Individual Motivations,Perceived Media Importance,and Political Disaffection

Mass media have been blamed for distancing people from the political process by increasing cynicism and voter apathy. A telephone survey of 592 registered voters in Washington state tested a set of relationships among political involvement, perceived media importance, political disaffection, and efficacy. As hypothesized, political involvement was positively associated with the perceived importance of newspapers and radio talk shows. These, in turn, were negatively associated with cynicism and positively associated with efficacy. Cynicism was negatively associated with efficacy, while efficacy was positively associated with involvement. The results suggest that involvement is a key variable in the political decision making process through its relationships with orientations toward information sources. Thus, media can serve as a catalyst for involved citizen decision making. Scholars should attend to the motivational context individuals bring to the media when examining the role of the media in political decision making.     

Should the Media Be More or Less Powerful in Politics? Individual and Contextual Explanations for Politicians and Journalists

The normative question regarding whether the media should have more or less impact on politics, as viewed by politicians and journalists, is important assuming that norms about media influences can influence behaviors. The present study is the first that combines individual and structural factors that explain political actors’ and journalists’ normative views on the media’s influence on politics. Based on a conceptualization of political communication cultures, representative micro-level survey data from more than 600 political actors and journalists within 52 German cities were combined with macro-level indicators for the political and media competition in each city. Multilevel analyses show that interactions between the actors’ characteristics and their competitive working conditions help explain their normative evaluations of the media’s influence on politics. However, individual characteristics such as actors’ role conceptions influence normative views more so than media and political competition do.     

Introduction: Communication and Civic Engagement in Comparative Perspective

The present era is defined by sweeping changes in economies, social institutions, political party systems, and communication processes in many nations. These changes go by various names from globalization to poststructuralism. The impact of these tectonic shifts in the political foundations of nations is greatly debated. In particular, considerable uncertainty surrounds the effects of various changes on the importance of politics for individual citizens and for the kinds of civic activities that people engage in and even regard as political. This is an important time for communication scholars to develop comparative frameworks that bring conceptions of social change together with how people located in various cultural, demographic, and audience groups define their relations to government and, more broadly, to civil society. At stake is our understanding of the role of communication in shaping these political relations, and in shaping the attitudes of citizens about politics, government, and society itself.     

Politics as Cultural Practice

This essay reflects on the notion of politics and political communication as a form of cultural practice. This requires locating political practice in both space and time and paying close attention to empirical details--"drawing what you see." These precepts are illustrated in a discussion of different practices of voting in American history. The author argues that the study of political communication should include finding and observing people doing, and not just expressing or thinking about, politics.     

东亚政党与民众的政治沟通及其启示——以韩国和新加坡为例

政党与民众的政治沟通是衡量一个国家政党政治运行状况的重要指标。探索东亚政党与民众的政治沟通,有助于我们了解东亚政党政治的运行过程和发展规律。韩国和新加坡两国政党与民众的政治沟通模式虽各具特色,但其基本涵盖了东亚政党与民众沟通的主要模式,从政治沟通的整个过程来看,也有一定的规律和经验可循。如充分发挥政党的能动作用、采取灵活多样的沟通方式、积极主动地拓宽沟通的渠道等。借鉴东亚政党与民众沟通的经验对于完善我国执政党与民众的政治沟通模式十分必要。     

Values,Communication Behavior,and Political Participation

This article examines how communication patterns mediate the influences of values on political participation. We find that the positive effects of postmaterial values on participation are mediated through reading public affairs content in newspapers. In contrast, materialist values negatively affect participation through watching television entertainment. Interpersonal discussion in which disagreement occurs mediates both the positive effect of reading public affairs and the negative effect of materialism on political participation. We also provide what may be a better explanation of the influence of communication patterns on political participation by going beyond acquisition of factual political knowledge. We show that individuals' efforts to think about news and search for additional information and perspectives modify what people "get from" media. Reflecting about news and integrating information from various sources promote better understanding of the political world and may provide a stronger cognitive base for political participation than factual political knowledge.     

A Spiral of Cynicism for Some: The Contingent Effects of Campaign News Frames on Participation and Confidence in Government

This article explores the impact of strategy-based campaign coverage on turnout and confidence in government. Recent theoretical advances suggest that variables such as sophistication and involvement frequently moderate media exposure effects. We hypothesize that the impact of strategy frames will be moderated by political involvement and sophistication. In an experiment, we precisely isolate and manipulate particular story elements that have been said to foster public cynicism: the strategic interpretation of candidate motives, the presence of polling results, and the use of war or game metaphors to describe the campaign. Relative to the issue-oriented coverage, strategy frames boost the number of strategy-based comments people offer when describing the campaign and depress issue-based commentary. As expected, framing effects on turnout, trust in government, civic duty, and the perceived meaningfulness of elections are moderated by involvement and sophistication. Nonpartisans and those with less than a college degree are significantly demobilized and alienated by strategy-based coverage, while partisans and the highly educated are mostly unaffected.     

Exposure to Political Disagreement in Social Media Versus Face-to-Face and Anonymous Online Settings

This article investigates political disagreement on social media in comparison to face-to-face and anonymous online settings. Because of the structure of social relationships and the social norms that influence expression, it is hypothesized that people perceive more political disagreement in social media settings versus face-to-face and anonymous online settings. Analyses of an online survey of adults in the United States show that (a) social media users perceive more political disagreement than non-users, (b) they perceive more of it on social media than in other communication settings, and (c) news use on social media is positively related to perceived disagreement on social media. Results are discussed in light of their implications for current debates about the contemporary public sphere and directions for future research.     

From Top-Down to Trickle-Up Influence: Revisiting Assumptions About the Family in Political Socialization

A growing number of theorists are calling for a revival of research on political socialization based on the premise that children are active in their own civic development. We advance this argument a step further by proposing a model of family communication that reverses the roles of parents and children as conventionally understood in political socialization. Adolescent children are not merely receptive to political stimulation; they possess the power to transform patterns of family communication in ways that benefit themselves and their parents. We first challenge a series of interrelated assumptions about the nature and direction of influence in the family. We then document evidence of "trickle-up influence," in which child-initiated discussion--stimulated by a civics curriculum--prompts the parent to increase her civic competence via increased news media use, knowledge gain, and opinion formation. The parent's response reflects her desire to maintain a leadership role in the family, and more important from a theoretical perspective, it reveals the intrinsic forces of family adaptation that can make the home a powerful incubator of citizenship. Political growth occurs when the family system adjusts to reestablish equilibrium in response to exogenous factors or developmental needs that propel change. The ultimate purpose of this essay is to propose a functional model of family political communication. We apply theoretical perspectives from developmental literature to illustrate how political communication serves the family goals of autonomy and cohesion during various stages of the family life cycle.     

Public Information and Field Theory

The unsolved question of whether the media affect political agendas is tackled with an innovative research method: a survey among politicians and journalists in Belgium. This article shows that this new approach can complement existing knowledge and yield new insights. Results largely support the contention that media matter for politics; politicians and journalists state that the media are important agenda setters, even compared to more established political actors such as political parties and interest groups. Though not all issues are equally conducive to media agenda-setting, media always seem to matter to some extent. Some politicians more than others evaluate the media's agenda impact to be high. The actual parliamentary action of some MPs is affected more by prior mass media coverage than others. I account for these differences and show that it is mainly their political role (government or opposition), the negativity of their evaluation of media power, and their perception of the impact of public opinion on politics that determine politicians' perceptions and behavior regarding political agenda-setting.     

Patterns of Internet and Traditional News Media Use in a Networked Community

Abstract

International communication has come increasingly under the impact of at least three major technological, socio‐economic, and political forces: expanded channels of communication provided by technological developments, democratizing pressures that have brought new voices to be heard in international media and forums, and new but as yet weak mechanisms for the conduct of meaningful dialogue and negotiations. Power politics has been thus increasingly supplemented or supplanted by image politics, questioning traditional boundaries between domestic and international politics, and creating image fixations that have proved occasionally inimical to accommodation of real interests. The symbolic uses of images, on the other hand, have served at least three kinds of cognitive interests: national solidarity, and domestic instrumental and global community. The Iranian hostage crisis, among a number of other contemporary examples, illustrates how these interests were served, symbolically and actually, in domestic as well as international politics. Through a case study of the hostage crisis, me paper concludes with some warnings on the potentials as well as menaces of image politics.     

The Mix of Media Use Matters: Investigating the Effects of Individual News Repertoires on Offline and Online Political Participation

In contemporary high-choice media environments, people increasingly mix and combine their use of various news media into personal news repertoires. Despite this, there is still limited research on how people compose their individual news repertoires and the effects of these news repertoires. To address this and further our understanding of how media use influences political participation, this study investigates (a) how people combine the use of offline and online media into personal news repertoires and (b) the effects of different news repertoires on both offline and online political participation. Based on a two-wave panel study covering the 2014 Swedish national election, this study identifies five news repertoires, labeled minimalists, public news consumers, local news consumers, social media news consumers, and popular online news consumers. Among other things, the results show that social media news consumers are more likely to participate in politics both offline and online.     

The Effects of Political Talk Radio On Political Attitude Formation: Exposure Versus Knowledge

The effects of political news on the mass audience are usually difficult to establish empirically. Recent models of mass communication effects have held that political knowledge is a better indicator of media reception than traditional measures of exposure. This claim is tested in two studies of attitudes toward Democratic and Republican leaders during the 1996 U.S. presidential primary campaigns. The impact of messages from three types of political talk radio (PTR) is examined: Rush Limbaugh, other conservative hosts, and liberal/moderate hosts. Political knowledge and exposure to talk radio are found to be equally good predictors of attitudes toward political leaders when studied separately. However, when tested against one another, exposure is the more effective measure. Agreement between Rush Limbaugh's messages and his audience's attitudes toward political figures is consistent and strong. Biased processing of PTR content by audience members with partisan predispositions contrary to those of the host is also examined.     

History and Political Communication: An Introduction

This essay introduces a series of articles that explore the relation of history to political communication research. It is shown that as a field of study political communication has tended to ignore historical methods and sensibilities. This tendency is traced to the field's roots in social psychology, political science, and early mass communication research. However, although political communication tends to ignore historical research, it often depends upon implicit, unquestioned historical narratives. Thus, a more robust historical imagination is encouraged not only because it may produce more and better historical research, but also because it may assist in the development of tools for reflecting on the way political communication already deploys historical narratives.     

The Political Significance of Social Media Activity and Social Networks

This paper examines panel data from two waves of the Youth Participatory Politics Survey, a nationally representative sample of young people in the United States. It employs a cross-lagged design to investigate the extent to which common forms of online activity create pathways to online and offline forms of political activity. Specifically, we examine the influence of Friendship-Driven (FD) and Interest-Driven (ID) online activity on online participatory politics and on offline forms of political action. Our findings reveal that FD and ID activity relate to political engagement, but in different ways. In addition, we find that the size of young people’s social networks interacts with both FD and ID online activity to promote political activity. This indicates that having exposure to “weak-ties” (resulting from large social networks) promote higher levels of political engagement. These findings demonstrate the need to specify the kinds of online activities in which youth are engaged and, more broadly, the political significance of social media and social networks     

Technology Firms Shape Political Communication: The Work of Microsoft,Facebook, Twitter,and Google With Campaigns During the 2016 U.S. Presidential Cycle

This article offers the first analysis of the role that technology companies, specifically Facebook, Twitter, Microsoft, and Google, play in shaping the political communication of electoral campaigns in the United States. We offer an empirical analysis of the work technology firms do around electoral politics through interviews with staffers at these firms and digital and social media directors of 2016 U.S. presidential primary and general election campaigns, in addition to field observations at the 2016 Democratic National Convention. We find that technology firms are motivated to work in the political space for marketing, advertising revenue, and relationship-building in the service of lobbying efforts. To facilitate this, these firms have developed organizational structures and staffing patterns that accord with the partisan nature of American politics. Furthermore, Facebook, Twitter, and Google go beyond promoting their services and facilitating digital advertising buys, actively shaping campaign communication through their close collaboration with political staffers. We show how representatives at these firms serve as quasi-digital consultants to campaigns, shaping digital strategy, content, and execution. Given this, we argue that political communication scholars need to consider social media firms as more active agents in political processes than previously appreciated in the literature.     

菲律宾政治家族的经济基础分析

政治家族是菲律宾政治的主导力量,而这些政治家族依赖的是其强大的经济基础。菲律宾政治家族的经济利益最初来源于以农业为基础的行业,如今已向其他行业延伸,几乎各行各业都有政治家族的印记。相应地,菲律宾政治家族拥有远非普通家庭能比的巨大财富,多数政治精英凭借家族财富而身居高位,因此菲律宾政治带有明显的富人特色。     

Print journalism as political communication: The Iran hostage crisis 1

Studies of political communication and persuasion typically focus on deliberately persuasive communications of political actors. Contemporary rhetorical theories suggest the importance of rhetorical examinations of a range of communications not normally considered rhetorical/persuasive, including media news reports. Bormann's fantasy‐theme analysis is a rhetorical‐critical method that allows critics to discover the rhetorically created social realities of groups of people through detailed examination of their communication behavior. The method is particularly suited to discovering the motives of social actors who share social realities or “rhetorical visions.” Applied to U.S. print media coverage of the Iran hostage crisis, fantasy‐theme analysis reveals the motives that urged journalists to give the episode massive coverage, that urged Americans to become preoccupied with the episode, and that urged Americans to vote out an incumbent president. Thus, the study reveals the tremendous persuasive impact of “objective” materials like news coverage on electoral politics.     

试论泰国的政治稳定问题

2006年9月19日，继1991年军事政变15年之后泰国再次发生了军事政变，一时间，泰国的政治稳定成为了人们关注的问题。但是，从政治稳定的四个层次即国家政权体系的稳定、权力结构的稳定、政治过程的稳定和社会政治心理的稳定来分析，不难发现泰国政治上的这次变动仅仅只是政局动荡，泰国的政治总体上说仍然是稳定的。     

从苏/俄政治转型看现代政党政治的发展趋势

俄/苏在特定的历史条件下建立了多党联合政权,又在特定的历史条件下走向了一党统制。但这条路终究没有走通。苏共随着前苏联的解体而走到其历史的尽头,俄共则随着俄罗斯多党制的确立而浴火重生———虽然处境艰难,却也不失为俄罗斯政坛的一支重要力量。苏/俄政党政治的演变说明,只有基于合法竞争的适应政治民主潮流的政党政治,才有生命力;政治权力的垄断不仅会侵犯作为权力所有者的人民的根本利益,而且对权力的垄断者也是绞索。