Untitled Quiz

Political Communication

• The text examines fundamental questions about media influence on public opinion and political outcomes.
• Key areas include the size of media effects, their duration, the relative power of different communication types, and the limits of media influence.

Size of Media Effects

• Strong evidence that media effects are substantial enough to influence national elections.
• Three field studies support this:
  • Washington Post study showing liberal-leaning newspapers increasing Democratic voting by approximately 11 percentage points.
  • British study demonstrating that newspaper endorsements can shift voting by 11-20 percentage points.
  • Fox News study revealing Fox News availability's contribution to a 0.55 percentage point gain for George W. Bush's 2000 election.

Duration of Effects

• Media effects tend to decay rapidly, often disappearing within weeks. This rapid decay doesn't negate impact; timing is crucial.
• Communication near decision points (e.g., election day) can be influential even if brief.

Types of Communication and Their Relative Power

• Three main types of political communication:
  • Raw news ingredients (e.g., economic performance, war casualties, terrorist attacks).
  • Party-sponsored communication (messages from political parties/leaders).
  • Journalist-mediated communication (news reporting/framing).
• Raw news ingredients often have the strongest effects, but party-sponsored and journalistic slants can significantly sway political outcomes.
• Party-sponsored communication is particularly potent when competing with journalist-mediated content.

Boundaries of Media Influence

• Media influence is limited, especially when encountering strong personal beliefs.
• People with strong existing views are less likely to change party allegiances than beliefs.
• Individuals with weaker views may adjust opinions to match their party's stances.

Economic Impact Context

• Fox News provides Democrats with a small regular advantage.
• Republican advertising generally adds about 2 percentage points to their vote share.
• Economic performance can swing presidential votes by about 4 percent between elections.

Political Communication Research: New Media, New Challenges, and New Opportunities

• Political communication is powerful, but with nuances: Effects decay quickly; some communication types are more influential; strong personal beliefs resist media sway.
• Impacts usually derive from raw news events or sustained partisan communication, particularly when timed strategically near decision points.

The Core Challenge

• Political communication research faces an intellectual impasse.
• The field's research methods and theoretical frameworks haven't kept pace with the dramatic shifts in political communication in the digital age.

Historical Development and Current State

• Political communication research evolved into a focused discipline, drawing from social psychology, political science, and mass communication research.
• This combination influenced studies of individual attitudes/opinions, elections/governmental processes, and concepts like agenda-setting.

The Digital Age Challenge

• Modern political communication presents challenges to traditional study approaches.
• The article highlights the difficulties inherent in understanding phenomena like:
  • social media usage in political contexts
  • digital intermediaries (search engines)
  • Audience fragmentation and overload
  • specialized database use by political organizations,
  • and participatory forms of political communication.

Learning from Adjacent Fields

• Political communication research can benefit from examining how related fields (like audience research and journalism studies) adapt to studying the new challenges.
• Examples include maintaining a balance between methods; embracing diverse perspectives on media use, acknowledging cross-media consumption; adapting to new forms of communication.

Journalism Studies

• Methodological diversity in journalism studies can offer insights into modern communication.
• Combining traditional quantitative methods with qualitative approaches

Anti Colonial Rhetoric and Post Colonial Statecraft in Ghana

• Analysis of Kwame Nkrumah's Midnight Speech at Ghana's independence (1957).
• This speech highlights a unique act of rhetorical invention, crucial to understanding postcolonial statecraft and the broader decolonization process in Africa.
• Key elements include the crowd, Nkrumah himself, and the Old Polo Grounds location.

History, Development and Current Status

• The field of political communication has evolved significantly, adapting to changes in technologies and methodologies.

Why People Know So Little About Politics

• Five explanations of the knowledge deficit among Americans, particularly compared to European counterparts:
  • Lack of incentive.
  • News presentation style.
  • Media choices proliferation.
  • Leaders' deliberate dissembling
  • Disconnect between politics and everyday life.

The Oxford Handbook of Political Communication--Chapter 4

• The article chronicles the changes in the media environment over the last 50 years.
• Transitions from TV dominance to the proliferation of cable TV and internet.
• More fragmented audience with increased access to media.

The Oxford Handbook of Political Communication-Chapter 13

• Discusses the state of research on niche communication.
• The field faces challenges keeping pace with rapidly evolving technologies and their implications for politics.
• The fragmentation of the information environment creates a challenge to comprehensive scholarship.
• Future research should investigate the contextual characteristics of communication beyond just the mode or technology used.

The Oxford Handbook of Political Communication-Chapter 26

• Explores the president's crucial role as a news source and the interaction between the president's agenda and the media agenda.
• The president's agenda potentially influences or responds to the media's narrative.
• Political campaigns strongly influence media agendas, particularly in election-driven societies.
• Campaigns often attempt to control the media agenda.

The Oxford Handbook of Political Communication-Chapter 34

• Examines the complexities of political communication.
• The article explores the dynamics of influence between public discourse and media.
• Future research needs to shed light on the factors that influence the rise and fall of different narratives and perspectives.
• It highlights the importance of looking at long-term trends in social influences as well as individual-level factors influencing public opinion.

20th-Century Campaigns

• Theodore Roosevelt's focus on transparency.
• Franklin D. Roosevelt's use of radio.
• John F. Kennedy's emphasis on image.
• Richard Nixon's cynicism about truth.
• These figures highlight evolving communication strategies.

Television and Presidential Campaigns

• Shows how television impacted campaign strategies.
• The rise of image-making as a crucial aspect of political communication.

Presidential Campaigns in the Digital Marketplace

• Exploration of digital media's transformation of presidential campaigns.
• Highlight of social media's importance in shaping public opinion.

How Corporate Lobbyists Conquered American Democracy

• Large corporations employ numerous lobbyists, often outspending other groups like labor unions.
• Corporations now have more resources to engage in simultaneous offense and defense strategies on major policy issues.

Each Fairy Tale, Each Myth—The Collapse of Vertical Media into a Welter of Disequilibrating Horizontal Media

• Examination of the shift from traditional media dominance to a fragmented horizontal media landscape marked by niche audiences.
• Explores the concept of disequilibration as a critical element in this shift.
• The author emphasizes the erosion of democratic norms arising from this shift.

Foreign Policy (Article)

• Examines the Ukrainian president's visit to Romania that was marred by controversy.
• Discusses Romania's role in providing assistance to Ukraine.
• Highlighting the sensitivity of the issue domestically and internationally for Romania.

Energy Security / Russian Influence

• How Romania's gas infrastructure and natural gas development affect Russia's influence.
• How Russia uses networks and business partnerships.
• Romania's history of dealing with corruption and Russian influences.
• The importance of gas development and the impact on European security.