Cycles of Spin

Strategic Communication in the U.S. Congress

AvPatrick Sellers

Inbunden, Engelska, 2009

Del i serien Communication, Society and Politics

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Beskrivning

How do politicians try to shape their news coverage? Sellers examines strategic communication campaigns in the U.S. Congress. He argues that these campaigns create cycles of spin: leaders create messages, rank-and-file legislators decide whether to promote those messages, journalists decide whether to cover the messages, and any coverage feeds back to influence the policy process. These four stages are closely related; decisions at one stage influence those at another. Sellers uses diverse evidence, from participant observation and press secretary interviews, to computerized content analysis and vector auto regression. The result is a comprehensive and unprecedented examination of politicians' promotional campaigns and journalists' coverage of those campaigns. Countering numerous critics of spin, Sellers offers the provocative argument that the promotional messages have their origins in the actual policy preferences of members of Congress. The campaigns to promote these messages thus can help the public learn about policy debates in Congress.

Produktinformation

Utgivningsdatum:2009-10-26
Mått:156 x 236 x 20 mm
Vikt:486 g
Format:Inbunden
Språk:Engelska
Serie:Communication, Society and Politics
Antal sidor:270
Förlag:Cambridge University Press
ISBN:9780521755993

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Patrick Sellers is currently a Professor of Political Science at Davidson College. He has also taught at Rice University and Indiana University and worked in the U.S. House and Senate in Washington, DC. He is coauthor (with Brian Schaffner) of the forthcoming book Winning with Words: The Origins and Impact of Framing. His research has appeared in the American Political Science Review, American Journal of Political Science, Journal of Politics, Legislative Studies Quarterly, Political Communication, and other leading journals.

Recensioner i media

'Cycles of Spin is the most theoretically nuanced and empirically rich study of Congressional communication strategies I have ever encountered. Sellers' ability to trace how message strategies are developed and rolled out by Congressional leaders, and then to follow the impact of those strategies on news coverage and the subsequent debate in Congress, opens the inner circles of spin for all to see. The unprecedented scope and variety of data gathered for this study are matched with an original theoretical framework that considers both the collective action problems faced by party leaders and the news norms that shape media reporting of policy debates. Sellers' book is essential reading for understanding how Congress works in the age of the continuous news cycle. I will be assigning it to undergraduate and graduate students alike.' Scott Althaus, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign