Road to the White House: Debate and the Arab Spring

The USC Annenberg School's Center on Communication Leadership and Policy (CCLP) presented a forum on international affairs and the 2012 presidential election featuring CCLP Faculty Fellow Gordon Stables, USC's director of Debate and Forensics; and Shawn Powers, Ph.D., Georgia State University communication professor and an expert on emerging media in the Middle East and Northern Africa. Stables and Powers were joined by members of the Trojan Debate Squad to discuss how the democratic revolutions in the Middle East and Northern Africa might impact US international policy and influence the 2012 elections. The Arab Spring is the 2011-12 national collegiate debate topic and has students from 100 universities researching the merits of providing assistance for democratic reform.