Gathering together key writings and many single-authored essays in to a handy one-volume resource, this is the only Reader currently available on political communication.

The selected texts and articles have been included for their significant contribution to our understanding of the issues under considerations, are grouped into thematic sections, each introduced by the editors, and the contributors cover such areas as:

• the exercise of power, media and democracy
• the media and elections
• media effects
• political participation and the media
• the personalization of politics
• new technologies and the reshaping of political communication.

Available as a companion Reader to Brian McNair's Introduction to Political Communication textbook, students will find The Political Communication Reader a valuable resource in this popular subject area.

The studies in this volume conceptualize populism as a type of political communication and investigate it comparatively, focusing on (a) politicians' and journalists' perceptions, (b) media coverage, and (c) effects on citizens. This book presents findings from several large-scale internationally comparative empirical studies, funded by the European Cooperation in the field of Scientific and Technical Research (COST), focusing on communication and the media within the context of populism and populist political communication in Europe. The studies are based on comparative interview studies with journalists and politicians, a large-scale comparative content analysis, and a comparative cross-country experiment using nationally representative online-surveys over 15 countries. The book also includes advice for stakeholders like politicians, the media, and citizens about how to deal with the challenge of populist political communication. This enlightening volume is 'populist' in the best sense and will be an essential text for any scholar in political science, communication science, media studies, sociology and philosophy with an interest in populism and political communication. It does not assume specialist knowledge and will remain accessible and engaging to students, practitioners and policymakers. Chapter 1 and 12 of this book are freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 3.0 license. https://tandfbis.s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/rt-files/docs/Open+Access+Chapters/9781138392724_oachapter1.pdf https://tandfbis.s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/rt-files/docs/Open+Access+Chapters/9781138392724_oachapter12.pdf

The studies in this volume conceptualize populism as a type of political communication and investigate it comparatively, focusing on (a) politicians' and journalists' perceptions, (b) media coverage, and (c) effects on citizens. This book presents findings from several large-scale internationally comparative empirical studies, funded by the European Cooperation in the field of Scientific and Technical Research (COST), focusing on communication and the media within the context of populism and populist political communication in Europe. The studies are based on comparative interview studies with journalists and politicians, a large-scale comparative content analysis, and a comparative cross-country experiment using nationally representative online-surveys over 15 countries. The book also includes advice for stakeholders like politicians, the media, and citizens about how to deal with the challenge of populist political communication. This enlightening volume is 'populist' in the best sense and will be an essential text for any scholar in political science, communication science, media studies, sociology and philosophy with an interest in populism and political communication. It does not assume specialist knowledge and will remain accessible and engaging to students, practitioners and policymakers. Chapter 1 and 11 of this book are freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 3.0 license. https://tandfbis.s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/rt-files/docs/Open+Access+Chapters/9781138392724_oachapter1.pdf https://tandfbis.s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/rt-files/docs/Open+Access+Chapters/9781138392724_oachapter12.pdf

Gathering together key writings and many single-authored essays in to a handy one-volume resource, this is the only Reader currently available on political communication. The articles included are grouped into thematic sections, each introduced by the editors, and the contributors cover such areas as: communication processes between governments; the media and the public; the nature of political journalism; the coverage of political campaigns, party conferences and other events; spin doctors; the tabloidization of news coverage; political advertising and internet campaigning; and direct action. Available as a companion Reader to Brian McNair's Introduction to Political Communication textbook, students will find The Political Communication Reader a valuable resource in this popular subject area.