We are pleased to welcome a new faculty member to campus. Mark Major will be with us this year as Visiting Instructor specializing in American Politics. In the Fall he will teach a section of POSC109, The American Political System, as well as POSC321, News Media and Politics. In the Spring he will teach POSC109 again, as well as POSC308, The Presidency.

Mark specializes in political communication as it relates to the news media and presidential politics. He has experience teaching all three of the courses he will offer at CWRU. Mark is completing his dissertation at Rutgers University on “Hiding in Plain Sight: The News Media and the Politics of Framing the Unilateral Presidency.” One of the puzzling aspects of the presidency is why presidents are so often expected to make decisions when, under the constitution, their powers are actually quite limited. One possibility is that media coverage “provides cover to the president by normalizing” unilateral use of power. Mark is studying this with content and textual analyses of both major newspapers and websites. He has also researched the promotion of the idea that the media is “liberal,” and edited Where Do We Go From Here? American Democracy and the Renewal of the Radical Imagination (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books / Rowman & Littlefield, 2010).