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PODCAST

American National Government

Jennifer Miller

This podcast is for Wayne State College students taking POS 100 American National Government. Episodes take listeners through the structure and design of the course (including the syllabus and Canvas site), the Constitution and its development, the structure and powers of Constitutional and non-Constitutional political branches or entities, and a wide range of topics related to government including civil liberties, civil rights, elections and campaigns, public opinion, public policy, and voting and

education courses

All Episodes

35:47

Group Projects... Will They Always Haunt Us?

American National Government ·

2026/02/08

Hello friends, and welcome to episode 14 on interest groups! We are again returning to the realm of collective action with a focus on groups that exist outside of government but that work to affect public policy. Whether those groups are economic, ideological, or focused on foreign/international policy, they will all work to inform, lobby, and affect campaigns. This episode will explain more about these groups, political action committees (PACs and Super PACs), and address concerns like power and

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53:58

Time to (Politically) Party!

American National Government ·

2026/01/24

Hi everyone, and welcome back from the midterm and either fall or spring break! We're returning to our discussion of national politics after that test and a few days off, and we begin discussing what are known as collective action politics. Collective action is really thinking about group actions rather than how we behave as political individuals. Our initial topic is political parties: we'll cover the different parties we have (with a focus on the Democratic and Republican parties but we'll also

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29:14

"And that's the way it is"... right?

American National Government ·

2026/01/17

Hello everyone, welcome to our final podcast episode before the midterm exam! We are continuing our discussion on news and social media with a focus on fake news, media bias, echo chambers, and the levels of trust we have in resources like national news, local news, and social media. This episode is heavy on definitions and examples, so there's a lot of explaining but I also offer suggestions for resources you can use to identify problems like media bias to know what you can trust. Let me know what

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29:24

Information Overloads and Overlords

American National Government ·

2025/10/19

Hello all, and welcome to the first of our two episodes on news and social media! In today's episode, we're going to talk about the basics: concepts like mass media, news media, and social media as well as investigate our use of different news sources like newspapers, radio, television, and the internet/social media. Unsurprisingly, social media is more and more where we get our news... at least for younger generations. As you work through this episode, please think about how we get our news affects

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43:50

Rules of the Game: Elections Version

American National Government ·

2025/10/05

Howdy all, and welcome to our second episode on voting and elections! In this episode, it's all about the elections baby: the primaries, the generals, and the special elections (as well as that whole invisible primary process). The rules for Congressional elections are quite different than what we do for the presidency--with that office, we run through primaries and caucuses, the national conventions, and of course the Electoral College as part of our selection process. At the end of the day, what

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29:29

The 5 W's (Who, Where, When, What, and Why) of Voting

American National Government ·

2025/10/05

Hello again all, and welcome to episode 9 which includes our discussion on voting! In this episode, we're going to focus on two key topics: voter turnout, aka who shows up to vote (and who doesn't), and voting rules and procedures, or the processes we are required to follow to vote. Our review of turnout data is interesting to say the least... we can see some big differences in turnout based on age, education level, and household income--but why do these things make such a difference in figuring out

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53:40

So you know that they know what you know, you know?

American National Government ·

2025/09/28

Hello students of American National Government, and welcome to our Week 5 podcast episode on public opinion! In this marathon episode (yep, it's just under an hour), we cover all things public opinion-related: concepts like polling (and how to do it well), polling resources like Pew and Gallup, the factors that affect and influence public opinion (particularly socialization, generational effects, and psychological factors like morality pillars and negativity bias), the issue of framing, and then we

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29:17

Real Talk About Discrimination

American National Government ·

2025/09/14

Hey everybody, and welcome to Week 4 and our discussion of civil rights! This is one huge topic and given that we're going to focus on key concepts: civil rights, public discrimination, private discrimination, equality of opportunity, equality of outcome, and state action. It's important to understand what types of discrimination are and are not allowed under existing law... and that's often going to depend on which groups we define as not covered by the law (e.g. do we base it on age, sex, race,

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46:51

The Bill of Rights in Reality, Part 2

American National Government ·

2025/09/07

Hi folks, and welcome to episode 6, the continuation of our discussion about civil liberties and the Bill of Rights! In this episode, we'll continue our rather crazy journey looking at the status of our rights today by working through the remaining amendments (Third, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Seventh, Eighth, and Ninth) as well as the limitations we experience in terms of those rights in times of conflict or crisis. These rights discussions are never dull (in my opinion) whether we are dealing with what

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45:14

The Bill of Rights in Reality, Part 1

American National Government ·

2025/09/07

Welcome back everyone to episode 5 in our series on American National Government! Episodes 5 and 6 are all about our civil liberties, aka our fundamental individual rights. This podcast is all about the first portions of our Bill of Rights as well as the rights we find in the Constitution itself (habeas corpus, ex post facto protections, and limitations on bills of attainder). In this conversation, I'm going to walk us through the present-day limitations on religion, speech, press, assembly, and

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35:58

Sharing Isn't Something We're Great At...

American National Government ·

2025/08/30

Howdy all, welcome to our fourth episode on American National Government! In this episode, we are going to spend all of our time talking about federalism, or the way we balance power between the national government and state governments. We'll briefly touch upon separation of powers and checks and balances, but federalism is our primary concern. The slides this week talk about how our Constitution and our federalist balance have evolved, the different eras of federalism (e.g. state-centered,

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34:07

The "Original" Constitutional Crisis

American National Government ·

2025/08/30

Hiya everyone! Welcome to our first really in-depth week of material on the Constitution and federalism! Today's episode is going to hone in on the Constitutional development process, with discussion of a few major historical events (such as the Boston Massacre and the Constitutional Conventions) as well as the major negotiations that went down between the large and small states (regarding representation compromises as well as Federalists and anti-Federalists. Our conversation ends with an overview

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42:55

What is "Democracy"? And what's going on with...

American National Government ·

2025/08/26

Hey everyone, and welcome to our second podcast episode on American National Government! In this episode, we finally get into the real meat and potatoes of this course, and we begin with democracy. In particular, we define it (and learn about different methods of defining) and then this episode covers features of American political culture such as our party divisions and individualism. The final approximately 10 minutes of this episode covers the data on how the public views government and democracy

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23:42

Intro to Our Course and Canvas

American National Government ·

2025/08/24

Hello everyone and welcome to our podcast on American National Government! In this first episode, we will get an introduction to this course and in particular to the course Canvas site. Some of the most critical tools you will need to navigate this class are the Weekly Roadmap Pages which are discussed early on. We will spend about 15-20 minutes on that as well as the other parts of the Canvas site such as the Syllabus, Assignments, Grades, and Announcements. This episode wraps with a few tips to

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5:33

This is the end... or is it?!?

American National Government ·

2024/12/06

Hello everyone--in this very last podcast episode on national government, I have posed a few "big picture" questions and offered some thoughts about democracy. There are no new ideas or materials presented, but I would ask as you go forward from this course that you remain civically engaged and consider the themes of power, accountability, and the social contract that undergirds our democracy. Thank you all for your work this semester and have a safe and happy holiday season!

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18:48

What Government Does... It's All Policy

American National Government ·

2024/11/22

You've made it to our final episode on material for American National Government! In this short podcast, we will get through the basics of policy: the steps that we go through in policy-making, the types of actions different branches of government take when they have policy conflict (hint, it's all checks and balances), and the different categories of policy (domestic, economic, and foreign). The last few minutes of this episode includes reminders about the upcoming assignments and our final exam

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34:40

Group Projects... They Will Forever Challenge Us!

American National Government ·

2024/11/15

Welcome all to Week 13... only one more week to go in terms of our course material! In this episode, we will cover interest groups: the different types that exist, the tactic that they use, the concept of political action committees (PACs) and Super PACs, and the major challenges that these groups encounter in trying to achieve their goals. Our discussion in connection with the slides will also emphasize questions of access--do all groups get to make their case or are we limited in which voices we

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35:12

The Opinions We Hold... and How Political Actors...

American National Government ·

2024/11/08

Hello all; welcome to our one and only episode for this week! Our topic: public opinion. In this episode, we will cover a range of factors that affect and shape public opinion: socialization, generational effects, partisanship, morality pillars, and much more. The last bit of this episode will touch on issues of political knowledge and trust. I'd encourage you to take some time to check out the public polling resources of Gallup and Pew Research when you have some time... there will no doubt be some

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25:17

What Can You Believe?

American National Government ·

2024/11/01

Howdy all; welcome to our second episode for Week 11! In this relatively short episode, we will cover the topics of fake news, media bias, and echo chambers. These are elements in our news and social media world that we are encountering regularly (media bias has been around as long as our country has and one could argue the same of echo chambers) or much more in the world today (elements of fake news like deepfakes are a newer innovation that we have to be aware of). This episode will define those

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23:42

Information Overload!

American National Government ·

2024/10/30

Hi all! This week, our episodes will delve into the topic of news and social media. In our first episode for the week, we'll get an introduction to the concepts of mass media and news media. Our discussion will then turn to the different forms of mass media we get for news, how we have transitioned our uses of those forms, and what the data looks like today on our use of print, radio, TV, the internet, and social media.

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