In-your-face Politics (ebook)

Argumento de In-your-face Politics (ebook)

One of Choice's Outstanding Academic Titles for 2015

"Mutz offers an engagingly readable, data-rich work on mediated politics of a particular kind. . . . In-Your-Face Politics is strongly recommended for college and university libraries."--Choice

"With ample humor and sufficient exposition for a lay audience, she conducts and analyzes a series of experiments carefully crafted to study how extreme close-ups and uncivil behavior in political TV affect the public discourse. . . . An approachable yet scientifically rigorous look at what passes for political discourse in America."--Kirkus

"More Americans get their news from audiovisual channels than ever before, and In-Your-Face Politics shows why the practice of democracy is suffering as a result. Mutz impressively reveals how visual news formats tend to polarize partisans and diminish trust in government. So long as engaging citizen attention remains a central challenge of democratic governance, her book offers a warning and a way forward that anyone concerned about the future of news would do well to heed."--Scott L. Althaus, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign

"In this compelling, entertaining, and evidence-driven work, one of the world's foremost specialists on political communication explores the fact that people mistakenly but understandably apply traditional, in-person norms of social interaction to televised political content. By elucidating the consequences of this mismatch, Mutz fundamentally alters our basic understanding of the political arena."--John R. Hibbing, coauthor of Predisposed: Liberals, Conservatives, and the Biology of Political Differences

"In-Your-Face Politics is political science at its best. Mutz combines wit and humor, historical perspective, and rigorous science to show that incivility on televised political programs increases people's interest in and knowledge about politics, although at the cost of weakening their trust in government. 'Ultimately,' Mutz concludes, 'we are left with the dilemma of how to create political programming that is both interesting and informative to watch, yet not likely to damage public attitudes in a significant way.' This book should be required reading for legislators, members of the media, and citizens who value informed public engagement."--James H. Kuklinski, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign

"This book is a model of exemplary social science: it investigates a politically salient issue, exploits an arsenal of methodological issues, and is written in a lucid and lively style. An entertaining and instructive study of politics and media, and the effects of mass communications and close-up camera perspectives, it will interest political scientists and all those concerned with public affairs."--Paul Sniderman, Stanford University

"With the rise of increasingly aggressive presentations in media outlets--talk radio, TV, and the web--In-Your-Face Politics is a timely work. Employing a rich array of data using multiple methods, this book is first rate, well done, and likely to be influential."--George E. Marcus, Williams College

"[Mutz’s] lively and lucid book sheds light on the relationship between political programming and public engagement."--- Glenn Altschuler, Huffington Post

"This book is likely to join Mutz’s previous work as an indispensable contribution to the political communication and psychology literatures. . . . It is probably a rare thing to call an academic text entertaining, but Mutz has been among my favorite scholars to read, and this book was no exception. Balancing thoroughness with accessibility, the writing will satisfy serious academics while appealing to a more general audience. The book should serve as a model for anyone who wants to do good political science and write about it in a clear and personable manner."--Bryan T. Gervais, Public Opinion Quarterly0List of Illustrations ix
List of Tables xiii
Acknowledgments xv
Chapter 1 What Is ?In-Your-Face? Politics? 1
Part I What Difference Does It Make? The Effects of In-Your-Face Political Television 17
Chapter 2 The Consequences of In-Your-Face Politics for Arousal and Memory 19
Chapter 3 Effects on Public Perceptions of the Legitimacy of the Opposition 46
Chapter 4 The Costs of In-Your-Face Politics for Political Trust 73
Part II When Does In-Your-Face Politics Matter? 93
Chapter 5 Real-World Contexts 95
Chapter 6 Who Watches This Stuff Anyway? The Audience for In-Your-Face Politics 116
Part III Historical Implications for Political Television 151
Chapter 7 Does the Medium Matter? 153
Chapter 8 How Politics on Television Has Changed 178
Chapter 9 Making Politics Palatable: Political Television in an Era of Choice 193
Appendix A Summary of Experimental Designs 223
Appendix B Summary of Experimental Dependent Variables 225
Appendix C National Survey Questions for Orientation toward Conflict Communication Scales 230
Appendix D Coding Form for Political Television Programs 231
Appendix E Coding Instructions for Televised Conflicts 233
Notes 239
References 247
Index 257