New Media and American Politics Book

We are all familiar with the political side of the new media: presidential candidates appear in "electronic town meetings"; talk show hosts like Rush Limbaugh and G. Gordon Liddy lead dedicated bands of followers; Bill Clinton plays his saxophone on "Arsenio"; tabloids break the Dick Morris story. Traditional sources of information on American politics are increasingly being displaced. New Media and American Politics is the first survey by political scientists of this recent and still-emerging phenomenon.

The book is broadly cast to cover talk radio and television, tabloid journalism both in print and on television, entertainment media, and computer networks. How do the new media differ from the traditional media? How much can the new media alter the content of American politics, how issues are raised, discussed, and resolved? Who and how large is the audience? The authors address each of these questions, but more importantly they provide a framework for further examination of the new media's overall impact on politics. The first of its kind, this book will appeal to political scientists, journalists, scholars and students of Communications, and general readers interested in how new technologies are changing our political system.