Series: Contemporary Political Communication

How elections are reported has important implications for the health of democracy and informed citizenship. But, how informative are the news media during campaigns? What kind of logic do they follow? How well do they serve citizens? Based on original research as well as the most comprehensive assessment of election studies to date, Cushion and Thomas examine how campaigns are...

For successful political leaders, public speaking is only half the battle. A good politician must also be a competent performer. Whether facing critical questions in an interview, posturing in a leaders’ debate, or conversing on a daytime chat show, success is reliant upon a candidate’s ability to dramatically but authentically impart a strong individual identity. In this innovative analysis, Geoffrey...

In this new book, Mark Wheeler offers the first in-depth analysis of the history, nature and global reach of celebrity politics today. Celebrity politicians and politicised celebrities have had a profound impact upon the practice of politics and the way in which it is now communicated. New forms of political participation have emerged as a result, and the political classes...

It is often remarked that politicians’ private lives are becoming a feature of political communication in many advanced industrial democracies. However, there have so far been no genuinely comparative studies examining the personalised nature of political communication. Intimate Politics provides for the first time a systematic comparative analysis of such developments in Australia, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, the UK and...

The last quarter of a century has seen an unprecedented wave of democratization around the globe. In these transitions from authoritarian rule to a more democratic order, the media have played a key role both by facilitating, but frequently also inhibiting, democratic practices to take root. The Media in Transitional Democracies provides an accessible and systematic introduction to the media...