Showing papers in "Political Communication in 2004"

The Effect of Political Discussion in Producing Informed Citizens: The Roles of Information, Motivation, and Elaboration

Abstract: Recent studies have demonstrated a strong empirical relationship between political discussion and political knowledge. However, as of yet there has been no clear discussion or demonstration of how political discussion translates into increased political knowledge. The present study proposes three explanations--exposure (similar to the two step flow), anticipatory elaboration (linking work on uses and gratifications and news information processing), and discussion-generated elaboration (focusing on how discussion itself can influence information processing)--for this observed empirical relationship. In order to test these three explanations, data from the 2000 ANES and a local community survey during the 1996 presidential election were employed. Findings suggest that the direct relationship between discussion and knowledge may be mediated through motivations and information processing behaviors. These findings support the anticipatory elaboration and discussion-generated elaboration explanations while ques...

Social Structure and Citizenship: Examining the Impacts of Social Setting, Network Heterogeneity, and Informational Variables on Political Participation

Abstract: In this study, we develop a model of the interplay between sociostructural determinants of an individual's discussion behavior, such as the setting of primary discussion networks (work, church, and volunteer groups) and the nature of discussion (i.e., level of exposure to non-like-minded ideas), and individual-level outcomes, such as hard news media use, political knowledge, and participation in political processes. In doing so, we synthesize many of the different and sometimes competing models that political communication scholars have used to examine the link between more macroscopic sociological variables and the individual-level behaviors that political scientists often focus on. Data to test our theoretical model come from a national telephone survey conducted in October and November 2002. Our analysis showed that the social setting in which citizens discuss politics is an important antecedent of political participation. Discussion networks as part of volunteer groups, for example, indeed serve as im...

Trust, Civic Engagement, and the Internet

Abstract: Does the Internet promote or impede social connections and trust? Using surveys from the Pew Center for the Internet and American Life, I show that Internet users are not social isolates. They tend to have slightly wider social circles than nonusers, but their Internet communications are largely with people they know. Consequently, it is hardly surprising that Internet users are no more trusting of strangers (but not less trusting either) than nonusers. However, trusting people are more likely to believe that they have little to fear from the Internet. They are more open to shopping on the Internet and are less likely to believe that their privacy will be violated on the Web; they are also less likely to use a false identity on the Web. The social connections that people make on the Internet do not promote trust--indeed, there is some evidence that chat rooms may bring together mistrusting people.

Media Logic and Political Communication

Abstract: (2004). Media Logic and Political Communication. Political Communication: Vol. 21, No. 3, pp. 293-296.

Bringing the Sociology of Media Back In

Abstract: In political communication research, news media tend to be studied more as a dependent than independent variable. That is, few studies link structural characteristics of media systems to the production of journalistic discourse about politics. One reason for this relative silence is the inadequacy of prevalent theories. Influential scholars in sociology and political communication such as Jurgen Habermas, Manuel Castells, and William Gamson provide only sketchy, institutionally underspecified accounts of media systems. Likewise, models in the sociology of news have tended to either aggregate societal level influences (chiefly political and economic) that are analytically and often empirically quite distinct or overemphasize micro-level influences (news routines, bureaucratic pressures). In between such micro- and macro-influences, the mezzo-level "journalistic field" represents an important shaping factor heretofore largely ignored. As path-dependent institutional logics, fields help ground cultural analy...

U.S. National Identity, Political Elites, and a Patriotic Press Following September 11

Abstract: In the aftermath of the terrorist attacks on New York City and Washington, D.C. on September 11, 2001, U.S. government and military leaders often articulated distinctly pro-American themes in their...

The Making of the (Issues of the) Vlaams Blok

Abstract: In Flanders, the Dutch-speaking part of Belgium, one of the strongest extreme right parties of Europe thrives: the Vlaams Blok (the Flemish Bloc). The basic question of this article is straightforward: Do the Flemish media contribute to the success of the Vlaams Blok by emphasizing the themes of the party? The theoretical argument is twofold: agenda setting by the media and issue ownership by parties. The issues the Vlaams Blok owns are determined using two sources: its electoral manifestoes and its electorate's motivations to vote for the party. This leads to four issues: Flemish nationalism, immigrant topics, antipolitics issues, and crime-related themes. Using a vast media data set covering three newspapers and two TV stations and stretching over 10 years (1991-2000), we examine to what extent these issues were covered. The analysis shows that especially immigrant topics and crime receive extensive and growing media attention, and time series analysis shows that this rise parallels the electoral growth...

The Emotional Deficit in Political Communication

Abstract: As a consequence of social changes which have weakened the boundaries between different spheres of life, politics is now interwoven with popular culture. This means that we now seek certain kinds of emotionalized experience from politics. The relationship of people to politics has changed, and has come more fully to resemble a mode of consumption. While this consumerization of politics has been much described (and criticized), its implications for the place of emotion in political communications have not been explored. From a base in the sociology of emotion, this article undertakes such an exploration. It notes how some analysts of political communication have already registered the influence of emotional states, and stresses how contemporary emotionality differs from traditional conceptions of the emotional as a domain separable from rationality and as an optional button for message strategists to press. The complexity and omnipresence of emotional states is emphasised. Political advertising is taken as...

Out of the Theaters and Into the Streets: A Coalition Model of the Political Impact of Documentary Film and Video

Abstract: Investigations of the political impact of documentary film and video have typically been guided by an "individualistic model," assessing the impact of a finished film on individual citizens and within the dominant public discourse. Research by Feldman and Sigelman (1985) and Lenart and McGraw (1989), however, provides support for creating a more elaborate coalition model for assessing the ways in which documentaries have political impact and for suggesting factors that help explain the extent of that impact. I argue that an adequate model (a) must conceptualize films as part of a larger process that incorporates both production and distribution; (b) must consider the full range of potential impacts on producers, participants, activist organizations, and decision makers; and (c) must consider the role of films in the efforts of social movements to create and sustain alternative spheres of public discourse. The coalition model directs our attention to the potentially important role of activist groups, initi...

The Citizen-Consumer: Media Effects at the Intersection of Consumer and Civic Culture

Abstract: Scholars in various fields have speculated that the commercialization of mass media has contributed to the decline of civic culture. They contend that the personal needs emphasized by product-saturated mass media diminish civic-mindedness by creating an individualistic consumption-oriented culture. Despite this critique, some scholars argue that mass media do not erode civic culture in favor of consumer culture; rather, the two are thought to be positively interrelated. Although these contrasting perspectives have been repeatedly discussed, research has rarely empirically investigated these contending claims. We examine media influences on civic and consumer culture while considering the interrelationships of consumer attitudes and behaviors with civic participation using the 2000 DDB Life Style Study. In doing so, we distinguish between news and entertainment media and between socially conscious and status-oriented consumption. A latent variable structural equation model is used to test hypotheses. Results suggest that consumption behaviors and civic participation are not conflicting, even though media foster commercial attitudes and motivate consumption. Overall, media effects on this dynamic are positive, suggesting that critiques of media demobilization may be misplaced.

Bargaining Through Arguing: An Empirical Analysis Based on Speech Act Theory

Abstract: In a recent debate in political science, the terms "bargaining and arguing" have been construed as semantic opposites. The present article rejects this dichotomy and offers a new theoretical approach to clarify the logical and pragmatic relationship of bargaining and arguing as modes of the resolution of conflicts through communication. On the basis of speech act theory, a method for the empirical analysis of bargaining and arguing is developed and demonstrated with an example of conflict resolution by mediation. Four conclusions can be drawn. First, in empirical processes of communicative conflict resolution, in almost all cases both arguing and bargaining will be present. Second, only in the rare cases of pure conflicts over solely facts or values will arguing appear. Third, within the context of an interest conflict, arguing is not an alternative to bargaining, but a means for bargaining. Fourth, although bargaining and arguing have the potential to resolve certain types of conflicts, their success is ...

Television Coverage of the 1999 European Parliamentary Elections

Abstract: European parliamentary elections are the defining event for political participation in the European Union (EU). Little, however, is known about how recent European parliamentary election campaigns are covered in television news, the most important source of information for most Europeans. We analyzed the main evening television news in 14 EU countries over the last 2 weeks before the 1999 European parliamentary elections (5,477 stories in total). Our results show considerable variation among the EU countries in the amount of coverage devoted to the European election campaign and the visibility given to EU representatives. Using multivariate analyses, we establish that there is more coverage of the European elections on (a) public broadcasting channels, (b) when elite opinion about the EU is polarized, and (c) when citizens are dissatisfied with their national governments. We also find that EU representatives are less visible in the news as a country participates in more European elections. The study provi...

Making the International Local: The Terrorist Attack on the USS Cole, Local Casualties, and Media Coverage

Abstract: I explore whether newspapers that represent regions experiencing "local casualties," that is, fatalities from an international violent event, give greater coverage to the incident. Research suggests that local casualties influence domestic politics, yet scholars have given little attention to either the influence of local casualties on reporting or the impact of international events on local press coverage. I examine the effect of local casualties on local media by analyzing the frequency of newspaper coverage of the October 2000 terrorist bombing of the USS Cole. Using a variety­ of techniques, including random effects logit and repeat failure hazard analysis, I find that newspapers from areas that experienced casualties from the Cole attack were more likely to report on the bombing, even when controlling for paper-specific and temporal effects. Driven by community casualties, variation in local media atten­tion to an international news story may help to explain why the effects of international events on...

Letters of Intent: Election Campaigning and Orchestrated Public Debate in Local Newspapers' Letters to the Editor

Abstract: Drawing on the findings of an extensive study of local and regional newspaper reporting of the 2001 UK general election, this article contests the widely held view that readers' letters' pages provide a public forum for discussion and debate initiated by readers. The article argues that during election campaigns, local parties may become highly influential in shaping the contents of letters pages as part of their broader media based campaigning strategy. For their part, editors select letters not simply according to their newsworthiness but to reflect the identity of the newspaper, to meet the perceived preferences of readers, as well as the more prosaic requirements of availability of space and editorial imperatives concerning balance. A fivefold typology of readers' letters is constructed and illustrated by reference to newspaper discussions of, among other matters, British membership of Europe and issues around taxation.

Mobilizing Information: Local News and the Formation of a Viable Political Community

Abstract: This article offers a rhetorical understanding of the practices and influences of news media on democratic citizenship during an environmental conflict. I compared two newspapers' ability to foster and suppress the formation and activation potential of citizens to participate in the decision-making process of a solid waste facility siting. One newspaper used language that fostered the formation of community by overcoming apathy and encouraging residents to act collectively. In contrast, the other newspaper's coverage suppressed the formation of community by reinforcing the belief that residents were powerless against the entrenched economic and political power base. This research also establishes a rationale for why it is important to the discipline to expand the definition of mobilizing information in the news media.

Noam Chomsky and the Manufacture of Consent for American Foreign Policy

Abstract: Few names of academic scholars are so well recognized all around the world as that of Noam Chomsky He is listed as the author or coauthor of well over 1,000 items in the online database of the Library of Congress The range of topics covered in these books, videos, and audiotapes reveals at least three different Chomskys: the linguistic scholar internationally recognized for his theory of transformational grammar and generative syntax, the political activist inspired by the writings of Mikhail Bakunin and Anton Pannekoek, and the analyst of media performance who (together with Edward S Herman) promulgated a “propaganda model” as an alternative to the conception of the media as “adversarial,” the one to which journalists, jurists, and communication scholars typically subscribe It is this third role, which accounts for roughly 80% of the Library of Congress items, that apparently moved the editor of this journal to suggest a review of work by or about Chomsky Having dutifully absorbed the contents of what looms as an unceasing, still continuing, flood of books, pamphlets, articles, and interviews—including some on C-Span, public radio, and the Internet—we refrain from reviewing each individually This becomes unnecessary inasmuch as, at least on the subjects of greatest concern to communication scholars, almost all make use of the same materials and dwell on the same themes with surprisingly little variation Endlessly repetitive, they do, however, when considered in their entirety, confirm Chomsky’s contention that despite his academic preoccupation with language, he completely separates his role as linguistics scholar from those of media critic and political activist It is in the two latter roles that he has expressed his anarchist creed and developed, in conformity with it, a communication model that concedes no legitimacy to state authority and certainly none to any kind of violence even when used to counter something far worse The connection to ideology does not, of course, invalidate the model Social science inquiry generally and the study of mass communication, in particular, have often been driven by meliorative impulses They are not separated by an impenetrable wall Be this as it may, Chomsky’s model, like any model, still has to be judged not just, or even primarily, on its suitability as a club for beating up on the media but rather on its theoretical adequacy, which is to say, on how closely it approximates how they actually function

Political Culture and Information Technology in the 2001 Singapore General Election

Abstract: Within the political configuration of advanced Western democracies, analysts agree that technology is a significant empowering force for organization and mobilization of political parties. However, it is clear that information technology is deployed and employed within a larger political culture, and therefore it is reasonable to expect that political culture has a mediating effect on the role of information technology and political practice. This essay presents a case study from the Republic of Singapore, a nation that has a vastly different political culture from the Western nations, to examine the ways in which assumptions about technology affected both the deployment and regulation of the Internet as a political force during the 2001 general election. Contrary to assumptions and arguments that the Internet has similar qualitative impacts across national boundaries, this essay argues that political culture, including regulation, plays a significant role in contextualizing and limiting the effects of ne...

Values and Persuasion During the First Bush-Gore Presidential Debate

Abstract: Appealing to values is an effective form of argumentation. In our analysis of the Bush-Gore debate, we found that values are fundamental in framing issues; their effectiveness is contingent on the issue context and the predisposition of the audience.­ Thus, merely constructing an appeal to values does not guarantee persuasiveness, as the appeal must be concrete in nature when attempting to move an audience to action. Such an appeal goes beyond creating a link between the value appeal and the issue, as the value appeal and the issue position must resonate with a defined audience. Our results indicate that most undecided voters who made up their minds as a result of the debate chose Gore, while a few chose Bush and some remained undecided. Those who chose Gore were clearly more egalitarian in their orientation than undecided voters who chose Bush or could not decide. Bush's use of individualism did not seem to persuade undecided voters, nor did it seem to have a detrimental impact on support for Gore. For t...

On a Sociology of the Media

Abstract: Benson provides some suggestive hypotheses about ways in which the mass media, as an institutional system, contribute to the shaping of public discourse. I share his call for a sociology of the news media, and his uneasiness about the extent to which discussions of media practice have been dominated by U.S. media. It is part of what led me to do comparative work on Germany and the United States. But the essay is marred by a dubious conceit—that he is treating a neglected subject. “This is done too rarely,” he says of understanding media “as part of the process of political meaning making.” This conceit leads him to seriously misread the model that my colleagues (Myra Ferree, Juergen Gerhards, and Dieter Rucht) and I present in Shaping Abortion Discourse (Ferree et al., 2002). Since I find it so difficult to recognize the sociology of the media that we offered in Benson’s rendition, I will summarize it here. Our model begins with the different nature of the public spheres in the two countries. “In Germany, political parties and state actors dominate the stage; in the United States, the political parties are mostly backstage, and advocacy organizations are the major players” (Ferree et al., 2002, p. 8). This difference in the public sphere is reflected in the practices and news routines of journalists in the two countries. Benson suggests that we “provide no evidence [for this claim] other than the content of the news itself, thus engaging in entirely circular reasoning and conflating media as both an independent and dependent variable.” It is true that we provide no systematic data showing that, over a broad range of issues, German media discourse is dominated by state and party actors much more than in the U.S. But we provide discussions by many observers of the media and the public sphere in the two countries that emphasize these differences independently of the abortion issue. We certainly do not offer our data on the greater standing of advocacy groups in the U.S. on the abortion issue as proof of the differences in the public sphere. Indeed, we suspect that the difference is more pronounced on abortion than on many other issues because of the abdication of U.S. political parties as spokespersons on the issue—for reasons that we discuss at some length. Nor do we conflate “independent” and “dependent” variables. The media as an institutional system in our model is an intervening variable. Framing contests, we suggest, encounter a particular discursive opportunity structure that differs in the two countries. This is the field “full of hills and valleys, sinkholes, promontories, and impenetrable jungles.” I am astounded at the claim that we have little to say about this, since a large portion of the book discusses it in detail.

Response to Herman and Chomsky

Abstract: (2004). Response to Herman and Chomsky. Political Communication: Vol. 21, No. 1, pp. 109-111.

Can We Theorize the Press Without Theorizing the Public

Abstract: (2004). Can We Theorize the Press Without Theorizing the Public? Political Communication: Vol. 21, No. 3, pp. 297-303.

Black Radio Politically Defined: Communicating Community and Political Empowerment Through Stevie Wonder's KJLH-FM, 1992-2002

Abstract: KJLH-FM's community service activities demonstrate that the station's mission is more than talk; it is action. It acted upon residents' needs during the 1992 Los Angeles riots and has remained responsive to its audience. "Front Page," KJLH-FM's flagship program, served as an alternative voice in South Central Los Angeles and across the United States. KJLH-FM's response to the 1992 uprising was the reference point that the researcher used to identify themes and/or patterns defining the station's community role, especially as it affected civic participation and political mobilization. Beyond listeners' anxieties regarding the "violence" in the streets and their criticism directed toward the "Los Angeles Police Department," community empowerment and unity emerged among the top themes of the 1992 "Front Page" on-air transcripts. The KJLH-FM case, in particular, presents a rare opportunity to study the community responsiveness of Los Angeles' only independently Black-owned station within the context of a histo...

Reply to Kurt and Gladys Engel Lang

Abstract: (2004) Reply to Kurt and Gladys Engel Lang Political Communication: Vol 21, No 1, pp 103-107

Reply to Rodney Benson

Abstract: Rodney Benson’s outline of directions for tandem progress in the study of political communication and the sociology of media is characteristically thoughtful and lucid. Let me pick up on a few elements and add one. First of all, comparative studies are long overdue. Why do we have so few? For one thing, they’re devilishly hard to arrange. The data aren’t just lying around, and the questions are difficult to formulate in such a way as to permit reasonably methodical cross-national comparisons. But I suspect there is another, more banal and intractable impediment; the habit of parochialism dies hard. Some parochialism comes wrapped in a nobler word: criticism. A good many of what purport to be media studies are not so much media studies as media jibes. This is most flagrantly true in the so-called propaganda model propounded by Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky (1988), in which the media are not so much social institutions as an unchanging (and singular) black megaphone. Garbage cascades in, garbage cascades out. (How do we know? Read the footnotes and you find out: Journalists whom the authors unaccountably deem impeccable say so.) Second, Benson is dead right that commercialization is a bundle of phenomena, not a single phenomenon, and explaining anything by “it” is not helpful. He’s also quite right to note “the growing suspicion that concentration of ownership explains much less about media content than previously believed” (varieties of such suspicion are compellingly aired in the debate staked out in McChesney et al., 2002). Under what circumstances are commercial systems conducive to more, and less, vigorous debate? Under what circumstances does competition lead to a race toward sameness (Hotelling, 1929)? When do proliferating niche markets undermine the least-common-denominator principle, and when do they harden into merely supplementary niches? One disagreement: I don’t agree that “the case for culture as an independent causal factor has yet to be made convincingly.” Schudson (2003) has made it. True enough, there can’t be a sharp boundary between organization and culture. If you like, you may decide to consider culture as nothing but “a sort of ‘sediment’ of past struggles over the hierarchical organization of power and the allocation of resources.” But to call the territory where this sediment lodges “political economy” is only to play a sort of nominalist shell game. Call culture political economy and it may sound rather “harder” than if you call it culture, but it remains a complex of human values and practices.

Illustrator, American Icon, and Public Opinion Theorist: Norman Rockwell in Democracy

Abstract: This essay explores tensions over the portrayal of the public and public opinion during the mid-20th century, using common American images. Focus is on the extraordinarily popular pictures by Norman Rockwell, one of the most prolific artists of the 20th century, although one with ambitions far beyond simple illustration. I ask: Can we learn about public opinion from the commercial art market, and how might we go about using images as our data? How can we--as social and political historians so often do--use cultural artifacts to inform the historical study of public opinion.

Why Conceptual Models and "Big" Institutions Matter: A Response to David Altheide, Nina Eliasoph, William Gamson, and Todd Gitlin

Abstract: I would like to begin this response by thanking Michael Schudson for encouraging me to risk writing a critical essay about how media sociology might be better incorporated into political communications research. In the broadest sense, this is a project that all of the discussants endorsed, and I am grateful for the constructive comments of David Altheide, Nina Eliasoph, William Gamson, and Todd Gitlin. I certainly have no objections to their suggestions that research questions other than my own are also important. So I would heartily endorse Nina Eliasoph’s call for more research on everyday public conversation, or David Altheide’s urging to examine how the line between entertainment and journalism is becoming increasingly blurred, or Todd Gitlin’s supplementary point that media studies would benefit from a more sophisticated social psychology that takes emotion as well as rational calculation into account. But I would like to focus my response on three specific critiques of my essay that I think have larger implications for sociology and political communication. First, is it really necessary to “reinvent” media sociology, as William Gamson asks? Certainly, we should build upon what has come before. What I tried to argue is that previous attempts to categorize “factors” shaping the news, many of them two or more decades old, need to be clarified and updated. The dominant models are either too micro-oriented or too macro-oriented; in both cases, they are leading researchers to look in the wrong places for explanations. Sociologists, having discovered the existence of organization-based news routines, often fail to adequately connect these to larger structures of power. But political economists or cultural analysts who see the news as only an epiphenomenon of broad social forces are also missing something. This is where I introduce the notion of “field,” as the interorganizational, professional, social, and indeed cultural space within which journalists situate or orient their action and interaction. It is in part because of enduring, taken-for-granted rules of the game within such fields that intensifying external commercial or political pressures do not automatically transform distinctive national journalistic practices. As a spatial model mapping the types (cultural, economic, etc.) and overall volume of capital possessed by various media outlets, the concept of field provides a means of explaining diversity as well as uniformity in the production of news and editorials.