[ecrea] New book: Reporting Elections: Rethinking the Logic of Campaign Coverage

Reporting Elections: Rethinking the Logic of Campaign Coverage


Stephen Cushion and Richard Thomas


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 reported in many advanced Western democracies. 
In doing so, they engage with debates about the mediatization of 
politics, media systems, information environments, media ownership, 
regulation, political news, horserace journalism, objectivity, 
impartiality, agenda-setting, and the relationship between media and 
democracy more generally. Focusing on the most recent US and UK election 
campaigns, they consider how the logic of election coverage could be 
rethought in ways that better serve the democratic needs of citizens. 
Above all, they argue that election reporting should be driven by a 
public logic, where the agenda of voters takes centre stage in the 
campaign and the policies of respective political parties receive more 
airtime and independent scrutiny. The book is essential reading for 
scholars and students in political communication and journalism studies, 
political science, media and communication studies.


https://www.amazon.co.uk/Reporting-Elections-Rethinking-Contemporary-Communication/dp/1509517510


List of Tables and Figures

Introduction: Studying Elections

Chapter One: Setting the Campaign Agenda

Chapter Two: Reporting Election Campaigns

Chapter Three: Making Sense of Horserace Reporting

Chapter Four: Regulating Balance and Impartiality

Chapter Five: The Trumpification of Election News

Conclusion: Rethinking Election Reporting

Reviews


"Thoroughly researched and well written, this is a major addition to the 
agenda-setting library, a nuanced, empirically grounded presentation of 
the key elements that define the political, media and public agendas 
during elections. For journalists, citizens and political communication 
practitioners, Reporting Elections is a comprehensive handbook for 
understanding elections and improving the electoral process. For 
scholars, it is an invaluable guide to gaps in our knowledge, 
identifying productive research areas for further explicating the links 
among the political, media and public agendas."


Maxwell McCombs, University of Texas at Austin

"Cushion and Thomas' cross-national treatment of 'air wars' during 
election campaigns provides lots of meat for scholars and students to 
absorb and ponder - about influences on their coverage, political and 
media actors' strategies and logics, explanatory concepts, available 
data sets and literature references, and issues for democracy, including 
'post-truth politics'."


Jay Blumler, University of Leeds

"This book provides an excellent and comprehensive analysis of more than 
100 national and comparative studies of election news reporting. It also 
makes a significant original contribution in its own right, drawing on 
the authors' extensive empirical work in this area. Through the detail 
of their analysis, Stephen Cushion and Richard Thomas demonstrate the 
enduring electoral significance of mainstream news media, particularly 
broadcasting, and highlight troubling questions about the dynamics that 
drive the formation of contemporary election-reporting. This 
clear-sighted interrogation of the democratic performance of news 
organisations across several national and electoral contexts is of 
enormous value."


David Deacon, Professor of Communication and Media Analysis, Centre for 
Research in Communication and Culture, Loughborough University


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