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Political Communication, 21:393411, 2004Copyright Taylor & Francis Inc.ISSN: 1058-4609 print / 1091-7675 onlineDOI: 10.1080/10584600490481910

Book Reviews

What Do We Know About Politics andCommunication and How Do We Know It?

Campaigning Online: The Internet in U.S. Elections, by Bruce Bimber and RichardDavis. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003. 224 pp. $65.00 cloth, $27.95 paper.

The Millennium Election: Communication in the 2000 Campaign, edited by LyndaLee Kaid, John C. Tedesco, Dianne G. Bystrom, and Mitchell S. McKinney.

Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2003. 267 pp. $80.00 cloth, $29.95 paper.

The Nightly News Nightmare: Network Televisions Coverage of U.S. Presiden-

tial Elections, 19882000, by Stephen J. Farnsworth and S. Robert Lichter. Lanham,MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2003. 227 pp. $59.00 cloth, $22.95 paper.

Overtime: The Election 2000 Thriller, edited by Larry J. Sabato. New York:Longman, 2002. 227 pp. $19.95 paper.

Public Opinion and Democratic Accountability: How Citizens Learn about Poli-

tics, by Vincent L. Hutchings. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2003.171 pp. $35.00 cloth

Rethinking the Vote: The Politics and Prospects of American Election Reform,

edited by Ann N. Crigler, Marion R. Just, and Edward J. McCaffery. New York:Oxford University Press, 2004. 265 pp. $27.00 cloth, $15.00 paper.

The 2000 Presidential Campaign: A Communication Perspective, edited by RobertE. Denton, Jr. (ed). Westport, CT: Praeger, 2002. 278 pp. $67.95 cloth, $24.95 paper.

The Vanishing Voter: Public Involvement in an Age of Uncertainty, by Thomas E.Patterson. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2002. 254 pp. $25.00 cloth, $14.00 paper.

Review essay byKATHLEEN HALL JAMIESON

These books are about what we know and need to know both about elections and about

holding those we elect to account. They are as well about what the public knows and

Kathleen Hall Jamieson is the Elizabeth Ware Packard Professor of Communication at theAnnenberg School for Communication, University of Pennsylvania and Director of the AnnenbergPublic Policy Center.

Address correspondence to Kathleen Hall Jamieson, 3620 Walnut, Philadelphia, PA 19104,USA. E-mail: kjamieson@asc.upenn.edu

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needs to know to make democracy work. Six of them focus one way or another on the

2000 campaign. The seventh, by Farnsworth and Lichter, examines broadcast news across

recent history; the eighth, by Hutchings, is a broad account of democratic accountabil-

ity. I will divide this essay into two parts, the first a brief exploration of each book, the

second a discussion of what these books reveal about the state of political communica-

tion research.

Let me begin with the three edited books (assembled by Kaid and her colleagues,Sabato, and Denton) that chronicle the 2000 campaign. Each has much useful descrip-

tive detail about the 2000 election, and by picking and choosing one can construct a

comprehensive course on that controversial contest.

The Millennium Election (Kaid et al.) is a collection of 17 essays generated as part

of a cross-campus research collaboration that included advertising and debate experi-

ments, focus groups, a postelection survey, and a content analysis. Members of local

research groups were allowed to pursue their own interests from their own theoretical

perspectives and to use the teams joint data or any other data they wished to collect on

the campaign for their contributions to this book (p. 2).

One strength of this book is its range. Its essays explore ads, campaign films, issue

advocacy, TV and newspaper coverage, late-night comedy, and coverage of male and

female candidates below the presidential level. The essays also examine campaign Web

sites, McCains use of the Web, and access and attention to the Web. In the final part of

the book, the authors focus on communication dispositions of the young and contrast

their reactions to debates with those of seniors.

Throughout, the scholars grapple with the constraints imposed by limited resources.

A telephone survey on debate recall conducted between October and December pro-

duced 291 respondents in 11 states (Roberts & Williams, p. 78). Another in Pennsyl-

vania yielded 392 completed surveys (Boyle, p. 204). By contrast, the survey by Bimber

and Davis, funded by the Carnegie Corporation of New York and the Pew Charitable

Trusts, was administered to 1,020 subjects (p. 183) who were located after 142,552numbers were dialed and 14,816 households reached. The Pew-funded Vanishing Voter

reports the results of more than 80,000 interviews. The field of political communication

owes these foundations thanks for their investment. The field needs to find ways to

increase the access of its scholars to such large scale surveys.

Overtime: The Election 2000 Thriller addresses a popular audience. Its authors in-

clude journalists from the Miami Herald, Washington Post, New York Daily News, and

salon.com as well as representatives of the Bush and Gore campaigns, Rhodes Cook of

the Rhodes Cook Letter, and scholars Diana Owen and Sabato. Published in June 2001,

the books chronicle of the primaries and general election is written in a breezy, engag-

ing style.

What the book gains in accessibility, it sometimes loses in precision. At times,

Sabato and Scotts attempts to engage instead embrace stereotypes (e.g., Gore lacked

any magnetism or charisma (p. 27). Gore needed to prove that he was not the irritat-

ing, lecturing know-it-all and bloodless technocrat he often appeared to be (p. 17).

These concerns aside, the Miami Heralds Tom Fiedler has provided an important

perspective on voters and voting in Florida. The chapters on the recount provide insider

accounts that help make sense of that confusing time. And Owens indictment of uses of

polls is on target. The book also includes a number of tables-to-teach-by. They include:

Selected Contrasts in the 2000 Party Platform (Sabato and Scott in Sabato, p. 37) and

Results of All Republican Primaries (Sabato and Scott in Sabato, p. 20).

The 2000 Presidential Campaign: A Communication Perspective, edited by Robert

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E. Denton Jr., includes 10 coherently organized essays on key communication events

and phenomena. Denton opens by analyzing five pivotal elements: frontloading, the vice

presidential selections, the conventions, the debates, and the Supreme Court decision.

Trent follows with an exploration of the early campaign period. Henry Kenski then

explores central factors in the nominations. In a splendid essay with a surprising thesis,

Craig Allen Smith and Neil Mansharamani examine the ways in which the nominees

enacted the challenger and incumbent roles. To appreciate Halloways essay on conven-tion frames and political culture, one must continue reading despite such sentences as

The second form of individualism, the autonomous individualist, is low group and low

grid but rejects the relationships sought out by the competitive individual (p. 120).

Friedenbergs exploration of the debates includes a careful textual analysis and a valu-

able account of the role of the Drudge Report in undercutting Gores credibility. In a

chapter unique in its exploration of the regulation of politics online, Whillock and Whillock

probe use of the Internet in the campaign. Kaid reports on the effects of ads in an essay

that includes a valuable identification of specific issues and candidate qualities in the

general election spots. Tedesco systematically examines presentation of public voice

in news. Kenski, Brooks, and Kenski wrap the book up with a perceptive analysis of the

exit poll data.

Two tables in The 2000 Campaign are especially helpful: Issue Reasons for the

Presidential Vote in 1996 and 2000 (Kenski et al., p. 253) and Network News Rankings

and Issue Mentions During the 2000 General Election (Tedesco, p. 205).

Those inclined toward rhetorical analysis will find Dentons book the most useful

of the three edited books on 2000. Those looking for an easy-to-read blow-by-blow

account of the campaign will gravitate toward Sabatos. Kaid et al. is the most wide-

ranging.

Of the edited books, Rethinking the Vote is the exemplar. The product of a focused

conference, it opens with a theoretically driven essay that distinguishes minimal from

participatory views of democracy. The volume then identifies electoral problems, waysto fix them, and the challenges in voting and electoral reform. The editors conclude with

a well-crafted synthetic essay.

In it, the editors conclude that we should indeed hesitate to do too much too quickly.

. . . Still the small steps to be taken are clear, and there is little reason not to take them

(p. 234). These include embracing clearer counting rules and a stronger FEC (a case

advanced by Potter and Viray), eliminating punchcard ballots to reduce racial and ethnic

bias (as Alvarez, Sinclair, and Wilson suggest), and employing ballot order rotation (an

idea advanced by Krosnick, Miller, and Tichy). Among the proposals tagged for addi-

tional exploration by Crigler, Just, and Buhr are 24-hour voting, same-day registration,

and declaring Election Day a national holiday.

The book questions whether some of the often-discussed large reforms would do

what they promise. At the same time, it raises the possibility that there may be a trade-

off between the number who vote and the quality of those votes. Ortiz suggests that we

might increase citizen involvement at the cost of less informed participation. Traugott

and Norris argue that it will be difficult to increase registration and voting and that

doing so may make the electorate less, not more, representative of the country. In a

provocative essay, Gelman, Katz, and King suggest that eliminating the Electoral Col-

lege might disempower the average voter.

Farnsworth and Lichters The Nightly News Nightmare: Network Televisions Cov-

erage of U.S. Presidential Elections, 19882000 tracks the downward spiral of net-

work evening news from 19882000 (p. 2). The spiral includes the damaging trend

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toward the horse race coverage of who is winning and losing over coverage relating to

matters of substance, the less-than-satisfactory performance with respect to the journal-

ists cardinal issues of accuracy and fairness, and the declining amount of attention paid

to candidates (as opposed to that lavished on the correspondents covering them) as well

as the declining volume of coverage of the presidential election overall (p. 3).

One strength of the Farnsworth and Lichter work is its tracking of news from 1988

2000, a move that would be more useful if it included CNN and PBS for all years.Another plus for this book is its defense of its methods and conclusions. In Footnote 2

of Chapter 4, Farnsworth and Lichter (p. 150) explain why they found less favorable

coverage of Bush than did a study by the Committee of Concerned Journalists (CCJ).

By replicating the method of the Committee of Concerned Journalists, Farnsworth and

Lichter reproduced the findings of that other group. But their conclusion that the tilt

in the CCJ report was an artifact of the committees methodology, rather than an accu-

rate reflection of overall general election coverage and the observation that sampling

and methodological constraints prevent this (CCJ) conclusion from being sustained by

the evidence (p. 150) suggests that Farnsworth and Lichter dont realize that their work

too has methodological constraints. Nonetheless, they make a good case that their ap-

proach is the better of the two.

Concerned about the drop in political participation in the U.S., Pattersons The Van-

ishing Voter: Public Involvement in an Age of Uncertainty argues that officials, candi-

dates, and the media have failed in their responsibility to give Americans the type of

politics that can excite, inform, and engage themand that will fully and fairly reflect

their will (p. 22). Drawing skillfully on history and past scholarship, Patterson exam-

ines the role that parties, candidates, the news media, the campaign process, registration

requirements, and the Electoral College play in depressing citizen engagement. Those

building a course unit on alternative views of electoral reform might productively pair

his chapter Election Day: The Politics of Inequity with Michael Traugotts Why Electoral

Reform Has Failed; Pippa Norriss Do Institutions Matter? The Consequences of Elec-toral Reform for Political Participation; and Gelman, Katz and Kings Empirically

Evaluating the Electoral College in Crigler et al.

In a tightly argued final chapter, Patterson opposes a national primary, regional

primaries, and the population-based Delaware plan in favor of shortening the campaign

and altering its rhythm. He would hold conventions in early September, design the nominating

process to ensure that the race for the nomination ends shortly before the conventions,

and allow the whole nation to participate in the nominating process. In this plan, the

nomination process would start with a string of, say, five state contests spaced a week

or two apart, followed by a month-long interval that would lead to a single dayUlti-

mate Tuesdayon which all forty-five remaining states would ballot (p. 158). This

proposal, he reasons, would resolve or reduce several of the parties specific concerns

about the current process: the routine disenfranchisement of states and voters, the clus-

tering of contests very close to the opening date, and the dampening of competition (p.

161).

Patterson offers recommendations to the media as well. These include hour-long

back-to-back interviews with the major candidates by each broadcast network (p. 173)

and an hour of prime time coverage of the first two nights of the conventions and three

prime time hours of the last two (p. 169). Pattersons view of the value of conventions

differs from that of Sabato and Scott (in Sabato, p. 29), who believe that the partys

architects project an image of their party to the public, and that image is usually com-

prised of half truths and half hypocrisy.

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Why focus on broadcast and not also cable, as well? Broadcasting provides the

key to capturing the inadvertent audience (emphasis added; p. 175), notes Patterson.

However, the exposure required to watch hour-long interviews and convention coverage

is probably better classed as advertent. Recall the Pew finding that three-quarters of

those under age 30 say they watch the news with the remote in hand; 54% of those over

age 50 agree (June 11, 2000).

Where Patterson sees a largely disengaged citizenry, in Vincent L. Hutchings, Pub-lic Opinion and Democratic Accountability, argues that the public knows more than

many think. In a work focused on what the public needs to know to hold elected offi-

cials accountable, he posits high levels of political responsiveness as a function of ideol-

ogy and incumbents eagerness to anticipate the reaction of constituents. By generally

coming down on the popular side of an issue, politicians thwart the ambitions of chal-

lengers. The system works because when politicians do misread the public . . . inter-

ested voters learn about it, provided the media or political challengers convey this in-

formation to them. In short voters are generally as informed about their incumbents

performance in office as they ought to be, given the relatively high levels of responsive-

ness, and they are about as informed as they can be, given the information made avail-

able (p. 2). Central to this process is the likelihood that the media will tell us when a

legislators votes defy expectations.

Although television is the source of most political information for most people,

Hutchings focuses on print news, which, he acknowledges, undoubtedly overestimates

the attentiveness of the mass media to the voting records of individual legislators. The

justification? Newspapers are inexpensive and easily accessible. Thus, any citizen who

wanted to learn about their representatives vote on a specific piece of legislation could

if they chose to do so. Unfortunately, reliance on print limits what this important work

can find. In the end, the analyses . . . shed light on what citizens could have learned, if

sufficiently motivated, rather than what they likely did learn irrespective of their motiva-

tion (pp. 145146). Complicating an understanding of this study is the fact that the listof newspapers forecast to be in the appendix to Chapter 2 (p. 144) is not there.

Bimber and Daviss Campaigning Online: The Internet in U.S. Elections asks two

main questions: How do candidates present themselves online? and What is the in-

fluence of Internet-based campaigns waged by candidates on voters knowledge level,

attitudes, and behavior (including voter turnout and vote choice)? (p. 8). The books

approach combines content analysis of candidate Web sites, interviews with campaign

officials, five randomized telephone interviews, and lab experiments. Its answers are

unsurprising. Candidates are integrating the Internet into their campaigns primarily to

reinforce existing support (p. 143). The effects of Web exposure on undecided voters

are minimal. Most who go to the sites are already supporters. Of these, a small but

nontrivial number end up knowing more about the candidate or feeling even more sup-

portive, though these effects did not result in any change in voting behavior (p. 144).

Bimber and Davis consider television news a medium one sits down and watches, pre-

pared to be informed or entertained (p. 146). Where the television audience is captive,

the Internet audience makes an intentional choice. Unexplored is the possibility that the

television news program will encourage a choice by encouraging viewers to go to its

Web site.

The authors justify excluding traditional medias news sites by arguing that candi-

date sites represent a smaller and more manageable pool of sites to analyze . . . [and]

. . . the purest form of candidate-voter communication is the one candidates initiate

without filters. Only candidate Web sites allow the candidates complete control over the

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messages they send to voters (p. 11). If time and resources required a trade-off, they

might have been well served by retaining Naders site but dropping analysis of sites for

Pat Buchanan and John Hagelin in favor of news sites with large numbesr of users.

Why? The issue substance on the major news sites was high in 2000. Moreover, as

a Pew poll found in 2000, their audiences are increasing. Fully one-in-three Americans

now go online for news at least once a week, compared to 20% in 1998. And 15% say

they receive daily reports from the Internet, up from 6% two years ago (June 11,2000). The numbers are impressive. In the month of February 2004, comScore Media

Metrix reported that CNN sites attracted 13.3 million visitors at home and 8.4 million at

work; MSNBC followed with 12.5 and 8.4 million, respectively, and the New York

Times Digital drew 6.1 and 4.4 million (New York Times, March 29, 2004). Among

popular Internet news sites, a Pew poll released June 11, 2000, found that believability

ratings for the online sites of the major national news organizations are substantially

higher than ratings for the news organizations themselves.

All of the books would benefit from additional scrutiny of the impact of technology

on the world we study. For Bimber and Davis, for example (p. 147), the mass audience

for political advertising in traditional media is inadvertent . . . designed as it is to catch

citizens in an unsuspecting state . . . and then to disseminate political messages. The

remote control began eroding that assumption a while ago. Our National Annenberg

Election Study (NAES) survey of 1,845 respondents in New Hampshire from January

625, 2004, found that one third of those who said they had seen political ads on TV in

the previous week tried to avoid them. Fifteen percent switched channels. A paltry 1%

reported using DVRs to avoid them (www.naes04.org). But those numbers will probably

rise soon. DVRs such as TiVo and ReplayTv are now in approximately 3 million homes.

As scholars who have led the field in studying the Internet, Bimber and Daviss

predictions are worthy of special attention. They foresee that (a) the Internets supple-

mental role in American electoral campaigns will solidify as a form of niche communi-

cation directed at specific audiences; (b) the Internet will offer campaigns a new andhighly effective tool for mobilizing activists, a prediction borne out by the Dean cam-

paign and the success of MoveOn.org in the primaries of 2004; (c) citizens who are

politically interested and active increasingly will utilize the Internet as a vehicle for

satisfying their need for information and support; (d) the Internet will not produce the

mobilization of voters long predicted, a prediction called into question by the success of

MeetUps in 2004; and (e) the divide between those who are political activists interested

in electoral campaigns and those who are not will expand. Overall, Campaign Online,

Whillock and Whillocks (in Denton) overview of digital democracy in 2000, and the

three essays on the Internet in The Millennium Election document the emergence and

effects of the Internet in an election that we may view in retrospect as the one that

marked the transition from Internet as oddity to the Internet as integral to our under-

standing of political communication.

After reading the 1,790 pages of these eight books, I would draw six conclusions

about the state of research in political communication. First, we need to exercise greater

care in defining the terms through which we see political content. Second, the content

we praise should not mislead. Third, we need to expand our focus beyond network

broadcast news. Fourth, we need to continue to examine our assumptions about what

citizens need to know and in the process ensure that our survey questions do the work

we require of them. Fifth, we need to grapple with guessing in surveys and chance

agreement in content analysis. Finally, when a book does not report the amount of

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Book Reviews 399

methodological detail expected in a scholarly article, we should ask authors to post such

information on a book site.

Defining Terms: What Specifically Are WeDescribing and Indicting When We Say Negative?

Negative is a watchword in political communication. Campaigns are negative, havegotten more negative over time, and are too negative. The term conflates attack and

dirty politics. When talking about candidate ads, speeches, and comments in debates,

those who persist in using the word negative should specify a clear definition that indi-

cates whether any attack, however legitimate, is negative or whether negative means

illegitimate attack. If the answer is attack, then how much attack does it take to make

an ad negative? And if dirty politics is negative, then shouldnt that word be applied

to a self promotional ad, with no attack in it, that contains deception? If so, a positive

ad is negative. Indiscriminant use of the word negative makes it more difficult for

us to understand our own discussions of campaign and news content and runs the risk

that we will penalize as negative content that draws legitimate distinctions between

candidates.

When dealing with news, scholars who use the term negative should specify what is

being coded and, in the process, explain how they have dealt with such issues as reports

of external events damaging to a candidacy (e.g., David Kay reports that he does not

believe there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq), attributions to the various cam-

paigns, person in the street comments, expert comments, polling reports, ascriptions to

an unspecified public, and unsourced comments. They should also specify their unit

of analysis. Is it the sentence? The thought unit? The paragraph? The headline? The

whole story?

Broad use of the term negative pervades our literature (cf. Patterson, p. 50; Bimber

and Davis, p. 98; Gaddie and McKinnon in Kaid et al., p. 123; Kaid in Denton, p. 186;Owen in Sabato, p. 132). One problem created by sweeping uses of the term is evident

in Wallkoszs statement: Research on negative advertising concludes that to their merit,

negative ads can help voters distinguish candidate policy positions and performance

more easily than other types of political information (in Kaid et al., p. 37). True, but

only if the statements in the ads are not deceptive. Those seeking a way out of the

definitional morass might engage in a definitional process akin to that employed by

Farnsworth and Lichter (pp. 112114).

Above All, Do Not Mislead

Accuracy should be among the criteria we employ in identifying exemplars. Tedesco (in

Denton, p. 220), for example, praises an NBC reporting prototype by saying that it

appears likely to make clear not only the candidates differences but also the way the

differences translate to a typical family or individual. But that report is misleading. In

it Clint Stretch of Deloitte and Touche notes that everybodys going to get at least a 10

percent tax cut under the Bush plan. Those who earned too little to pay federal income

tax (a number the Tax Policy Center puts at 35.6 million individuals and families) got

no tax cut under the Bush proposal. Nor are the couples selected to illustrate either Bush

or Gores tax cuts typical. The first family has a stay-at-home mom and three small

children, the second two offspring in college and two more at home.

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Expand Our Focus Beyond Three Networks Evening News

A Martian who wanted to determine from our scholarship what news outlets matter to

the U.S. at the turn of the millennium would infer that our broadcast media are national,

delivered in English, and of disturbingly low quality. Studies of television news usually

concentrate on the three major broadcast networks (Patterson, p. 188; Tedesco in Denton,

p. 205; Larson in Kaid et al., p. 106), occasionally adding CNN or PBS (Farnsworth and

Lichter, pp. 26, 201203). This focus is a throwback to the days in which the big three

were the only game in town. Abetting this move is the fact that the transcripts are easy

to find, studying them permits us to track across long periods of time, and, unlike 24-

hour cable, one knows what to watch and when to watch it.

With network evening news still averaging about 30 million total viewers, I am not

arguing that we should ignore its content. But since the morning news shows are attract-

ing approximately half that number and, unlike their evening counterparts, holding and

not losing net audience, there is a case for scrutinizing them as well. Ditto for The

NewsHour, Nightline, the Sunday morning interview shows, Frontline, MSNBC, CNN,

and Fox.

Our collective indictment of the length of soundbites on ABC, CBS, and NBC datesus. The much touted figure (from 9.8 seconds in 1988 to 8.4 in 1992, 8.2 in 1996, and

7.8 in 2000; Farnsworth and Lichter, p. 80; see also Tedesco in Denton, p. 201) may be

true of broadcast network evening news, but thats not all thats out there.

If citizens crave extended candidate speech, they can find it on the morning shows,

The NewsHour, Nightline, and the Sunday morning interview shows, all available on

broadcast. The person who looked for longer segments found them. Lichter (2001, p.

24) reports (although not in the reviewed book) that, in 2000, total speaking time for

the candidates on the NewsHour more than doubled the combined total of the three

commercial networks (3 hours and 40 minutes vs. 1 hour and 42 minutes). If you think

that quality exists but doesnt attract viewers, then the locus of the problem shifts from

availability to voter motivation and interest.

By the criteria scholars ordinarily employ, including a focus on substantive issue

information, the quality of political information on the Sunday interview shows is

unusually high. Our lack of collective appetite for substance is reflected in the ratings

of these shows. In fall 2003, Fox News Sunday attracted 1.6 million; ABCs This Week,

2.5 million; CBSs Face the Nation, 2.7 million; and NBCsMeet the Press, 4.2 million.

Because the airwaves are publicly owned, we should hold the networks to high

expectations. But I am not as concerned as Patterson, for example (p. 169), about ever-

shrinking commercial broadcast coverage of conventions because they are available

gavel to gavel on C-SPAN and, with running commentary, on CNN, FOX, and MSNBC.

Indeed, if a viewer wants to hear extended and uninterrupted political discourse, C-SPANs three 24-hour-a-day channels should be a place of choice. A surprising number

of viewers apparently do just that. Pew Research Center surveys show that as many as

12% of Americans are regular C-SPAN viewers. That figure comes from a January

2004 survey, in which another 31% say they sometimes watch C-SPAN (March 2,

2004).

It is worrisome that one must subscribe to cable or satellite to view most of the

primary seasons candidate debates or the conventions in their entirety. But the percent-

age of the population for which that is problematic is falling. In 2003, 84% of homes in

the U.S. had cable. In January 2004, the FCC reported that cable served 70.5 million

households, and 23.7 million received television through a satellite service.

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Examination of Assumptions

We need to continue to examine our assumptions about what citizens need to know and,

in the process, ensure that our survey questions do the work we intend of them. The

scholars in our field spend a lot of energy expressing concerns about low levels of public

knowledge. As Bimber and Davis note, Americans demonstrate levels of knowledge

about politics that seem shockingly low to most (p. 154). I wonder about the utility of

the measures we use to assess knowledge. For example, Bimber and Davis include the

knowledge question How much of a majority is required for the U.S. Senate and House

to override a presidential veto? While it is important to know that, in a system of

checks and balances, the president can veto and the Congress can override, why is it

important that one know that overriding requires a two-thirds vote? Isnt knowing that it

requires more than a majority sufficient? Although a regular feature of some Congresses,

notably the 80th with six overrides of Truman and the 94th with eight overrides of Ford,

overrides havent occurred often in more recent times, with only two in the 1990s.

Nor do I think one should be as concerned as Bimber and Davis are with the find-

ing that studies since 1960 have shown . . . that only 41 percent of Americans know

that it is Congress that declares war (p. 154). The Constitution and practice differ.Since World War II, the U.S. has managed to put troops on the ground in Korea, Viet-

nam, Lebanon, Grenada, the Gulf, and Iraq without the constitutionally required con-

gressional declaration.

Patterson expresses concern as well: No past election study found a level of issue

awareness as low as what our Vanishing Voter surveys recorded (p. 116). One reason

may be that the questions in Pattersons survey encouraged dont know answers.

I wonder whether conceptualizing the endeavor as the Vanishing Voter project

carried with it ways of framing questions that magnified dont know responses? What

was the effect, for example, of telling respondents that If you are unsure of an answer,

feel free to say youre not sure and well go on to the next question (p. 191). Arent

the researchers magnifying the likelihood that people will say they dont know by pre-

mising some questions Do you happen to know . . .?

In the NAES, we asked to the best of your knowledge and then offered forced

choice options. If someone said they didnt know, we asked for their best guess. Pattersons

structure and that in the NAES both affect responses. Our process produced higher knowl-

edge scores than those elicited by Patterson.

He notes that just before the election, across 12 issue position statements (6 for

Gore, 6 for Bush on average), 38% correctly identified the candidates position, 16%

incorrectly identified it . . . and 46% said they did not know (p. 126). During the same

period on the six NAES questions that relate to Pattersons topics, our respondents aver-

aged 61% correct and 18% dont know.A second reason Pattersons respondents may seem uninformed is that some of the

issues about which they were asked were not ones on which the campaigns focused. His

questions on Bush included the following: positions on gun registration, defense spend-

ing, cuts in personal income tax, a ban on very large contributions to political candi-

dates, restrictions on abortion, and a tax credit for low income people to use to buy

private health insurance. Of these, only the tax cuts were stressed in the ads and debates.

The Vanishing Voters questions on Gore concentrate on tax dollars to send chil-

dren to a private or parochial school, expanding Medicare to cover prescriptions, a ban

on off-shore drilling in federal waters, private retirement accounts, affirmative action,

and substantial restrictions on trade with China. Of these, Gore stressed prescription

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drugs and opposition to Bushs plan to permit individuals to invest part of their payroll

tax in private accounts.

Finally, we shouldnt blame voters when our questions are unclear. On NAES, we

should not have used the word voucher in our 2000 question on prescription drugs. We

asked, On the issue of prescription drugs for senior citizens, to the best of your knowl-

edge, what does George W. Bush think? Does George W. Bush think the federal gov-

ernment should not pay for senior citizens prescription drugs; the government shouldoffer senior citizens a voucher to cover some of the cost of prescription drugs; or the

federal government should cover prescription drugs through Medicare? The word voucher

was not a regular part of the prescription drug debate and carried with it echoes of the

debate over school choice.

I think that Patterson has a comparable problem with the question that elicited his

lowest knowledge scores. Seven in 10 reported they did not know Bushs position when

asked Do you happen to know whether Bush favors or opposes a ban on large political

contributions, or is this something youve not heard about? (p. 190)

McCain-Feingold is more complicated than that. The discussion about money in

2000 focused on soft money to political parties. The size of the contributions was not as

focal to the debate as the source, the recipient, the kind of money given, the amount of

disclosure required, and when money of a certain kind could be spent on ads with

certain content. Additionally, McCain-Feingold raised the amounts individuals could give

to candidates, a change Bush favored. Finally, Bush wanted to ban the dues-based con-

tributions of labor unions.

Just as NAES should have formulated a clearer question on prescription drugs and

the Vanishing Voter should have done so on money and politics, Williams (in Kaid et

al., p. 77) and Sheckels and Bell (in Kaid et al., p. 61) might consider whether there is a

clearer way to ask What moment during the debates most sticks in your mind as char-

acterizing Bush/Gore?

Guessing in Surveys

Fifth, we need to consider the ways in which we will correct for guessing in surveys

and ensure more than chance agreement in content analyses.

Intercoder Reliability

The amount of reporting on intercoder reliability varies dramatically across the

books. For some, coding seems to have been a solitary act. So, for example, Hutchins

notes that I coded any mention of the members roll call votes that appeared after the

tenth paragraph as falling on the inside of the paper (and thus coded 1) (p. 144). Others

used multiple coders but failed to report intercoder reliability (e.g., Gaddie and McKinnon

in Kaid et al., p. 121; Patterson, p. 188). Farnsworth and Lichter reported reliability but

not how it was ascertained. Holstis formula gets a good workout (Kaid in Denton, p.

185; Banwart et al. in Kaid et al., p. 153; Tedesco and Kaid in Kaid et al., p. 7.

The outliers are Nitz et al. (in Kaid et al., p. 171; two coders and an agreement

level of 72% and a Kappa coefficient of .65") and Wicks, Souley, and Verser (in Kaid

et al., p. 194). Unlike most, Wicks et al. report reliability coefficients on all variables.

They use Scotts pi to assess reliability and importantly note that because two variables

(approachability and friendliness) did not achieve the acceptable Scotts pi level of .75,

they were not included.

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With a few exceptions, this is a bleak picture. Klaus Krippendorffs (2004) Content

Analysis: An Introduction to Its Methodology, the fields most important contribution to

our understanding of this method, argues that coders should code independently from

each other and use common coding instructions. Scholars should report both these in-

structions and the proportion of data on which agreement was assessed. When coders do

not code all of the data, their reliability sample should be spread across different phases

of the coding process.The level of acceptable agreement also should be reported. For use of his alpha,

Krippendorff (in press) holds that data should be rejected as unreliable when below

.667, and used only for drawing highly tentative conclusions between there and .800. By

this standard, most of the reports in the reviewed books should be taken as tentative.

Arguing that they do not take chance agreement into account, Krippendorff dis-

misses percentage agreement and Osgoods (1959) and Holstis (1969) measures as in-

appropriate ways of assessing reliability. Because they measure statistical dependence,

not agreement, correlation coefficients and their relatives should not be used as reliabil-

ity measures either. Agreement measures should be chosen to match the data, with Scotts

pi appropriate for large samples, two coders, and nominal data (categories) and Krippendorffs

alpha appropriate for samples of any size, multiple coders, data sets with missing data,

and all of the common scales of measurement (nominal, interval, ratio, etc.).

When frequencies on individual categories are reported, all categories should be

assessed for reliability, with the lowest reliability on any one taken as the reliability of

the whole. Similarly, when the variances of individual variables enter the conclusions of

research, the reliability of all variables should be measured and the lowest among them

taken as the reliability of the whole complex of variables. By these standards, much of

the content analysis reported in these books is open to question.

Guessing on Surveys of Knowledge

If we are concerned about determining improvement over chance expectations in con-

tent analysis, we should be concerned as well about chance performance in assessing

knowledge. The usual measures of accurate knowledge both overestimate what people

know and cloud our understanding of how knowledge relates to other variables such as

participation. Because he believes that respondents have a 50-50 chance of guessing the

correct answer, Patterson suggests subtracting incorrect responses from correct ones (footnote,

p. 18). (In regard to the questions of his that I examined earlier, he says [p. 126] that he

did not correct for guessing. Nor did NAES.)

Although political scientists such as Mondak have worried about the meaning of

dont know answers, attention to correct guesses has largely been the concern of those

focused on such standardized tests as the SAT. The need to adjust political knowledge

scores for guessing identifies an underexamined issue that the fields stats gurus should

address, perhaps with an appropriate proportional reduction in error statistic.

Web Sites With Details That Do Not Fit in Books

In the appendix ofCampaigning Online, a book whose level of disclosure is admirable,

Bimber and Davis note that they have minimized the presentation of statistical details

in order to avoid burdening readers who have a general interest in new media or poli-

tics but who lack research training or expertise in statistics (p. 188). When, for what-

ever reason, a book does not provide the level of methodological detail expected in

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404 Book Reviews

scholarly articles, we should ask the authors to post such information on their Web sites.

Such postings might include coding instructions, survey questionnaires, and data sets.

When a reader has a question, the author could answer him or her and the world at the

same time. Book sites could become chat rooms of sorts.

Were such sites available, I would use them to ask:

1. Bimber and Davis: Why they didnt use a control condition in their experiment.2. Hutchings: For the list of newspapers that got lost in the editing process.

3. Farnsworth and Lichter: What inter-coder reliability formula they used.

4. Patterson: What, if anything, would change had he included Illinois, Nevada,

and Ohio in the battleground when assessing the impact of the Electoral Col-

lege on involvement, and, since his questions were piggy-backed on an omnibus

survey, were they asked before all other questions to minimize framing and

priming effects.

5. Boyle, (in Kaid et al, p 204): What he means by and how he calculated a 50%

survey completion rate.

In addition, I would ask everyone who didnt report response rates (e.g., Patterson, Rob-

erts, and Williams in Kaid et al.) to please do so. And I would ask Crigler, Just, and

McCaffery for a list of pointers on how to edit a book of such uniformly high quality.

The scholarly dialogue produced by routine posting of book pages would, I suspect,

accelerate the development of the discipline and the field.

References

Holsti, O. R. (1969). Content analysis for the social sciences and humanities. Reading, MA:

AddisonWesley.

Krippendorff, K. (2004). Content analysis: An introduction to its methodology (2nd ed). BeverelyHills, CA: Sage.

Krippendorff, K. (in press). Reliability in content analysis: Some common misconceptions and

recommendations. Human Communication Research.

Lichter, R. (2001). A plague on both parties: Substance and fairness in TV election news. Press/

Politics, 6(3), 830.

Osgood, C. E. (1959). The representation model and relevant research methods. In Ithiel de Sola

Pool (Ed.), Trends in constant analysis (pp. 3388). Urbana: University of Illinois Press.

Media Effects: Advances in Theory and Research, edited by Jennings Bryant andDolf Zillman. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum, 2002. 644 pages. $59.95 paper.

Media Effects and Society, by Elizabeth M. Perse. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. 345pages. $39.95 hardcover.

Reviewed by DENIS MCQUAIL

Denis McQuail is Professor Emeritus at the School of Communication Research, Amsterdam.Address correspondence to Denis McQuail, 19, Forest Close, Chandlers Ford, Eastleigh,

S053 1NB, U.K E-mail 106233.3000@compuserve.com

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The topic of media effects is about the oldest and most prominent item on the agenda of

media research, but it has also given rise to great dissension and dissatisfaction on al-

most every point at issue. Decades of research go by without much new light being

shed, although concepts, theories, and evidential claims continue to accumulate. It might

be thought surprising that the same publisher offers two very similar titles that would

suit much the same audiences for similar purposes of teaching and reference. On closer

inspection, it is less surprising. The book edited by Bryant and Zillman already has apublishing history in two earlier versions and has earned its place in the market. It also

follows a familiar format of expert contributions on numerous topics within the broad

field of media effects, while Elizabeth Perse has written a single-authored synthesis

seeking to cover the whole field. It is hard to think of any major attempt to do this since

Klappers Effects of Mass Communication more than 40 years ago. One might even

have supposed that this task was no longer achievable, given the diversification of the

topic and expansion of research in the intervening years. However, it should be said at

the outset that Perses book does come close to achieving the impossible, with reserva-

tions noted later.

Bryant and Zillman have built on the secure foundation of their earlier volumes and

extended the 16-chapter format to 22 chapters. The additions constitute a filling in of

gaps rather than an addition of major developments in theory and research. The new

chapters deal with perceptions of social reality (Shrum), intermedia processes (Rogers),

educational and prosocial effects (Fisch), news influences (McCombs and Reynolds),

individual differences (Oliver), and third-person effects (Perloff). As a whole, the book

has become an even more valuable and authoritative resource for colleagues and stu-

dents. The editorial team has been consistently good at serving a broad spectrum of

interests, with contributions on the major themes of political communication and public

opinion, information campaigns, advertising, socialization, relevant effect theory, and

not forgetting the effects of fear and entertainment. As in the last (1994) edition, the

new media make their appearance, with an updating of research, although with littlenews. Perhaps inevitably with this format, the book comes with no general overview of

the domain of media effects research or any statement of purpose.

Elizabeth Perse, by contrast, foregrounds a discussion of the general goal of study-

ing media effects and offers her own statement of purpose. She also introduces the book

with a general chapter that places her aims in the context of much comment on and also

criticism of the media effects tradition of research. To some extent, this reflects the

different origins of her work in a course taught to senior undergraduates over a number

of years. Even so, it is a valuable undertaking for other readers, even if they want to

take issue with her position. Her starting point is the assumption that media do have

numerous and varied effects, and she takes on the problem of conceptualizing and typ-

ing effects and addressing the seeming failure of a good deal of research to support

much in the way of generalization. She describes her main purpose as focusing on how

media effects occur (thus on theories and processes) and further names her goal as

enabling students to understand how to enhance mass communications prosocial effects

and mitigate its negative effects.

Her work remains in what might called the theoretical mainstream of the dominant

paradigm, concentrating on cognitive and behavioral effects on individuals and on re-

search using traditional quantitative methods. Although she discusses criticisms of this

choice and recognizes larger and longer term effects on institutions, culture, and society,

these other questions are not taken much further than a statement of possibilities or

desirabilities. The emphasis throughout is less on methods of research than on theory

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406 Book Reviews

and process, in keeping with the wish to explain the how of effects. Nearly all of the

models and theories described operate primarily at the individual level. These re-

marks are intended as description rather than implied criticism. It could be said that the

connection between effects and society made in the title is largely established by the

fact that the study of effects is motivated by larger concerns current in society (for

instance, in relation to politics, violence, and socialization) rather than by an examina-

tion of media effects on society as such.The stated purpose of the book is pursued by a consistent effort to theorize each of

the chosen primary topics, which relate to crisis situations (where society is indeed cen-

tral), public opinion and persuasion, learning from media, socialization, violent and sexually

explicit media content, and new media. As a general scheme, Perse offers four main

models of effects: direct effects, conditional effects, cumulative effects, and cognitive-

transactional effects. Although this seems handy heuristically for dividing up the field,

these are not really models in the same sense, nor mutually exclusive as types of ef-

fects. The chapter on crisis situations is well designed and valuable, but is somewhat

overreliant on traditional functionalism and dependency theory, as Perses own discus-

sion recognizes. In this area, wider social theory is needed.

The main theoretical framework for discussing public opinion effects is that of Petty

and Cacioppos elaboration likelihood model (ELM). Although quite a powerful device

for studying persuasion and attitude change, it does not work so well for other pur-

poses relevant to public opinion and political communication. The author also takes up a

distinction between informed and pseudo public opinion that fits the terms of the

ELM model but is otherwise of dubious validity. In respect of learning effects, the

broad distinction between active and passive models works quite well, as do a number

of familiar concepts and models in relation to violent and sexually explicit content.

The general manner of treatment reflects a consistent attempt to turn empirical ques-

tions effects into researchable propositions by way of relevant theoretical models. This

is a heuristic approach that should have considerable value in a teaching situation, al-though at times it has a constraining and distorting effect on the discussion of specific

issues and may not reflect the larger range of alternative research approaches. It could

not be claimed, for instance, that the book is ideally suited for dealing with political

communication, although it is at least as good as other general treatments of the topic.

Discus-sion of possible effects of the Internet and other new media in the unnumbered

last chapter or afterword is not especially well served by reviving the four general

effect models of the introductory chapter, and the weakness of this general frame is also

exposed.

Despite these limitations and the relative lack of attention to levels of effect above

that of the individual, this is an attractive and very worthwhile book, and the authors

claim to have enjoyed the course on which it is based is likely to have been reciprocated

by students. The perennial issue of media effects is not going to disappear, however

much scholarly discomfort it gives rise to, and a judicious, theoretically literate, and

well-written book on the topic based on close knowledge of recent research has to be

warmly welcomed. It will not replace Bryant and Zillman but will serve similar as well

as other purposes very well.

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Book Reviews 407

Celebrity Politics: Real Politics in America, by Darrell M. West and John M.Orman. Upper Saddle Ridge, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2003. 128 pp. $29.20 paper.

If It Bleeds, It Leads: An Anatomy of Television News, by Matthew R. Kerbel.Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 2001. 149 pp. $19.00 paper.

Reviewed by MATTHEW A. BAUM

Celebrity Politics is part of a series whose self-declared goal is to bridge the gap be-

tween academic scholarship and the popular demand for knowledge about politics. In

fact, the book appears to be aimed far more at the latter, general audience than at the

former, scholarly audience. Indeed, if you are looking for a fully developed theoretical

argument or systematic empirical evidence regarding the effects of Americas celebrity

culture on the nations politics, then this book is not for you. West and Orman offer no

coherent theory, and their evidence consists almost entirely of a large number of non-

randomly selected anecdotes. Hence, ones evaluation of the book will depend in large

part on ones expectations. To be sure, many of the anecdotes are quite interest-ing. Iparticularly enjoyed reading a series of late-night TV jokes from the past several

decadessome of which were familiar, but others of which were nottrashing various

presidents and presidential candidates. And, viewed as a whole, the book paints a rather

stark picture of a political process gone terribly awry, in which famealong with the

wealth that typically accompanies itis equated with wisdom and is rapidly replacing

experience as a primary qualification for higher office. Yet, the near exclusive reliance

on anecdotal storytelling renders this work of limited interest for a scholarly audience.

The authors walk the reader through a series of examples of individual movie stars

and sports heroes influencing politics both behind the scenesthrough fund raising,

campaigning for favored candidates or causes, and grass-roots activismand by suc-

cessfully running for office themselves. As the authors note, the results are not always

bad; sometimes a celebrity can call attention to an important issue that would otherwise

be ignored by the media and political leaders. A case in point is Bob Geldofs 1985

Live Aid concerts, which raised global awareness, plus about $140 million in relief

funds, in response to a famine in Ethiopia. Geldofs rock-star statusand his conse-

quent connections throughout the music industryallowed him to focus the worlds

attention on a single issue to a degree that would be virtually unimaginable for a tradi-

tional politician. Yet, despite its potential benefits, West and Orman conclude that celeb-

rity politics is, on balance, a negative force in American politics, one that debases de-

mocracy and shortchanges citizens. They thus assert that we all deserve better choices

than that currently provided by our regime based on celebrity politics.Even viewed as a general interest work, the book is not without flaws. The authors

political bias is apparent throughout: Even to this non-conservative reviewer, it seemed

that liberals and Democrats were consistently painted in a more sympathetic light than

conservatives and Republicans. And the authors disdain for the tabloidization of poli-

tics is a bit more readily apparent than one might prefer. Despite these flaws, for a

Matthew A. Baum is Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of California,Los Angeles.

Address correspondence to Matthew A. Baum, 4289 Bunche Hall, Box 951472, Los Ange-

les, CA 90095-1472, USA. E-mail: mbaum@ucla.edu

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408 Book Reviews

general audience, and also for some undergraduate courses, this book will be a useful

primer on the extent to which politics and entertainment have blended together in con-

temporary American culture. Just dont read the book expecting to find major theoreti-

cal or empirical contributions to the scholarly political communication literature. That is

not what the authors promise and not what they deliver.

Like Celebrity Politics, Matthew KerbelsIf It Bleeds, It Leads is aimed squarely at

a general interest audience. It too lacks any theoretical argument or systematic empiricalevidence. In this instance, the text consists of what are essentially annotated transcripts

from a variety of TV news programs and talk shows. Hence, readers looking for theoretical

or empirical insights into the TV news business will be disappointed. This is not to say

that the book is void of ideas. The author is trying to make a fairly important, if not

altogether original, point: that TV news is really about entertainment rather than enlight-

enment, and is virtually as formulaic and hence predictable as TV soap operas. In this,

Kerbel is quite successful. I frequently found myself shaking my head in disbelief at the

depths of sleaze and manipulation to which TV news broadcasters routinely resort in order

to capture and hold an audience. (I also found myself wondering why anyone in his or her

right mind would ever want the thankless job of local TV news program director!)

Despite the unusual format of the book, it is easy to distinguish the authors voice

from those of the newsiesas Kerbel derisively terms all members of the TV news

businessby the unyielding sarcasm and disapproving tone evident in virtually every

passage not taken directly from a news or talk show. Kerbels writing is frequently quite

funny and hard hitting at the same time. This makes the book an entertaining read. Yet,

after a while, I found myself wishing for a respite from the torrent of sarcasm and

negativity. Most of the key points are made fairly early on. Eventually, the news-show

dialogues, interspersed with the authors disapproving commentaries, start to wear thin.

By the time I reached the end of the book, I wondered what I had gained by reading

beyond the first 50 pages.

An additional limitation of the book becomes apparent in the authors concludingcomments, where Kerbel claims that the handful of local TV news and talk shows he

features are representative of typical shows in those genres. The problem is that he

offers no evidence to support this assertion. The reader is therefore asked to accept on

faith that a handfulalbeit admittedly a rather large handfulof anecdotes are repre-

sentative of the state of TV news in general. In fact, some recent research (by John

Zaller) suggests that local TV news quality (i.e., substance) varies widely according to

market size and competitiveness. Whether or not Kerbel would dispute the validity of

this evidence, any such possible distinctions are ignored entirely until the very end of

the book, at which time they are given short shrift.

Of greater concern, Kerbel devotes almost no time to helping the reader understand

why we get the news we get, or why we should care. There were many opportunities to

consider the broader social and political implications of his observations, such as when he

points out that the frequency of news reports on violent crime routinely spikes during

sweeps periods, even when actual crime rates are trending downward. Could this lead to

inflated public demands for more and more costly, yet unnecessary, anti-crime legis-

lation? Kerbel fails to seize these opportunities. Hence, the verdict onIf It Bleeds, It Leads

is mixed. On the one hand, it is both entertaining and biting, and sheds some much

needed light onto the inner workings of TV news organizations. As such, portions of it

should probably be assigned to all students of broadcast journalism. Yet, on the other hand,

as a scholarly endeavor, or even as social commentary, it is ultimately unsatisfying,

implicitly suggesting far more questions than it either explicitly raises or answers.

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Book Reviews 409

Democracy and the News, by Herbert J. Gans. New York: Oxford UniversityPress, 2003. xii + 168 pp. $26.00 cloth, $11.95 paper.

Reviewed by KURT LANG

Government of the people, by the people, and for the people may be the ideal, but the

actuality falls far short of it. Inevitably, the polity of a country so large and diverse asthe United States is dominated by organizations with ready access and continuous input

into government, while citizens, other than in election time, have little say. That the

people,especially those who are economically underprivileged, should feel disem-

powered is thus readily understandable. It helps explain why so many Americans fail

to exercise their political franchise.

What can the news media do to remedy this situation? The legitimacy of the jour-

nalistic profession derives from its ability to make government decisions and activities

transparent. Yet, as Herbert J. Gans argues persuasively in this thoughtful essay, not

only is the news utilized by authorities (and, albeit unintentionally, tends to favor in-

cumbents), but the provision of information is not ipso facto a panacea because, as haslong been conventional wisdom among communication scholars, effect cannot be in-

ferred from content without taking account of certain limiting factors. Gans, an observer

with intimate knowledge of his subject, offers a highly useful primer on news pro-

duction, consumption, and their consequences. Most novel is his utilization of research

findings to clarify how various journalistic and editorial practices can foster citizen

participation.

Journalists are said to share certain ideological premises. They see themselves in-

forming citizens who, with the news they receive, will be adequately informed and thus

motivated to participate politically, and they believe that such informed participation

will advance democracy (p. 56). None of these premises, so Gans tells us, fully accord

with reality. There is no evidence that the news as provided serves the needs of citizensor that journalists have reliable criteria for defining what these needs are. On the con-

trary, the way news is produced raises questions about its adequacy, accuracy, and rel-

evance. People are as easily mobilized by misinformation, emotion, or narrow self-inter-

est as by sound coverage. And, furthermore, the journalistic credo overlooks that access

to information depends on resources, that democracy is as much a function of political

and economic equality as of keeping abreast of the news. The wealthy and the powerful

will always know more than is contained in the from-the-top-down news that journalists

deliver along with the politically irrelevant stories that fill much of the available time

and space.

When it comes to effects Gans, quite rightly, suggests that the news media affectinstitutions and organizations more frequently and strongly than they do news audi-

ences (p. 78). Political leaders constantly monitor how they appear on or in the news

and go to some lengths to anticipate public reactions. While the citizenry, in this indirect

way, exerts influence, an expos is more likely to result in personal punishment than in

structural change. The news media also contribute to the creation of a general political

climate, one that may foster reform or limit the scope of political debate.

Kurt Lang is Professor Emeritus in Sociology and Communication at the University of Wash-ington.

Address correspondence to Kurt Lang Department of Sociology, University of Washington,Seattle, WA 98195, USA. E-mail: lang@u.washington.edu

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410 Book Reviews

The final two chapters contain proposals for improving media practices and promot-

ing citizen participation. These are serious, well intentioned, cautiously presented, and

unlikely to elicit much disagreement. From an analytic point of view, however, these

conclusions, which is what they are, leave implicit what I think Gans could have stated

more explicitly. First, they fail to characterize news as a special form of knowledge.

Regardless of what journalists may say or believe, news caters mainly to peoples need

to feel part of a community, much as street gossip once did. News, to be sure, alsoprovides information, mostly of immediate use, such as reports on price movements for

traders, sales for consumers, traffic jams for commuters, weather forecasts for just about

everyone. News is, by nature, episodic and not the kind of social science analysis that

most journalists, as Gans himself surmises, have either the time or training to produce.

Journalistic analysis, mostly done on the quick, usually yields opinion pieces likely to

be discounted as just that. Herein lies an obstacle to effective reform.

A second idea implicit in Ganss discussion involves the nature of citizenship. For

most people, its obligations take second place behind other usually more pressing obli-

gations. Or, put another way, politicsmuch as everything elseis subject to a division

of labor between those who make and administer laws and a public that reacts but has

neither the time nor the inclination to obtain the detailed knowledge necessary to partici-

pate as equals on this level. This disparity increases the risk that a public, when mobi-

lized, will act in terms of what its members perceive, and often misperceive, to be their

own interest. All of this, if I have read him correctly, Gans acknowledges. But never

fully answered are by what criteria nonspecialists should judge political actors and when

they should intervene in the political process to advance the general interest, which is

not necessarily the interest of everyone. The answer may elude journalists, who do not

see themselves as educators. But social scientists, too, need to acknowledge that the

problem of citizen participation is intrinsic to the division of labor and not simply due to

disparities of information and power.

The Imagined Civil War: Popular Literature of the North & South, 18611865,by Alice Fahs. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2001. 424 pages.$39.95 hardcover.

Reviewed by GLENN C. ALTSCHULER

Between 1861 and 1865, the Civil War was anything but unwritten. Throughout the

North, and even in the Confederate South, despite shortages of publishers and paper,there was an outpouring of popular, war-related literature. In poems, childrens stories,

novels, humor, and instant histories, Alice Fahs argues, writers helped shape a cultural

politics of war. Focusing on individual experience and suffering, far more than the needs

of the nation, they portrayed the war as an arena for adventure and an opportunity for

males and females to act in ways not normally available to them.

Glenn C. Altschuler is Thomas and Dorothy Litwin Professor of American Studies at CornellUniversity.

Address correspondence to Glenn C. Altschuler, B20 Day Hall, Cornell University, Ithaca,

NY 14853, USA. E-mail: gca1@cornell.edu

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The Imagined Civil War revisits the thesis of George Fredricksons influential The

Inner Civil War: Northern Intellectuals and the Crisis of the Union (1965). During the

war, Fredrickson asserted, elites came to understand the need for subordination of self

and a more fatalistic attitude toward suffering on a large scale in a modern industrial

society. In the popular literature of the war, Fahs sees a lively countertradition with an

unabashed embrace of sentimentalism, pity, compassion, and most important, a celebra-

tion of individual worth and achievement. The Civil War, then, stimulated romance aswell as realism, boundlessness along with consolidation.

Fahs provides informative readings of much heretofore neglected popular literature.

Her analysis of family, gender, and race is especially insightful. By the end of 1861, she

points out, the high spirited cockiness and many of the images of robust masculinity in

stories and poems were gone. As they began to worry about the anonymous and un-

decorated dead, writers focused less on battlefields and more on hospitals and homes. A

passionate attachment to mother, she shrewdly observes, was not at all consistent with

masculinity. Using mothers as the connecting link between public and private realms,

moreover, writers demanded recognition of the sacrifices of women, as tearful patriots,

giving up sons and spouses to the state, as nurses, as the economic victims of war, and

as heads of households. In some fiction, women transgressed, disguised as soldiers.

African Americans, Fahs demonstrates, were far more visible in wartime literature

than in the unwritten war in the decades that followed. Indeed, she finds in the con-

versations about race a new dynamism. While Southern writers wrote consistently of

loyal slaves, a range of (sometimes contradictory) images of Blacks appeared cheek by

jowl in publications in the North. By calling African Americans contraband, some

writers implied they were still property. Others called for acceptance of Blacks in the

army, but were careful to add that they would be led by White officers. In wartime

fiction, Fahs notes acidly, a heroic death permitted expressions of respect without bur-

dening Whites with the prospect of Negroes in postCivil War America.

Fahs is surely right to emphasize the enduring attraction of individualism in Ameri-can popular culture. But The Imagined Civil Warmay be less revisionist than she imag-

ines. Even if, as she suggests, the glory of the state was not the focus of narratives of

womens sacrifices, it was universally understood as the motive for them. Moreover,

Fahs does not make a compelling case that the new dynamism she posits was, in fact,

new. The wartime literature, it seems to me, is best understood as part of the femini-

zation of American culture described three decades ago by Barbara Welter and Ann

Douglas. Nor is it clear that the popular literature written between 1861 and 1865 had a

significant impact on discussions of race, gender, or politics in general. Indeed, Fahs

acknowledges that the ideas of what constituted the new experience of war narrowed

in the last third of the 19th century. Although individualism and romance remained

viable generic options, the Gilded Age, as George Fredrickson suggests, was a more

impersonaland more masculinistage.

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