Marketing Citizenship

1. Marketing Citizenship

2. What is the Annette Strauss Institute? • An Organized Research Unit • An interdisciplinary research unit • An applied research unit • Now 7 years old

3. Who was Annette Strauss?(1924 - 1998) • Mayor of Dallas • Community servant • Philanthropist • UT Distinguished Alumnus • Texas Women’s Hall of Fame

4. Who supports us? (campus)

5. Who supports us? (grants) • Annenberg Foundation • Pew Charitable Trusts • Council for Excellence in Government • Dorot Foundation • Hatton Sumners Foundation • F.I.P.S.E. • Humanities Texas • LBJ Library Foundation • C.I.R.C.L.E. • McDermott Foundation • Gates Foundation

6. Who supports us? (donors) • Citizen’s Level ($50,000 up) • Presidential Level ($10,000 to $49,999) • Senatorial Level ($5,000 to $9,999) • Gubernatorial Level ($1,000 to $4,999) • Mayoral Level ($250 to $999) • Council Level (Up tp $250)

7. Current staff • Institute Director • Associate Director for Research • Associate Director for Administration • Assistant Director for Public Programs • Director of Deliberative Polling • 5 program managers • 7 graduate research assistants • 2 administrative personnel

8. Institute’s advisory council • 52 members • Annual meeting in Austin and Dallas • Elected officials, lobbyists, attorneys, media personnel, former office-holders, Strauss family and friends

9. What is our purpose? (manifest) • Perform basic and applied research • Assess/document civic interventions • Use communication modalities to activate civic learning and involvement • Serve as a liaison between Texans and their University • Produce nonpartisan goods for society

10. What is our purpose? (latent) • To create and sustain a counter-marketing campaign in an era when cynicism is being professionally marketed by: • Hip Hop/rock • The Daily Show • Enron greed • Religious fundamentalism

11. To put it simply We try to address the fact that citizens are made, not born.

12. Why was the Institute needed? • 68% of young people feel disconnected from government (Hart & Teeter, 1999) • 28% of today’s youth express interest in “keeping up with public affairs” vs. 60% in 1966 (U.C.L.A. study) • Only 25% of high school students today are judged civically competent (N.A.E.P., 1999) • In mid-1960s, 60% of young people thought it was important to keep up with politics; by 2000, that figure had fallen to 30% (CIRCLE, 2002) • 46% of young people say they never or almost never talk with their parents about politics, government, or current affairs (Sustaining Wisconsin, 2001)

13. Why is the Institute needed? • Newspaper reading & public affairs TV are associated with participation; general Internet use and entertainment TV are not (Zhang & Chia, 2006) • Going to college dramatically increases civic health indices (N.C.O.C., 2006) but … • Civic learning is greater at colleges where students study history, political science, and economics (ISI Study, 2006) • Youth voting increased in 2004 but so did adult voting • Most measures of social trust and group affiliation show sharp declines in recent years

14. What are the effects of disengagement? • Citizens can’t recognize themselves in their government • The citizenry can’t reproduce itself • Citizens without a stake behave poorly • The political parties suffer equally • Neighborhood and community life declines • Municipal economies are impacted negatively

15. Won’t they grow out of it? • many schools have abandoned civic education • newspaper readership is low among youth • today’s youth were raised by parents who distrusted government • cynicism has become a preferred cultural style

16. Why should communication scholars care? (1) Mass communication is the engine of democracy • Freedom of speech is the first amendment • The penny press, radio, television, the Internet • Why political advertising is good (2) Interpersonal communication quickens the pulse of a democracy • Power percolates upward (through word-of-mouth) • Civility travels laterally (from person-to-person) (3) Rhetorical skills are not distributed equally at birth • Money often buys eloquence • Artlessness is remediable

17. What is the good news? • U.S. youth are more civically aware than those in other western democracies (IEA Study) • Volunteering is up among today’s youth • High quality service-learning programs build social capital (Morgan & Streb, 2001) • September 11 prompted a sudden rise in civic concern (Putnam, 2002) • A college student who votes passes on 60% of their propensity-to-vote to their roommate (Nickerson, 2006)

18. What is the good news? (cont.) • Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) proposed the “American History and Civics Act" in 2003 • The more one knows about civics, the more one will: - champion democratic values - be less mistrusting of others - participate actively (Popkin & Dimock, 1999) - judge candidates on issues rather than personality - be tolerant of people one does not know - maintain “regime allegiance”

19. What is the good news? (cont.) • Volunteering rates among young people has never been higher than today. Why? People have asked them to do so. (Galston, 2002) • Once a person’s level of civic engagement is set it is difficult to move that person’s level of engagement ... unless that person is young

20. Our Conclusion It is better to light a candle than to curse the darkness

21. Activities of the Institute • Basic research • Field assessments • Outreach activities

22. Content analytic research

23. Public opinion research • Water usage • Transportation • Corporations and Politics • Injury prevention • Health • Family Research • Telemedicine

24. Field assessments Student Voices Project: Connect high school students to mayoral campaign in San Antonio—2 years, 28 schools (Annenberg Foundation) Campaign for Young Voters: Assess the impact of a “Candidate’s Toolkit” for reaching young voters—3 years, 7 states (Pew Charitable Trusts; Council for Excellence in Government)

25. Current outreach projects • Speak Up! Speak Out! • TexElects • New Politics Forum • American Trustees Project • Civic Internships, Research Internships

27. Speak Up! Speak Out! • Purpose: promote discussion of practical, local issues and empower students as problem-solvers • Students from participating high schools work in Presentation Teams throughout the semester • College students work as mentors in the high school classrooms • Half of presentation team defends its problem-analysis and solution in a “public hearings” format • Remaining members of team organize a “solution station” at a citywide Civics Fair • Presentations are competitively judged by political and community leaders

28. TexElects project PSA Y’all (create a public service announcement to inspire voter turnout) Spur on Your Candidate (create an ad for the candidate of your choice) Write You Are, Pardner (Write a persuasive essay explaining the importance of voting) Wanted: Voters (create a poster to draw people into the voting booth)

29. New Politics Forum • The Latest Techniques in Campaign Management • Taught by working professionals • Two to three-day seminars • Open to all Texas college students • Thirty-one participating colleges • Over 400 alumni since 2002 • Became “portable” in 2006

30. Upcoming Sessions Austin – Fall 2005 Campaign Preview Dallas – Winter 2006 Politics and the Media San Antonio – Fall 2006 Campaign 2006 debriefing Current Sessions Campaign Bootcamp New Media and Politics Introduction to the Legislature Careers in Politics N.P.F schedule

31. American Trustees Project • Assumes that all Americans (1) are potential trustees of their communities and (2) have a story to tell • Teaches through narrative by sharing stories of civic entrepreneurs who make a difference in their communities • Consists of six minute videos with accompanying lesson plans for high school classrooms

32. Available at no cost to teachers • Accessible via streaming web • Searchable by standards, topics, and textbooks

33. Why depend on narrative? • People are fascinated by people • To tell a story is to be human • Relationships depend on common stories • Suspense cannot be ignored • Narratives are rooted in specificity • Narratives resist interruption • Narratives don’t make arguments … obviously • Storytellers are innocent until proven guilty

36. The future Max Weber: “Politics is the strong and slow boring of hard boards”