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.

Television news remains one of the most important sources of political information for British electorate. Political parties use the TV media to get their messages across. The annual conferences of the main political parties are now a well-established pub

Television news remains one of the most important sources of political information for British electorate. Political parties use the TV media to get their messages across. The annual conferences of the main political parties are now a well-established publicity opportunity designed with a national television audience of millions in mind. This book examines the way in which publicity conscious elites systematically manage conference proceedings and the broadcasters to ensure that their party and policies are portrayed in the best possible light. It outlines the planning of media operations and the implementation of news management techniques employed by party spin-doctors. The book provides an important analysis of the attitudes of news media professionals toward such a stage-managed event, in an increasingly competitive news environment. These professionals are driven by a need to maximize audiences and look for more newsworthy occurrences than the main events on stage. While not neglecting their duties in a regulated broadcast environment, they are wise to and cynical of party publicity gambits, and recognize that they are drawn into intra-party conflict and feuding both in the main arena and on the conference fringe. This book gives a unique insight into what effectively is a publicity game, in which each party and the broadcasters seek to pursue differing but overlapping goals. While both want coverage to attract audiences, there is a growing distrust of each other's motives. The parties feel that they increasingly have to direct coverage in order to get their message across. Broadcasters, with the viewer in mind, increasingly want to break out of such a management straitjacket and open their audiences' eyes to what they see as the 'true' conference story.