Doris A. Graber

Whether it's the Internal Revenue Service or the local police department, every person's life is affected by how public organizations handle information. New technologies are inundating us with data-agencies collect, store, analyze and disseminate information. How organizations manage this information is crucial to their effectiveness, efficiency, and accountability.It is becoming more difficult for public organizations to formulate clear messages. Political pressure from elected officials and public scrutiny make the task of managing communication even more daunting. By helping students see how communication networks must be treated within larger psychological, cultural, and mechanical contexts, Graber presents ways to construct effective channels so information is transmitted to the appropriate audiences, linking policy decisions and feedback from citizens. Blending the best of theory and practice, The Power of Communication helps both students and practitioners turn a flood tide of information into an asset, rather than a menace, to good government.

Whether it′s the Internal Revenue Service or the local police department, every person′s life is affected by how public organizations handle information. New technologies are inundating us with data-agencies collect, store, analyze and disseminate information. How organizations manage this information is crucial to their effectiveness, efficiency, and accountability.It is becoming more difficult for public organizations to formulate clear messages. Political pressure from elected officials and public scrutiny make the task of managing communication even more daunting. By helping students see how communication networks must be treated within larger psychological, cultural, and mechanical contexts, Graber presents ways to construct effective channels so information is transmitted to the appropriate audiences, linking policy decisions and feedback from citizens. Blending the best of theory and practice, The Power of Communication helps both students and practitioners turn a flood tide of information into an asset, rather than a menace, to good government.

A comprehensive, trusted core text on media’s impact on attitudes, behavior, elections, politics, and policymaking, Mass Media and American Politics is known for its readable introduction to the literature and theory of the field, and for staying current with each new edition on issues of new and social media, media ownership, the regulatory environment, infotainment, and war-time reporting. Written by the late Doris Graber--a scholar who has played an enormous role in establishing and shaping the field of mass media and American politics--and now lead by Johanna Dunaway, this book has set the standard for the course. New to this edition: Extensive coverage of political misinformation - the role changing communication technologies and mass media more generally are playing in its consumption and dissemination, as well as how the press is handling and should handle reporting on political misinformation, especially as it pertains to the presidency, elections, and crises like Covid-19.Updated coverage of the role social media and other popular digital platforms are playing (or not playing) in the effort to stop the spread of mis- and dis-information on their platforms, with special attention to both foreign and domestic efforts to use these platforms to incite violence, cause confusion about, and/or encourage distrust in, democratic institutions.Expanded treatment of rising affective, social, and ideological polarization in politics, with a special focus on whether and how mass media are contributing to these forms of polarization.New updates on causes and consequences of expanding news deserts, declining local news, and rampant growth of hedge-fund media ownership.Up to date coverage of what researchers are learning about the implications of growth in digital, social and mobile media use. What does it mean for attention to news and politics?

Even as more and more communications avenues open up, are Americans losing their political IQ? Some democratic theorists bemoan citizen apathy, ignorance, and incapacity to make sound political judgments. Renowned media scholar Doris Graber contends that such assessments are based on impractical and outmoded models of measuring citizen awareness and engagement. Using what she calls "reality-based " research methods and a sensitivity to contemporary trends, Graber finds that average people understand many political issues and can think about them in complex ways. She reports her new research on learning from entertainment offerings, emphasizing its novel aspects, including experiments, interviews, message board analyses, and stimulus dramas. The book includes companion studies carried out in the Netherlands and Greece designed to test whether the American findings are culture-specific or hold true across cultural settings. A capstone reflection by a communications authority, On Media offers new approaches to timeworn topics and projects an emerging image of public political knowledge that is at once encouraging, inspirational, and fascinating in its contour and detail.

How often do we hear that Americans are so ignorant about politics that their civic competence is impaired, and that the media are to blame because thay do a dismal job of informing the public? Integrating a broad range of research on how people learn, this text shows that televised presentations - at their best - actually excel at transmitting information and facilitating learning. The author critiques political offerings in terms of their compatibility with our learning capabilities and interests, and she considers the obstacles, both economic and political, that affect the content we receive on the air, on cable, or on the Internet.

How often do we hear that Americans are so ignorant about politics that their civic competence is impaired, and that the media are to blame because thay do a dismal job of informing the public? Integrating a broad range of research on how people learn, this text shows that televised presentations - at their best - actually excel at transmitting information and facilitating learning. The author critiques political offerings in terms of their compatibility with our learning capabilities and interests, and she considers the obstacles, both economic and political, that affect the content we receive on the air, on cable, or on the Internet.