Michael W. Wagner

Battleground models Wisconsin's contentious political communication ecology: the way that politics, social life, and communication intersect and create conditions of polarization and democratic decline. Drawing from 10 years of interviews, news and social media content, and state-wide surveys, we combine qualitative and computational analysis with time-series and multi-level modeling to study this hybrid communication system – an approach that yields unique insights about nationalization, social structure, conventional discourses, and the lifeworld. We explore these concepts through case studies of immigration, healthcare, and economic development, concluding that despite nationalization, distinct state-level effects vary by issue as partisan actors exert their discursive power.

Mediated Democracy: Politics, the News, and Citizenship in the 21st Century takes a contemporary, communications-oriented perspective on the central questions pertaining to the health of democracies and relationships between citizens, journalists, and political elites. The approach marries clear syntheses of cutting-edge research with practical advice explaining why the insights of scholarship affects students’ lives. With active, engaging writing, the text will thoroughly explain why things are the way they are, how they got that way, and how students can use the insights of political communication research to do something about it as citizens.

This book offers a thorough analysis of recent American election data to document trends in American political behavior.

The overwhelming negativity with which the American public views the news media is largely misplaced. Indeed, negative, emotional, and even biased political news coverage has some benefits for the American people—influencing their ability to perceive a clear choice between the two major parties, increasing their willingness to participate in politics, focusing their attention on important issues, improving their political knowledge, and building their own feelings of political efficacy. On the other hand, the news media negatively contribute to trust in government and political compromise, both vital elements in a flourishing democracy. This book is organized to synthesize major findings in political communication research and present original evidence for the book’s thesis by examining journalists’ own attitudes about news coverage and by conducting detailed analyses that merge content analyses of political news coverage with public opinion data. Shedding much needed light on a complicated issue, this text will be an essential tool for helping students of the media develop a critical eye toward widely held views.

The 2020 elections took place under intense political polarization, uncertain economic conditions, a global pandemic, and social unrest. Political Behavior of the American Electorate, Fifteenth Edition, attempts to answer your questions around the above topics by interpreting data from the most recent American National Election Study to provide a thorough analysis of the 2020 elections and the current American political behavior. Authors Elizabeth Theiss-Morse and Michael Wagner continue the tradition of Flanigan and Zingale to illustrate and document trends in American political behavior with the best longitudinal data available. The authors also put these trends in context by focusing on the major concepts and characteristics that shape Americans’ responses to politics. In the completely revised Fifteenth Edition, readers will explore support and opposition to the Black Lives Matter movement, discuss post-election attitudes about the January 6th attempted coup, examine misinformation and the beliefs in QAnon, and dissect reports on public assessments of President Trump's handling of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Political Behavior of the American Electorate, Fourteenth Edition, attempts to answer this question by interpreting data from the most recent American National Election Study to provide a thorough analysis of the 2016 elections and the current American political behavior.