This book provides the first attempt to synthesise what is a pervasive phenomenon, and one that is mentioned tangentially in many political analyses, but nowhere receives the systematic and theoretical treatment that its significance to the working of ''democratic'' political practice deserves. It will thus be a volume that should interest a range of scholars in government and political theory, in comparative politics and communications.

This book provides the first attempt to synthesise what is a pervasive phenomenon, and one that is mentioned tangentially in many political analyses, but nowhere receives the systematic and theoretical treatment that its significance to the working of ''democratic'' political practice deserves. It will thus be a volume that should interest a range of scholars in government and political theory, in comparative politics and communications.