Undergraduate students in most disciplines hope to gain some practical experience in applying the principles they learn in the classroom. It is sometimes difficult to provide students with such opportunities for practical experience, but courses in political communication offer abundant possibilities of this type.

The political communication course described here is entitled “Mass Media and Politics,” and it seeks to blend both theory and research in political campaigns with mass media skills. Although this particular course is taught in the Radio-Television-Film sequence at the University of Oklahoma, it could easily be adapted to political science courses at any university. In addition to providing an integration of political theory and practical experience in politics, the course has several subsidiary goals: (1) to give students a broader understanding of the modern electoral process, (2) to make students better consumers of political information, (3) to make students more aware of the problems and responsibilities involved in direct participation in the electoral process, and (4) to give students an opportunity to apply political organizational and communication skills in a realistic setting.