From propaganda to protests, this book provides an in depth study of politics and the media today. Using historical and contemporary examples, Sanders covers the essential theory and key research in the field. Topical and comprehensive, this book covers everything students need to know about the global world of political communication.
The symptoms of the crisis of the U.S. media are well-known—a decline in hard news, the growth of info-tainment and advertorials, staff cuts and concentration of ownership, increasing conformity of viewpoint and suppression of genuine debate. McChesney's new book, The Problem of the Media, gets to the roots of this crisis, explains it, and points a way forward for the growing media reform movement. Moving consistently from critique to action, the book explores the political economy of the media, illuminating its major flashpoints and controversies by locating them in the political economy of U.S. capitalism. It deals with issues such as the declining quality of journalism, the question of bias, the weakness of the public broadcasting sector, and the limits and possibilities of antitrust legislation in regulating the media. It points out the ways in which the existing media system has become a threat to democracy, and shows how it could be made to serve the interests of the majority. McChesney's Rich Media, Poor Democracy was hailed as a pioneering analysis of the way in which media had come to serve the interests of corporate profit rather than public enlightenment and debate. Bill Moyers commented, "If Thomas Paine were around, he would have written this book." The Problem of the Media is certain to be a landmark in media studies, a vital resource for media activism, and essential reading for concerned scholars and citizens everywhere.
Communication provides the basis of social cohesion, issue discussion, and legislative enactmentcore features of political activity and governing in the United States. Denton and Kuypers, experts in the field of political communication, synthesize materials and sources from political science, communication, history, journalism, and sociology to demonstrate how communication intersects with these fields to formulate political beliefs, attitudes, and values. Conventional categories of political activitycampaigns, activity in Congress, the courts, the mass media, and the presidencystructure the discussions. Theoretical and applied concepts drawn from firsthand sources and classic historical works, plus extensive use of contemporary examples, enrich understanding. Written in an engaging, accessible style that is geared to an undergraduate audience, the text ignites readers awareness that the essence of politics is talk or human interaction. Such interaction is formal and informal, verbal and nonverbal, public and privatebut always persuasive in nature, causing audiences to interpret, to evaluate, and to act.
Several of the most important and influential political economists of communication working today explore a rich mix of topics and issues that link work, policy studies, and research and theory about the public sphere to the heritage of political economy. Familiar but still exceedingly important topics in critical political economy studies are well represented here: market structures and media concentration, regulation and policy, technological impacts on particular media sectors, information poverty, and media access. The book also features new topics for political economy study, including racism in audience research, the value and need for feminist approaches to political economy studies, and the relationship between the discourse of media finance and the behavior of markets.
The emergence of 'new media' and social media is widely discussed in contemporary society. However, media and public communication are mostly analyzed within particular theoretical frameworks and within specific disciplinary fields. Such approaches have created polarized views on media and communication, and fail to create an understanding of the interdependencies between these fields. This book expertly synthesizes competing theories and disciplinary viewpoints, integrates scholarly and cutting edge research, and examines international data from fast-growing markets including China, to provide a comprehensive, holistic view of the twenty-first century (r)evolution in media and public communication. The book identifies how the changes are located in practices rather than technologies and that these practices are emergent in highly significant ways. Engaging and accessible, the book is essential reading for media scholars and communication professionals, and a valuable text for courses in media studies, journalism, advertising, public relations, and organisational and political communication.
A new era of political power has arrived, one in which the social media forces of Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter indisputably play a larger role in the political process. In this revised and expanded edition of Political Communication: The Manship School Guide, edited by Robert Mann and David D. Perlmutter, contributors discuss technological changes in the context of studies and techniques that remain unchallenged, resulting in a truly comprehensive manual of the world of political communication. This shift in communication began with Howard Dean's social media interaction between voters and candidates. Later, Barack Obama redefined these techniques during his march to the White House. This intriguing development in political campaigns focuses the impact of social media on political consultation and communication, and this volume provides an up-to-date and peerless guide to the events, methods, technologies, venues, theories, and applications of political dialogues. More than just a how-to primer, this new edition also expertly explains the process behind the political engine. Political Communication: The Manship School Guide includes individual essays that tackle the growing myths revolving around politics, such as the political money-monster and the "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington"--candidate fantasy. Twenty-seven chapters from a variety of contributors -- including academics, journalists, and political professionals -- provide insightful, astute, and critical essays for a deeper understanding of political communication and the many roles the public has played in twenty-first-century politics. With this second edition, Political Communication: The Manship School Guide offers readers a valuable resource that clarifies the confusing world of politics.
In view of the 2016 US election season, the second edition of this book analyzes the way political campaigns have been traditionally run and the extraordinary changes that have occurred since 2012. Dennis W. Johnson looks at the most sophisticated techniques of modern campaigning—micro-targeting, online fundraising, digital communication, the new media—and examines what has changed, how those changes have dramatically transformed campaigning, and what has remained fundamentally the same despite new technologies and communications. Campaigns are becoming more open and free-wheeling, with greater involvement of activists (especially through social media) and average voters alike. At the same time, they have become more professionalized, and the author has experience managing and marketing the process. Campaigning in the Twenty-First Century illustrates the daunting challenges for candidates and professional consultants as they try to get their messages out to voters. Ironically, the more open and robust campaigns become, the greater is the need for seasoned, flexible, and imaginative professional consultants. New to the Second Edition Includes coverage of the 2012 and 2014 elections, looking ahead to 2016. Updates coverage of campaign finance since the landmark Citizens United Supreme Court decision. Adds to the discussion of demographic and technological changes in elections since 2012.
An updated edition of the “penetrating study” examining how the current state of mass media puts our democracy at risk (Noam Chomsky). What happens when a few conglomerates dominate all major aspects of mass media, from newspapers and magazines to radio and broadcast television? After all the hype about the democratizing power of the internet, is this new technology living up to its promise? Since the publication of this prescient work, which won Harvard’s Goldsmith Book Prize and the Kappa Tau Alpha Research Award, the concentration of media power and the resultant “hypercommercialization of media” has only intensified. Robert McChesney lays out his vision for what a truly democratic society might look like, offering compelling suggestions for how the media can be reformed as part of a broader program of democratic renewal. Rich Media, Poor Democracy remains as vital and insightful as ever and continues to serve as an important resource for researchers, students, and anyone who has a stake in the transformation of our digital commons. This new edition includes a major new preface by McChesney, where he offers both a history of the transformation in media since the book first appeared; a sweeping account of the organized efforts to reform the media system; and the ongoing threats to our democracy as journalism has continued its sharp decline. “Those who want to know about the relationship of media and democracy must read this book.” —Neil Postman “If Thomas Paine were around, he would have written this book.” —Bill Moyers
