Spiral of Cynicism: The Press and the Public Good Book

Why are citizens so cynical about politics and government? Why is the audience for news and public affairs down? Why is it that the vast majority of political issues that affect our day-to-day lives fails to generate either public interest or understanding? These questions have troubled political scientists for decades. Many have long suspected that the media play an important role in the growth of public cynicism. In Spiral of Cynicism, communication scholars Kathleen Hall Jamieson and Joseph N. Cappella provide the first conclusive evidence voter cynicism is indeed fueled by the manner in whichy the print and broadcast media cover political events and issues.

The media's heavy focus on the game of politics, rather than on its substance, starts the spiral of cynicism that erodes citizen interest. By observing voters who watched and read different sets of reports--some saturated in strategy talk, others focused on the real issues--the authors show clear links between the way in which the media cover levels of campaign and voter cynicism. By closely monitoring media coverage among sample audiences for both a recent mayoral race in Philadelphia and the national health care reform debate, the authors address questions about the effects if issue-based and horse-race driven political coverage.

A pathbreaking study, Spiral of Cynicism will demand that the media take a close look at how it covers political events and issues, as well as its degree of culpability in current vote dissatisfaction and cynicism. In providing a possible cure to the current spiral of cynicism, Jamieson and Cappella set the terms of the debate about how politics ought to be covered in the future.