Daniel S. Lane – författare

Inequality is an essential concept for understanding the impact of digital media on political life. This Element offers an empirical portrait of digital political inequality globally. We find that gaps in online political information reception and engagement are prevalent worldwide and growing over time. These inequalities are related to the resources held by individuals, the experiences of groups, and the economic, democratic, and technological development of societies. Moreover, we find that digital political media use is associated with greater participation in electoral politics and belief in democracy, while at the same time lower political trust and satisfaction with political systems. Based on these findings, we offer an agenda for studying digital political inequality across societal, technological, institutional, and individual levels. Ultimately, digital media not only create walls that separate the political haves and have-nots, but also windows and doors to greater political voice and influence for the less powerful.

Inequality is an essential concept for understanding the impact of digital media on political life. This Element offers an empirical portrait of digital political inequality globally. We find that gaps in online political information reception and engagement are prevalent worldwide and growing over time. These inequalities are related to the resources held by individuals, the experiences of groups, and the economic, democratic, and technological development of societies. Moreover, we find that digital political media use is associated with greater participation in electoral politics and belief in democracy, while at the same time lower political trust and satisfaction with political systems. Based on these findings, we offer an agenda for studying digital political inequality across societal, technological, institutional, and individual levels. Ultimately, digital media not only create walls that separate the political haves and have-nots, but also windows and doors to greater political voice and influence for the less powerful.

Race and ethnicity are increasingly central to our lived experiences of politics, yet they are often absent from studies of urgent questions in contemporary political communication. This volume responds to this crucial issue in the field, illuminating a multitude of ways that identity and power shape the interpersonal, mediated, and technological dimensions of politics. The book empirically illustrates the lack of race-focused scholarship in this area, while demonstrating how studying race/ethnicity as endogenous to politics sheds new light on the “big questions” facing multiracial, multiethnic societies.Contributions address both heavily studied topics (e.g., misinformation, political trust) as well as topics that emerge through a centering of race/ethnicity (e.g., Hispandering, politically relevant entertainment media). They do so through diverse methodologies (e.g., ethnography, computational text analysis) and communities (e.g., Black & Hispanic Americans, the Vietnamese diaspora). Collectively, this scholarship aims to catalyze challenging conversations about how race and ethnicity can and should be integrated into the core of global political communication scholarship.A groundbreaking contribution to the field of political communication, Race and Ethnicity as Foundational Forces in Political Communication will be a key resource academics, researchers and advanced students of communication studies, politics, media studies and sociology. This book was originally published as a special issue of Political Communication.