Imagined communities: Reflections on the origin and spread of nationalism

The present historical moment may seem a particularly inopportune time to review Bowling Alone, Robert Putnam's latest exploration of civic decline in America. After all, the outpouring of volunteerism, solidarity, patriotism, and self-sacrifice displayed by Americans in the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks appears to fly in the face of Putnam's central argument: that \"social capital\" -defined as \"social networks and the norms of reciprocity and trustworthiness that arise from them\" (p. 19)'has declined to dangerously low levels in America over the last three decades. However, Putnam is not fazed in the least by the recent effusion of solidarity. Quite the contrary, he sees in it the potential to \"reverse what has been a 30to 40-year steady decline in most measures of connectedness or community.\"' As an example of how the current \"war on terrorism\" could generate a durable civic renewal, Putnam points to the burst in civic practices that occurred during and after World War II, which he says \"permanently marked\" the generation that lived through it and had a \"terrific effect on American public life over the last half-century.\" 3 If Americans can follow this example and channel their current civic

Bowling alone: The collapse and revival of American community

The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere: An Inquiry into a Category of Bourgeois Society

Originally published in Contemporary Psychology: APA Review of Books, 1994, Vol 39(2), 225. Reviews the book, The Nature and Origins of Mass Opinion by John Zaller (1992). The author's commendable effort to specify a model of mass opinion formation offers readers an introduction to the prevailing vi

The Nature and Origins of Mass Opinion.

/pdf/social-capital-a-theory-of-social-structure-and-action-4m7poq6byy.pdf

Social capital: a theory of social structure and action

Recently, research revolving around blogs has flourished. Usually, academics illus- trate what blogs are, motivations to blog, and, only to some extent, their role in politics. Along these lines, we examine the impact of digital politics by looking specifically at blog readers. Although blog readers might be considered at the forefront of a new technological revolution, and people have specu- lated about their participatory habits both online and off, little research has specifically looked at this growing proportion of the population. This article models factors that predict traditional and online forms of participation, presenting a portrait of a new type of political advocate.

https://homepage.univie.ac.at/homero.gil.de.zuniga/documents/Gil%20de%20Zuniga,%20Veenstra,%20Vraga%20&%20Shah%20(2010)%20Journal%20of%20Information%20Technology%20&%20Politics%207(1),%2036-51.pdf

Digital Democracy: Reimagining Pathways to Political Participation

This case study examines how traditional and Internet news use, as well as face-to-face and online political discussion, contributed to political participation during the period leading up to the Iraq War. A Web-based survey of political dissenters (N = 307) conducted at the start of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq provides the data used to examine the relationships among informational media use, online and face-to-face political discussion, and political participation among the respondents, who were recruited through blogs, discussion boards, and listservs opposing the Iraq war. Analyses reveal that among these respondents, Internet news use contributed to both face-to-face and online discussion about the situation in Iraq. Online and face-to-face political discussion mediated certain news media effects on anti-war political participation. The study stresses the complementary role of Web news use and online political discussion relative to traditional modes of political communication in spurring political participation.

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/j.1083-6101.2006.00323.x

The Internet and Anti-War Activism: A Case Study of Information, Expression, and Action

The year 2015 marks the 75th anniversary of the first known reference to Harold D. Lasswell's model of communication in 1940. In recognition of this milestone, this paper revisits Lasswell's famous construct, “Who, said what, in which channel, to whom, with what effect?” by offering a textual analysis of its conceptual evolution over the last 75 years. Inspired by Eulau and Zlomke's (1999) study on Harold Lasswell's legacy to the discipline of political science, we pose a similar question to the field of communication: If one only knows about Harold Lasswell by reading the citations or references to his model of communication, what would his legacy seem to be? In doing so, this paper first explicates the relationship between Lasswell's legacy to the field and the role his model of communication has played in it. Second, it tests the utility of Lasswell's model in light of a significantly changing media landscape, and gauges its current value for communication scholars. Finally, we conclude that Lasswell's...

Reading Lasswell's Model of Communication Backward: Three Scholarly Misconceptions

Time, place, technology: Twitter as an information source in the Wisconsin labor protests

This study examines the roles of partisanship, partisan media use, and political discussion in the development of belief gaps. Using national survey data, we construct models of political identity, media use, and discussion factors predicting beliefs on five contested political issues and find that ideology and partisanship are generally stronger predictors of beliefs than is education. Notably, each has independent effects on belief outcomes. Contrary to some concerns that the Internet especially promotes partisan clustering, use of partisan traditional media—television and radio—is by far the strongest information-related predictor of belief outcomes, whereas partisan social media use and partisan discussion are relatively weak and inconsistent. These findings suggest that political elites continue to exert significant influence over the perceptions of rank and file partisans.

Aaron S. Veenstra

Papers

Digital Democracy: Reimagining Pathways to Political Participation

The Internet and Anti-War Activism: A Case Study of Information, Expression, and Action

Reading Lasswell's Model of Communication Backward: Three Scholarly Misconceptions

Time, place, technology: Twitter as an information source in the Wisconsin labor protests

Partisan Media and Discussion as Enhancers of the Belief Gap