When C-SPAN began satellite-transmitted telecasts of the U.S. House of Representaives in March 1979, three million cable homes were wired to receive its service. Weekdays, between the hours of 10:00 a.m. and 6:00 p.m. live Congressional debates could be piped into the livingrooms of interested cable subscribers. Four C-SPAN employees labored on the project and when the House was dark, they typed up the text for video billboards that announced their next Congressional telecast.

Over the next eight years, C-SPAN grew dramatically. Today, 135 employees work for C-SPAN in fields as diverse as programming, marketing, accounting, and newsletter publication. C-SPAN is on the air 24 hours a day with two channels of public affairs programming. The core of C-SPAN's fare is still the U.S. House debates; C-SPAN II, created in 1986, offers live coverage of Senate debates.

When the House of Representatives began to allow television cameras in to cover its floor proceedings in early 1979, it was not widely noticed in the country or the academic community. As C-SPAN's Susan Swain notes, the initial cable coverage was from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. weekdays, with only three-and-one- half million homes wired to receive the service. It was rare in the first year or two of television coverage for other television outlets, especially the commercial networks, to use any of the floor footage extensively either.

But within a couple of years, the television coverage of the House began to penetrate the media and the country more widely. C-SPAN, under Brian Lamb's astute tutelage expanded dramatically; network evening and weekend news shows, growing comfortable at monitoring the floor debate, began to use both ten-second “sound bites” and more extended excerpts on their shows; public television, through the Mac-Neil/Lehrer NewsHour and The Lawmakers, made the televised floor proceedings staples of their news coverage.

The courses outlined below are designed to analyze various aspects of the American political process utilizing the capabilities of C-SPAN, the cable coverage of the U.S. Congress. Before exclaiming “Gee, goody, we get to watch T.V.,” a few words of explanation are necessary. Until recently, most students of public policy and particularly the Congress were limited to studying it from afar. Woodrow Wilson wrote his classic book Congressional Government (1888) without ever coming to Washington D.C. Many contemporary scholars and journalists interview the participants in the political process and rely on written records, but most cannot base their research on viewing Congress in action. The serious student has had to rely on selective and limited news coverage or wait for a number of years while a select group of events percolated through the academic publishing process to become part of “the literature”. Students often come away from political science courses with the impression that the discipline is solely retrospective and lack a feeling for how the tools of political science can be applied to the here and now.

Integrating C-SPAN coverage into a traditional course provides some unique opportunities and burdens. On the opportunity side, the ability to see the subject matter relatively directly sparks interest, verifies class material and allows for some creative activities not possible using traditional resources. On the more negative side, the approaches outlined in this paper do not necessarily make teaching easier. Since faculty seldom have the opportunity to become C-SPAN “junkies” watching all the coverage, students will bring questions and examples to class which challenge the instructor more than the material stimulated by contact with traditional written sources. In evaluating many of the exercises, the instructor will have to rely on the student's interpretation and the quality of data selection and analysis. Grading will more often be based on how well the student makes his case, rather than the instructor knowing the contours of what the student should conclude ahead of time.

Most instructors burdened with the sometimes thankless task of teaching an introductory survey course in American government wince at the suggestion that their class is somehow a primer in current affairs. No wonder, for most of us who teach that introductory course expend a great deal of effort to ensure that our readings, our lectures, and our class discussion carefully delineate the difference between political science and political speculation.

Yet I fear many of us are so cautious that we wind up throwing the baby out with the bath water. The vast majority of students in our survey courses will not go on to graduate school in political science; indeed, at many institutions, the majority of enrollees in the introductory class may not even be political science majors. Most will become bankers, lawyers, scientists, engineers — in short, “ordinary” citizens rather than full-time, professional observers of politics. In strikes me that the greatest legacy the survey course can provide these students is an inclination to think twice about politics —an appreciation that politics and political choices are rarely as simple or straightforward as they seem in headlines.

This annotated syllabus outlines a procedure for integrating televised coverage of the U.S. Congress into a regular course on the U.S. Congress or the legislative process. The first section is a facsimile of the syllabus students would receive. A number of suggested assignments are included from which the faculty or students would have to choose. The appendices describe the written assignments in detail. The course begins with the premise that introducing television coverage of Congress can augment traditional methods making the educational experience better, but it is not a replacement for the faculty member of a panacea for a poorly designed or implemented course.

Purpose: The following syllabus is designed to introduce students to public policymaking at the national level of government. As designed, this course has the following goals associated with the process, issues, and institutions of national policymaking:

1. 1. Acquaint students with the political dynamics of the policy process— with particular focus on policy networks: those persons from the departments or agencies, members of Congress and their staff, and interest groups who interact on specific policy issues.

2. 2. Introduce the complexities of the specific policy issues that form the national agenda (e.g., trade, agriculture, welfare, taxes).

3. 3. Emphasize the importance of political institutions and their formal procedures—with particular stress on the budget process and presidential agenda setting.

Americans are increasingly concerned about the federal government's impact in their lives. While the news media inform us more fully about government these days, it is not always easy to grasp what ‘those people in Washington’ really do and why they do it, or how that affects what happens back home.

C-SPAN has opened a window onto Washington, providing journalists a unique opportunity to learn more about the system. Some observers say television shows mostly staged political rituals. But it still offers a view of the federal government that few Americans have had a chance to see. You can cover debate of policy issues that may affect thousands of people in your area and millions more nationally. You can watch our political leaders being tested. You can report on hearings and symposia that help set the agenda for policymaking and legislation.

This annotated syllabus provides suggestions for college professors who are interested in developing a one-semester course that examines the influence of the news and other public affairs programming provided by the Cable-Satellite Public Affairs Network (C-SPAN) on the formation of the public's opinions about salient issues of national interest.

An earlier version of this syllabus was used for advanced undergraduates and graduate students (with an additional reading list and bi-weekly seminar meetings) in a department of communication as a component of their academic preparation in theories of media criticism, performance and “effects,” including social responsibility in the news media, media construction of social reality and agenda-setting by the press. This course met twice weekly for one and one-quarter hours.