Dr Nick Anstead

This course is available on the MSc in Politics and Communication. This course is available with permission as an outside option to students on other programmes where regulations permit.

This course is highly recommended for MSc in Politics and Communication students.

This course is 'controlled access', meaning that there is a limit to the number of students who can be accepted. If the course is oversubscribed, offers will be made via a random ballot process, with priority given to students with the course listed on their Programme Regulations. Whilst we do our best to accommodate all requests, we cannot guarantee you a place on this course.

There are no pre-requisites for this course. Students should apply via LSE for You without submitting a statement.

Please do not email the teacher with personal expressions of interest as these are not required and do not influence who is offered a place.

The focus of this module is the intersection between practical politics and academic research. The course is taught by a series of invited guest lecturers who are experts in the field of political campaigning for political parties and NGOs. It will connect with theory taught on other courses in the department and will enable students to see how theory is relevant and applied to the practice of modern political campaigns in the context of the evolving nature of contemporary political communication,. It will examine core and general concepts in campaigning including political strategy and how it is developed; the shaping and measurement of public opinion; and the role of data targeting in modern campaign.

15 hours of lectures and 5 hours of seminars in the AT.

To increase the geographic diversity of guest teacher sessions, a limited amount of this content may be delivered online.

This course includes a reading week in Week 6 of term.

This formative coursework for this course is a reduced length version of the summative assessment (see below for further details):

• A 500 word campaign memo advocating a specific strategy for a campaign of your choice (this might be for a candidate, a political party or a campaign / protest group).
• A 1000 word academic reflection on the strategy memo, where you will justify and explain your strategic recommendations with reference to relevant academic research.

• Campbell, A. (2007). The Blair years: extracts from the Alastair Campbell diaries. Knopf.Chadwick, A. 2013. The Hybrid Media System: Politics and Power. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Denton E. D. (Ed.) (2000) Political Communication Ethics: An Oxymoron?, Praeger Publishers.
• Gould, P. (1998) The Unfinished Revolution: How the Modernisers Saved the Labour Party, Little Brown.
• Issenberg, S. (2012). The Victory Lab: The Secret Science of Winning Campaigns. Crown.Kreiss, D. 2016. Prototype Politics: Technology-Intensive Campaigning and the Data of Democracy. Oxford University Press.
• Negrine, R. (2006) The Political Communication Reader, Routledge.
• Nielsen, R. K. (2012). Ground wars: Personalized communication in political campaigns. Princeton University Press.
• Nimmo, D. D. (2001) Political persuaders: the techniques of modern election campaigns, Transaction Publishers.
• Stanyer, J. (2007) Modern Political Communication, Polity.
• Swanson, D. L. & Mancini, P. (1996) Politics, Media, and Modern Democracy An International Study of Innovations in Electoral Campaigning and Their Consequences, Greenwood.
• Ross, T. (2015). Why the Tories Won. London: Biteback.
• Trent, J. S. & Friedenberg, R. V. (2007) Political Campaign Communication: Principles and Practices - 6th edition, Rowman & Littlefield.

Essay (100%, 3000 words) in the WT.

The summative assessment for this course is a two-part piece of coursework.

• A 1000 word campaign memo advocating a specific strategy for a campaign of your choice (this might be for a candidate, a political party or a campaign / protest group).
• A 2000 word academic reflection on the strategy memo, where you will justify and explain your strategic recommendations with reference to relevant academic research.

NB. One additional requirement of the summative coursework is that is cannot be on the same example used in the formative coursework.