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Around the world, there are increasing concerns about the accuracy of media coverage. It is vital in representative democracies that citizens have access to reliable information about what is happening in government policy, so that they can form meaningful preferences and hold politicians accountable. Yet much research and conventional wisdom questions whether the necessary information is available, consumed, and understood. This study is the first large-scale empirical investigation into the frequency and reliability of media coverage in five policy domains, and it provides tools that can be exported to other areas, in the US and elsewhere. Examining decades of government spending, media coverage, and public opinion in the US, this book assesses the accuracy of media coverage, and measures its direct impact on citizens' preferences for policy. This innovative study has far-reaching implications for those studying and teaching politics as well as for reporters and citizens.
List of contents
1. Media in Representative Democracy; 2. Public Responsiveness to Media; 3. Measuring the 'Media Signal'; 4. Alternative Measures of the Media Policy Signal; 5. The Accuracy of Media Coverage; 6. Policy, the Media, and the Public; 7. Diagnosing and Exploring Dynamics; 8: Policy and the Media: Past, Present and Future.
About the author
Stuart N. Soroka is Professor of Communication at the University of California, Los Angeles, and Adjunct Research Professor in the Center for Political Studies at the University of Michigan.Christopher Wlezien is Hogg Professor of Government, Department of Government, University of Texas at Austin.
Summary
Using new tools to analyze media coverage and its effects, this book addresses issues of central importance to representative democracy in the US and world-wide: the communication of accurate information about what government does with policy, and public responsiveness to this information.
Foreword
A large-scale empirical investigation into the frequency and accuracy of media coverage of public policy.
Additional text
'In the current political climate characterized by a multi-channel and multi-platform information environment, media distrust, and concerns about polarization and rampant misinformation, few objectives seem more important than those set forth in this book. Soroka and Wlezien navigate decades of theories on media functions, behavior, and effects - which they complement with evidence from analyses of a massive amount of data - to help us understand the conditions under which democratic citizens are provided with accurate (or inaccurate) information and with what effects. Readers will come away with a better informed, evidence-based assessment of how well media perform as democratic watchdog and the extent to which citizens attend media accounts of government action and respond to changes in public policy.' Johanna Dunaway, Associate Professor of Political Science, Texas A&M University
