Your job is to find material on the current mid-term elections in the U.S. and present the result in class.

Go to the website of The New York Times' Politics section

On the right hand side of the page you will find a 2006 Election Guide to both the race for the Senate and the House -> direct LINK

· How many seats are there in each?

· Which party - Republicans or Democrats - seems likely to gain the majority in the Senate? in the House?

Pick one state (eg Tennessee) and have a closer look at the candidates - both for the House and the Senate.

· What is the structure of the election?

· What kind of information is published about the candidates?

· What are the names of the two candidates that race for the Senate in Tennessee?

In the Caucus Blogs: http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/ of the New York Times issues of the election are debated. Follow this link to an article on the war on ads in Tenneesee: "More on the Tenneesee Mudslide" from October 25, read a bit about it and then click the picture of the 'phoning' lady. This will take you to the video-section. Or try this direct link for the videos: NYT Videos - I hope it still works

Pick one of the Tennessee-ads (choose 'hi' resolution), listen to it carefully and explain:

· Who is talking?

· What is the message?

· How is the opponent pictured in the ad?

· Which means are used to convey the message?

· How do you like this kind of campaigning?

...........................

After the election - what happened? who won? -> go see SENATE result; -> go see HOUSE result

Other media are:

http://edition.cnn.com/

www.abcnews.com/

www.cbs.com

http://www.time.com/

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