., fiction, music, and video games) to politics itself as entertainment. Drawing insight from readings from political communication, media effects, and media studies, students learn to explore and apply various theories relevant to entertainment and politics and how media shapes our attitudes and behaviors.
What made you want to create this course?
I created this course because I am deeply interested in how people form their political beliefs, especially if they are not exposed to a lot of media we would traditionally consider to be politically relevant (e.g., news). Although political interest and news consumption may be low, entertainment media is all around us, and it is filled with political information. This is especially the case in the new, hybrid media environment in which the lines between entertainment and news, between creator and consumer, between private and public are increasingly blurred. When reality television stars and social media influencers can be politically influential and our political attitudes can be shaped by fictional—even fantastical—narratives, we should take the study of entertainment seriously.
Were there any challenges you faced while designing or teaching the course? How did you overcome it?
It can be challenging to design a 400-level "bridge" course that attracts both undergraduate and graduate students, being careful to strike a balance between accessibility of material and scholarly rigor. I overcame this challenge through a selection of engaging readings, as well as a combination of assignments tailored for students at the undergraduate and graduate levels. Illinois undergraduate students are some of the best and the brightest, so it was not very difficult to design a course that both sets of students find intellectually stimulating and rewarding.
Now that you've offered the course at least once, what do you hope students took away from it the most?
If there is one thing I hope students take away from this course, it is that entertainment does not have to be seen as a “guilty pleasure” or something that is merely a distraction from the “seriousness” of politics and news. Rather, the political encompasses essentially all of public life, and even the things we do for fun, like watch movies or use social media, are politically consequential. For many people, exposure to politics in entertainment may be a gateway into political awareness and action rather than a distraction from it.
View more new course spotlights from LAS Educational Excellence.