This book assembles what political scientists, sociologists, and communication analysts have learned in almost six decades of research on political socialization (the lifelong process by which we acquire political beliefs). It also explores how people develop political values, attitudes, identities, and behavioral dispositions. Of particular interest to Philo C. Wasburn and Tawnya J. Adkins Covert is the process by which people are made into active citizens who are politically interested, informed, partisan, tolerant, and engaged. Finally, Wasburn and Adkins Covert identify some suggestions for institutional change that would lead to "better" citizenship.

Manipulating Images: World War II Mobilization of Women through Magazine Advertising explores gendered and class-based representations of American women in women's magazine advertisements published during the period surrounding the Second World War. Focusing on the interrelationships among political, economic, and social forces in the construction of prevailing cultural images and gender roles for women in society, the book examines both the process of creating and the resulting content of wartime mobilization messages found in magazine advertising aimed at American women. The unique circumstances of the Second World War provide a window where the continuous, but normally implicit interactions among the social forces which construct class-differentiated gendered expectations for women in society are revealed, recorded, and made accessible for study. During this period, the federal government altered the prevailing media representations of women and women's roles in response to widespread labor shortages stemming from the movement of male workers into the armed forces and increased demand for military and consumer goods. The advertising industry, business leaders, and media representatives cooperated with the federal government in the creation of labor mobilization and other wartime campaigns. Two types of data are examined to assess the changing nature of the relationships among government, business, and media and the resulting media images and messages regarding women's roles. First, the study explores archived government documents that illuminate the relationships among government, business, and media as they responded to the needs and conditions of war. Second, this book examines advertisements published in women's magazines before, during, and following the Second World War.

Media Bias? addresses the question: To what extent can mainstream news media be characterized as "conservative" or "liberal"? The study involves a systematic comparative analysis of the coverage given to major domestic social issues from 1975 to 2000 by two mainstream newsmagazines, Newsweek and Time, and two explicitly partisan publications, the conservative National Review and the liberal Progressive. Working from the idea that some biased accounts of social issues can perform several positive functions for the maintenance and vitality of political democracy, Adkins Covert and Wasburn offer a new methodology for analyzing bias empirically, one that is capable of producing valid and reliable findings. They begin by defining the meaning of "bias" and discuss possible methods of measuring media bias empirically and systematically. By comparing each publication's coverage on poverty, crime, the environment, and gender-issues in which the line between the conservative and liberal positions are clearly delineated-the authors consider both the positive and negative consequences of media bias and how the bias plays out within a media-conscious democratic society.

Media Bias? addresses the question: To what extent can mainstream news media be characterized as 'conservative' or 'liberal'? The study involves a systematic comparative analysis of the coverage given to major domestic social issues from 1975 to 2000 by two mainstream newsmagazines, Newsweek and Time, and two explicitly partisan publications, the conservative National Review and the liberal Progressive. Working from the idea that some biased accounts of social issues can perform several positive functions for the maintenance and vitality of political democracy, Adkins Covert and Wasburn offer a new methodology for analyzing bias empirically, one that is capable of producing valid and reliable findings. They begin by defining the meaning of 'bias' and discuss possible methods of measuring media bias empirically and systematically. By comparing each publication's coverage on poverty, crime, the environment, and gender-issues in which the line between the conservative and liberal positions are clearly delineated-the authors consider both the positive and negative consequences of media bias and how the bias plays out within a media-conscious democratic society.

This book assembles what political scientists, sociologists, and communication analysts have learned in almost six decades of research on political socialization (the lifelong process by which we acquire political beliefs). It also explores how people develop political values, attitudes, identities, and behavioral dispositions. Of particular interest to Philo C. Wasburn and Tawnya J. Adkins Covert is the process by which people are made into active citizens who are politically interested, informed, partisan, tolerant, and engaged. Finally, Wasburn and Adkins Covert identify some suggestions for institutional change that would lead to "better" citizenship.