Emerson College Election Project 2008
Pelita [Light] is a short documentary about the Emerson College Election Project. The documentary is written, produced and directed by Andy Laub and Michael McManus.
Organizer
Main Sponsor
Message From the Dean
Welcome to Emerson College! Our president, Dr. Jackie Liebergott, extends her best wishes for an experience here that will be significant to advancing your important work as you shepherd democracy into Indonesia. Vice president for Academic Affairs, Dr. Linda Moore, expresses her appreciation to you for providing Emerson College with an opportunity to visibly demonstrate our commitment to fostering global understanding.
As the premier college in the United States devoted exclusively to communication and the arts, we are delighted to share our expertise and learn from this opportunity for global engagement. Our faculty, alums, and friends offer five days of stimulating interaction around electoral politics and journalistic challenges in election coverage. We have engineered a program that we believe you will find both memorable and insightful. Â
Emerson College sits in the heart of downtown Boston, across from the Boston Commons. This geography creates a daily reminder of American democratic origins and imbues us with a unique perspective. With the Emerson College focus on communication, our political communication and journalism curriculums teach the power of communication in fostering and sustaining democratic traditions.
I look forward to getting to know each of you. I am excited by the opportunity that your presence creates for our faculty, our students, and our educational mission. Enjoy and best of luck in your important work!
Cordially,
Janis Andersen, Ed.D.
School of Communication, Dean
Message From the Project Coordinator
Welcome to the Emerson College Election Project sponsored by the U.S. State Department. We are pleased that you are visiting the United States during this historic election campaign, and that you are participating in the political communication and media workshop here at Emerson in Boston. We are proud to collaborate with the United States State Department in this public diplomacy effort designed to strengthen the ties and relationships between our countries. This grass roots, people to people approach can help bridge the gap that exists in so many areas within the global village period. Consistent with the mission of Emerson College, our objective in this endeavor is to further understanding through communication.
Our goal is that after your Emerson experience and campaign placement in the media, you will return to Indonesia with a greater appreciation of the democratic electoral process. We also hope that you enjoy your trip to the United States, and that you arrive home with many good memories and friendships, as well as a greater understanding of the American political process.
A special thanks to Tristram Perry of the US Embassy in Indonesia, Dean Janis Andersen, and Special Project Assistant Diego Salazar for their leadership and making this a reality. Also, my gratitude to Chair Richard West, the Faculty and Students of Communication Studies at Emerson College for their encouragement and support.
Best of luck in the days ahead. We salute your leadership and being part of this historic project between the people of Indonesia and the United States.
Regards,
Dr. J. Gregory Payne
Emerson Election Project 2008
2008 Election Coverage Workshop Project
The 2008 Election Coverage Workshop Project, sponsored by the U.S. Department of State and Emerson College, will provide theoretical and practical insights into the expectations, requirements and dynamics of covering a national presidential election for professionals in print, electronic and emerging media.
The Election Coverage Project will begin with a five day workshop taught by academic and working media professionals, focusing on understanding strategies in political communication, and the power and responsibility of today’s media in the ever shrinking global village. Topics will include civic and community journalism, the public good (local versus global) framing, agenda setting, ethics, political advertising, insights on covering political speeches, debates, scandals and crises in campaigns, the influence of polling and celebrity/spectacle themes in politics, as well as other topics pertinent to campaign coverage. A major focus will be on developing deliberative critical thinking skills within the political campaign context among the 10 participating Indonesian journalists who will be covering democratic election campaigns in a Muslim country. Case studies and simulations will enhance this understanding.
The second phase of this workshop will be placement of the Indonesian professionals within a media organization in the United States during the last two weeks of the presidential campaign. This placement will include urban and rural areas to provide a realistic experience of the similarities and differences in campaign coverage in the U.S. according to media publics, regions, demographics, etc. Such placement will provide participants with a first hand learning experience of how candidates, issues, debates, special events and other campaign elements vary in coverage, depending on target audiences, and difference in national and local election coverage.
The overall objective of this workshop is to provide participating journalists with a rich practical experience in the U.S. that will enhance their understanding of their own decisive role and value in providing fair and balanced election coverage in future democratic elections in Indonesia.
© 2008 Efe Sevin | Original design by Andreas Viklund