The topic on corporations and their influence on other social institutions such as government and the economy are important to investigate so that we are aware of how course concepts, such as C. Wright Mills’ power elite, connect to examples. Please take a look at the following websites and do a search on campaign spending by corporations. There are three steps to complete for your initial post.
Step 1. Go to Opensecrets.org to search on a topic or look up lobbyists and campaign contributions for politicians.
Step 2. Identify something you are interested in and review the website information on the topic. Some of these may be gun control/rights, GMOs, insurance or pharmaceutical companies, environmental issues, women’s health, individual donors (such as CEOs of big companies) and who/what they have given money to, or really any other topic – you may want to connect what you have chosen to discuss in previous weeks’ assignments if they are relevant). You may use the search box to look up issues, industries, organizations, and people who have donated money.
Here are some quick directions on getting started with the Open Secrets website:
On the homepage, you can search or choose the menu to browse:
open secrets search bar
When you select the “Menu” button, more options appear to browse. Select what you are interested in and feel free to research as much as you would like to find information:
open secrets menu
Step 3. Now that you have researched your topic(s), it is time to write up what you found and how it relates to corporations and social change. For your initial post:
Briefly present your understanding of your topic choice and the information you found on the website.
How does what you found link to the course concepts this week?
What did you find most enlightening? What did you find most troubling?
Use course concepts from Massey and Mills’ The Power Elite to inform your ideas.
For peer responses, work to deepen the analysis of concepts and connections to each other’s findings.
Be sure to paraphrase and cite the course materials at least 3 times in your initial post and at least once in each peer response.
