MA Political Psychology

• Social Theory & Political Communication: This unit highlights the broader theoretical underpinnings of the analysis of political communication and provides an introduction to the wider contextual and conceptual basis in which political communication is conducted. It considers the complex academic environment within which politics (political actors and political structures), contacts (media actors, systems, and technologies), and the public (including politics from below, e.g., activists and social movements) interact.

• The Psychodynamics of Emotion & Political Culture: This unit offers a new interdisciplinary perspective on the psycho-dynamics of contemporary political culture. The team applies a psychosocial, multidisciplinary approach that draws on theories and methods in psychoanalysis, cultural and media studies, and political sociology to explore the cultural and emotional processes that shape our relationship to politics in the late modern media age.

• Methods of Inquiry in the Social Sciences & Humanities: This unit prepares you for the Final Project through an overview of the methods and processes of social science and humanities research and workshops in which you will consider the application of methods to your topics of interest.

• Psychosocial Perspectives on Contemporary Politics: This unit aims to review psychosocial approaches to contemporary political phenomena (such as populism, “culture wars,” feminism, anti-racist struggle, and environmental politics) while also placing them in cultural and historical contexts. Theoretical approaches to human subjectivity applied to case studies enable sophisticated contributions to debates about extremism, conflict, and antagonism, as well as democratic and egalitarian endeavors.

• The Psychology of Democracy: This unit examines the origins and factors that shape feelings and attitudes towards the institutions and processes within a democratic state. Covering the influence that political campaigns and media play, the unit analyses how our psychologies help to shape different forms and levels of participation in democratic life, from simple thinking about the news to street activism.

• Final Project: You will choose your topic in consultation with academic staff and will be guided in the application to study that topic of research findings and theoretical concepts from all the taught units. The project can be a 15,000-word dissertation, a 10,000-word journal paper, and a presentation.

Choose one of the following option units:

• Political Communication & Campaigning: This unit provides an overview and critical appraisal of the academic study of political marketing, campaigning, and reporting in a diversified and international media environment. Students will explore the historical development of political communication through political parties, mainstream media, and social media. We will discuss how politics is positioned, mediated, ‘sold,’ and understood by the electorate.

• Public Diplomacy & International Relations: This unit offers a multi-disciplinary perspective on public diplomacy as an emerging field of study and practice at the intersection of international relations, communications, history, public relations, and media studies. It applies theoretical, methodological, and analytical skills to case studies (e.g., wars, treaties, trade disputes, financial crises, pandemics) to explain their causes evaluate responses to policies, and support policy-making, drawing on core theories in international relations.

• Discourse, Rhetoric & Power: This unit foregrounds the discursive dimension of political theory, exploring the role discourse plays in political debate. It fleshes out a set of concepts and vocabularies with which to discuss and think. The unit also points to a particular focus and way of conducting political research, in which discourse and meaning function as a lens to interrogate the relation between norms and values, empirical claims and details, and power dynamics.