A detailed study of presidential election news coverage and its effect on voters focuses on the news audience and the images of candidates.

Gender and Elections offers a systematic, lively, multi-faceted account of the role of gender in the electoral process through the 2004 elections. This timely, yet enduring, volume strikes a balance between highlighting the most important developments for women as voters and candidates in the 2004 elections and providing a more long-term, in-depth analysis of the ways that gender has helped shape the contours and outcomes of electoral politics in the United States. Individual chapters demonstrate the importance of gender in understanding and interpreting presidential elections, voter participation and turnout, voting choices, congressional elections, the participation of African American women, the support of political parties and women's organizations, candidate communications with voters, and state elections. Without question, this book is the most comprehensive, reliable, and trustworthy resource on the role of gender in electoral politics.

This comprehensive, trusted core text on media's impact on attitudes, behavior, elections, politics, and policymaking is known for its readable introduction to the literature and theory of the field. Mass Media and American Politics, Tenth Edition is thoroughly updated to reflect major structural changes that have shaken the world of political news, including the impact of the changing media landscape. It includes timely examples of the significance of these changes pulled from the 2016 election cycle. Written by Doris A. Graber—a scholar who has played an enormous role in establishing and shaping the field of mass media and American politics—and Johanna Dunaway, this book sets the standard.

Fresh from the first 10 billion election campaign, two award-winning authors show how unbridled campaign spending defines our politics and, failing a dramatic intervention, signals the end of our democracy. Blending vivid reporting from the 2012 campaign trail and deep perspective from decades covering American and international media and politics, political journalist John Nichols and media critic Robert W. McChesney explain how US elections are becoming controlled, predictable enterprises that are managed by a new class of consultants who wield millions of dollars and define our politics as never before. As the money gets bigger -- especially after the Citizens United ruling -- and journalism, a core check and balance on the government, declines, American citizens are in danger of becoming less informed and more open to manipulation. With groundbreaking behind-the-scenes reporting and staggering new research on "the money power," Dollarocracy shows that this new power does not just endanger electoral politics; it is a challenge to the DNA of American democracy itself.

Praised for its strong research base, engaging writing style and inclusion of popular culture, the Second Edition comprehensively examines media and American politics with new discussion on the Internet, Election 2000, and important trends in the field. Includes examples and discussions of Election 2000. Extensive Internet discussions have been added to 13 of the 15 chapters. A comprehensive analysis of the media's effects on public policy is included. Thoroughly discusses neglected topics such as the police, pornography, terrorism and violence. For those interested in media and politics.

New Media and American Politics is the first book to examine the effect on modern politics of the new media, which include talk radio, tabloid journalism, television talk shows, entertainment media, and computer networks. Davis and Owen discuss the new media's cultural environment, audience, and content, before going on to evaluate its impact on everything from elections to policy making to the old media itself.

A comprehensive, trusted core text on media’s impact on attitudes, behavior, elections, politics, and policymaking, Mass Media and American Politics is known for its readable introduction to the literature and theory of the field, and for staying current with each new edition on issues of new and social media, media ownership, the regulatory environment, infotainment, and war-time reporting. Written by the late Doris Graber--a scholar who has played an enormous role in establishing and shaping the field of mass media and American politics--and now lead by Johanna Dunaway, this book has set the standard for the course. New to this edition: Extensive coverage of political misinformation - the role changing communication technologies and mass media more generally are playing in its consumption and dissemination, as well as how the press is handling and should handle reporting on political misinformation, especially as it pertains to the presidency, elections, and crises like Covid-19. Updated coverage of the role social media and other popular digital platforms are playing (or not playing) in the effort to stop the spread of mis- and dis-information on their platforms, with special attention to both foreign and domestic efforts to use these platforms to incite violence, cause confusion about, and/or encourage distrust in, democratic institutions. Expanded treatment of rising affective, social, and ideological polarization in politics, with a special focus on whether and how mass media are contributing to these forms of polarization. New updates on causes and consequences of expanding news deserts, declining local news, and rampant growth of hedge-fund media ownership. Up to date coverage of what researchers are learning about the implications of growth in digital, social and mobile media use. What does it mean for attention to news and politics?

In this political communication text, Richard M. Perloff examines the various ways in which messages are constructed and communicated from public officials and politicians through the mass media to the ultimate receivers-the people. With a focus on the history of political communication, he provides an overview of the most significant issues in the study of politics and the media. In addition to synthesizing facts and theories, and highlighting the scholarly contributions made to the understanding of political communication effects, Political Communication addresses such factors as the rhetorical accomplishments of American presidents, the ongoing tangles between the press and the presidency, and the historical roots of politics as it is practiced and studied today. It also addresses major issues about the press and politics that continually resurface, such as question of press bias and the use and manipulation of media by politicians to accomplish national goals. As a comprehensive and engaging introduction to contemporary political communication, this volume provides all readers with a historical perspective on American politics and press and offers a unique appreciation of the strengths and virtues of political communication in America.

Graber discusses the media and its place in the public and private sectors, the media's influence on individual attitudes and perceptions, and the media's coverage of government institutions and political situations.

In the early 1980s, Allan Lichtman, a history professor at American University in Washington, D.C., developed a system for predicting the outcomes of presidential elections. Studying all elections back to the Civil War (the birth of the current two-party system), he isolated circumstances that are typically associated with victory for the incumbent party. Applying them forward, he has had an unmatched record of predictive success. In the elections of 2004, 2008 and 2012, among others, he called the outcomes correctly before the election year even began. His successes have been widely noted. Hes now, for example, the Election forecasting guru (RealClearPolitics), no ordinary soothsayer, (Agence France Press), and the presidential champion in the realm of predictions (MarylandReporter.com). A Washington Post writer even said Lichtmans system is fool proof, a claim pondered in Chapter 16. Martin Gottlieb, as an editorial writer and political columnist for the Dayton Daily News in Ohio, was floored and fascinated by Lichtmans unparalled successes in the 1986 senatorial elections. Gottlieb began what became career-long coverage of the record of the Lichtman keys. That resulted in a 2006 book with this title. This version is an update, with new chapters on the three subsequent presidential elections. What emerges from Campaigns Dont Count is not merely a way to win at the game of political predictions, but a new understanding of how American politics works, of what drives presidential election outcomes. Hint: It is not campaigns, media manipulation, money, political organization, ideology or any of the other forces that the mediaand the experts who advise themfocus on.