This second edition explores the relationship between politics and media, with a particular emphasis on the significant disruptive changes to media and technology that have faced journalists, campaigners, and the public in recent years. The first edition, in 2014, described the earliest elements of social and online media: Web 2.0, the ‘information economy,’ and the changes from traditional broadcast media to the early online world. With the rise of TikTok, the ‘fake news’ claims of Donald Trump, the decline of local news, and the anti-democratic impulses that drove the January 6, 2021 coup attempts, the last decade has provided a rich and sometimes confounding set of disruptions to political communication that deserve attention. Technology has disrupted political communication in the online environment exceptionally quickly over the last decade, and this book provides a framework for understanding the intersections of these disruptions and their effect on an already-fragile democratic circumstance in the United States.
Author(s): Chapman Rackaway
Edition: 2
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
Year: 2023
Language: English
Pages: 128
City: Cham
Preface
Acknowledgements
Contents
List of Figures
1 The Disrupting of Mobile Communication
The Paul Pelosi Attack
Technology Is Disruptive
Four Disruptive Themes
Conclusion
References
Part I Mobile Digital Technology Disrupts the News Media Industry
2 Disrupting Journalism
Technological Advances in Journalism
Paywalls
Video Content
The New World of Journalism
References
3 Information Literacy in a Mobile World
“Democracy Dies in Darkness”
Critical Thinking About the News
Social Media’s Contribution
The Cambridge Analytica Scandal
Conclusion
References
Part II Digital Mobile Media Disrupts Consumption of News
4 “Fake News” in a Mobile World
The Fake News Agenda
Ideological Media Emerges
Trump and the Media
“Fake News” as a Strategy
Conclusion
References
5 News Deserts
Is Local News Dying?
The Effects of News Desertification
The Role of Digital Media
Conclusion
References
Part III Digital Mobile Technology Disruption of Electioneering
6 A New World of Campaigning
Campaigning Is a Growth Industry
The First Social Campaign
Shifting Campaign Strategy
Campaigning In A Social World
Donald Trump Changes the Game
Conclusion
References
7 Polarizing Media, Polarizing Politics
The Consequences of Strategic Base Mobilization
Harsher Campaign Rhetoric
Governmental Polarization
Conclusion
References
Part IV Digital Mobile Media Disrupting Democracy
8 Negative Partisanship
Rewiring the Human Brain
The Tribal Mentality of the Digital Mobile World
Negative Partisanship
Conclusion
References
9 The Media and the American Voter
The Homogeneity Impetus
Identity Politics in the Digital Mobile Environment
Declining Trust
Conclusions
The Question of Inevitability
References
Index
