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  3. Communication, Society and Politics

Communication, Society and Politics is a series that probes the political and social impacts of communication processes and systems in national, comparative, and global contexts. The series adopts a broad definition of politics as the exercise of power within and between nations, which includes the social, cultural, psychological, and institutional underpinnings of politically significant communication. The series includes a diversity of methods and views, with an emphasis on questions about democracy, equality, justice, and other normative concerns. In recent years, politics in societies across the world have been transformed by communication technologies that blur traditional definitions of news, the nature of citizenship, and the boundaries between public and private life. Many democracies face challenges due to disruptive communication processes operating in the context of declining levels of trust in public institutions, including legacy journalism. One result of these trends is the spread of disinformation by illiberal movements and parties that aim to undermine science, the press, civil society organizations, and other traditional public information sources. A related trend involves the growth of authoritarian regimes that rely on media systems and communication strategies to manage publics. Within these broad trends are many other important communication developments in which communication technologies and networked organization have impacted human rights, climate change, new forms of citizenship and inclusion, and personal political expression. Communication, Society, and Politics provides a platform to explore how people in different societies engage with the ideas that organize their lives.

  • General Editors: W. Lance Bennett, University of Washington, Regina Lawrence, University of Oregon
  • Founding Co-Editor, Emerituss: Robert M. Entman, George Washington University, Washington DC

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46 results in Communication, Society and Politics

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Communication and Democratic Reform in South Africa
  • Robert B. Horwitz
  • Published online:
    04 December 2009
    Print publication:
    09 April 2001
  • The book examines the reform of the communication sector in South Africa as a detailed and extended case study in political transformation - the transition from apartheid to democracy. The reform of broadcasting, telecommunications, the state information agency and the print press from apartheid-aligned apparatuses to accountable democratic institutions took place via a complex political process in which civil society activism, embodying a post-social democratic ideal, largely won out over the powerful forces of formal market capitalism and older models of state control. In the cautious acceptance of the market, the civil society organizations sought to use the dynamism of the market while thwarting its inevitable inequities. Forged in the crucible of a difficult transition to democracy, communication reform in South Africa was navigated between the National Party's embrace of the market and the African National Congress leadership's default statist orientation.

Evaluating Campaign Quality
  • Can the Electoral Process be Improved?
  • L. Sandy Maisel, Darrell M. West, Brett M. Clifton
  • Published online:
    03 December 2009
    Print publication:
    30 April 2007
  • For a number of years, voters and academic observers have been dissatisfied with a number of elements of American campaigns. Contemporary races are seen as too negative, too superficial, and too unfair or misleading. Based on these complaints, a variety of reform organizations have targeted millions of dollars to improve the situation. Through their efforts and those within the academic community, a wide range of reform initiatives have been undertaken, such as voluntary codes of conduct, industry self-regulation, certificate programs, tougher ethics rules for consultants, and the encouragement of more substantive venues. This book seeks to evaluate whether these activities have improved the level of campaign discourse and conduct in US House and Senate campaigns and argues that while individual reform efforts have achieved some of their stated objectives, the overall effect of these reform efforts has been disappointing.

Comparing Political Communication
  • Theories, Cases, and Challenges
  • Edited by Frank Esser, Barbara Pfetsch
  • Published online:
    24 November 2009
    Print publication:
    06 September 2004
  • This volume assesses comparative political communication research and considers potential ways in which it could and should develop. Twenty experts from Europe and the United States offer a unique and comprehensive discussion of the theories, cases, and challenges of comparative research in political communication. The first part discusses the fundamental themes, concepts and methods essential to analyze the effects of modernization and globalization of political communication. The second part offers a broad range of case studies that illustrate the enormous potential of cross-national approaches in many relevant fields of political communication. The third part paves the way for future research by describing the most promising concepts and pressing challenges of comparative political communication. This book is intended to introduce new students to a crucial, dynamic field as well as deepening advanced students' knowledge of its principles and perspectives.

The Winning Message
  • Candidate Behavior, Campaign Discourse, and Democracy
  • Adam F. Simon
  • Published online:
    18 November 2009
    Print publication:
    29 April 2002
  • This study investigates candidate behavior in American electoral campaigns. It centers on a question of equal importance to citizens and scholars: how can we produce better political campaigns? The project takes an innovative approach to answering this question by bringing together critical and empirical methods as well as game theory in a sophisticated yet readable text. The answer comes in four parts. First, Simon develops the idea of dialogue as a standard for evaluating political campaigns. Second, he shows that candidates' self-interest in winning leads them to avoid dialogue, that is substantive campaign discourse. Third, he demonstrates the beneficial effects produced by the little dialogue that actually occurs. Fourth, he pinpoints the forces responsible for these rare occurrences. The major lesson of this work is that campaign reform under its present guise will not bring about the more substantive campaigns that the public desires.

Media and the Path to Peace
  • Gadi Wolfsfeld
  • Published online:
    22 September 2009
    Print publication:
    15 January 2004
  • This is the first book to examine in detail the roles that the news media can play in an ongoing peace process. Gadi Wolfsfeld explains how the press's role in such processes varies over time and political circumstance. He examines three major cases: the Oslo peace process between Israel and the Palestinians; the peace process between Israel and Jordan; and the process surrounding the Good Friday Agreement in Northern Ireland. Wolfsfeld's central argument is that there is a fundamental contradiction between news values and the nature of a peace process. This often leads the media to play a destructive role in attempts to make peace, but variations in the political and media environment affect significantly exactly how the media behave. Wolfsfeld shows how the media played a mainly destructive role in the Oslo peace process, but were more constructive during the Israel-Jordan process and in Northern Ireland.

New Television, Old Politics
  • The Transition to Digital TV in the United States and Britain
  • Hernan Galperin
  • Published online:
    24 July 2009
    Print publication:
    24 May 2004
  • This book examines the economic, political, and technological forces that are shaping the future of broadcasting in advanced industrialized nations by comparing the transition from analog to digital TV in the US and Britain. Digital TV involves a major reordering of the broadcast sector that requires governments to rethink governance tools for the digital media era. By looking at how the transition is unfolding in these nations, the book uncovers the political underpinnings of the emerging governance regime for digital communications and explores the implications of the transition for the development of the Information Society in the US and Europe. The findings challenge much conventional wisdom about media deregulation and the globalization of communications. The transition to digital TV has not weakened but rather reinforced government control over broadcasting. Moreover, contrary to what many globalization theories would predict, it has reinforced preexisting differences in the organization of media across nations.

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