Political Communication 

About: Political Communication is an academic journal published by Taylor & Francis. The journal publishes majorly in the area(s): Political communication & Politics. It has an ISSN identifier of 1058-4609. Over the lifetime, 1279 publications have been published receiving 59158 citations.

Framing analysis: An approach to news discourse

Abstract: In the American political process, news discourse concerning public policy issues is carefully constructed. This occurs in part because both politicians and interest groups take an increasingly proactive approach to amplify their views of what an issue is about However, news media also play an active role in framing public policy issues. Thus, in this article, news discourse is conceived as a sociocognitive process involving all three players: sources, journalists, and audience members operating in the universe of shared culture and on the basis of socially defined roles. Framing analysis is presented as a constructivist approach to examine news discourse with the primary focus on conceptualizing news texts into empirically operationalizable dimensions—syntactical, script, thematic, and rhetorical structures—so that evidence of the news media's framing of issues in news texts may be gathered. This is considered an initial step toward analyzing the news discourse process as a whole. Finally, an ex...

The Internet, Public Spheres, and Political Communication: Dispersion and Deliberation

Abstract: The theme of the Internet and the public sphere now has a permanent place on research agendas and in intellectual inquiry; it is entering the mainstream of political communication studies. The first part of this presentation briefly pulls together key elements in the public sphere perspective, underscoring three main analytic dimensions: the structural, the representational, and the interactional. Then the discussion addresses some central themes in the current difficulties facing democracy, refracted through the lens of the public sphere perspective. In particular, the destabilization of political communication systems is seen as a context for understanding the role of the Internet: It enters into, as well as contributes to, this destabilization. At the same time, the notion of destabilization can also embody a positive sense, pointing to dispersions of older patterns that may have outlived their utility. Further, the discussion takes up obvious positive consequences that follow from the Internet, for ex...

"Mediatization" of Politics: A Challenge for Democracy?

Abstract: The growing intrusion of media into the political domain in many countries has led critics to worry about the approach of the "media-driven republic," in which mass media will usurp the functions of political institutions in the liberal state. However, close inspection of the evidence reveals that political institutions in many nations have retained their functions in the face of expanded media power. The best description of the current situation is "mediatization," where political institutions increasingly are dependent on and shaped by mass media but nevertheless remain in control of political processes and functions.

"Connecting" and "Disconnecting" With Civic Life: Patterns of Internet Use and the Production of Social Capital

Abstract: This article explores the relationship between Internet use and the individual-level production of social capital. To do so, the authors adopt a motivational perspective to distinguish among types of Internet use when examining the factors predicting civic engagement, interpersonal trust, and life contentment. The predictive power of new media use is then analyzed relative to key demographic, contextual, and traditional media use variables using the 1999 DDB Life Style Study. Although the size of associations is generally small, the data suggest that informational uses of the Internet are positively related to individual differences in the production of social capital, whereas social-recreational uses are negatively related to these civic indicators. Analyses within subsamples defined by generational age breaks further suggest that social capital production is related to Internet use among Generation X, while it is tied to television use among Baby Boomers and newspaper use among members of the Civic Gene...

Community, Communication, and Participation: The Role of Mass Media and Interpersonal Discussion in Local Political Participation

Abstract: This study examines the role of community integration and mass and interpersonal communication in predicting two types of local political participation; more conventional, "institutionalized" acts of participation and less traditional acts of participating and speaking out in a forum. An analysis of survey data (N = 389) showed a strong role of newspaper readership and a somewhat lower impact of interpersonal discussion on institutionalized participation. Different patterns emerged for participation in a civic forum, with interpersonal discussion having the strongest impact of the three communication variables. Television news use had no direct impact on either type of participation, but it did have a modest indirect impact on institutionalized participation. The data also showed direct effects of dimensions of community integration for participation in a forum only. Orientations toward the larger community rather than the local neighborhood were positively related to participating in a civic forum.