David Nicolas Hopmann - Böcker

Drawing on primary empirical research, this book considers the democratic outcomes of political news avoidance, selective news exposure, and misinformation.Political information environments across democracies are in flux, fundamentally changing the way citizens gain political information and leading to widespread concerns about consequences for democracy. From selective media use leading to increased attitudinal polarisation, to declining trust in legacy media and journalists compounding political disengagement, the need for a detailed, comparative account of what these changes in the supply of, and demand for, political information mean for democracies is evident. This book focuses on three developments that are seen as particularly concerning for democracies: news avoidance, selective news exposure, and misinformation. Using in-depth interviews, webtracking,panel surveys, and experiments, it investigates the extent of these threats, their causes, consequences, and remedies. Further, it shines a critical empirical light, for the first time, on these developments across four different types of democracies found in countries around Europe as well as Israel and the US. The results of the study are nuanced and context specific, with the authors finding generally that the prevalence of these three developments may be less than previously anticipated.This is a critical study for researchers and advanced students of journalism and political communication and bears global implications.

Comparing Political Journalism is a systematic, in-depth study of the factors that shape and influence political news coverage today.Using techniques drawn from the growing field of comparative political communication, an international group of contributors analyse political news content drawn from newspapers, television news, and news websites from 16 countries, to assess what kinds of media systems are most conducive to producing quality journalism.Underpinned by key conceptual themes, such as the role that the media are expected to play in democracies and quality of coverage, this analysis highlights the fragile balance of news performance in relation to economic forces.A multitude of causal factors are explored to explain key features of contemporary political news coverage, such as Strategy and Game Framing, Negativity, Political Balance, Personalization, Hard and Soft NewsComparing Political Journalism offers an unparalleled scope in assessing the implications for the ongoing transformation of Western media systems, and addresses core concepts of central importance to students and scholars of political communication world-wide.