Opinion Polls and the Media provides the most comprehensive analysis to date on the relationship between the media, opinion polls, and public opinion. Looking at the extent to which the media, through their use of opinion polls, both reflect and shape public opinion, it brings together a team of leading scholars and analyzes theoretical and methodological approaches to the media and their use of opinion polls. The contributors explore how the media use opinion polls in a range of countries across the world, and analyze the effects and uses of opinion polls by the public as well as political actors.

A sobering look at the intimate relationship between political power and the news media, When the Press Fails argues the dependence of reporters on official sources disastrously thwarts coverage of dissenting voices from outside the Beltway. The result is both an indictment of official spin and an urgent call to action that questions why the mainstream press failed to challenge the Bush administration’s arguments for an invasion of Iraq or to illuminate administration policies underlying the Abu Ghraib controversy. Drawing on revealing interviews with Washington insiders and analysis of content from major news outlets, the authors illustrate the media’s unilateral surrender to White House spin whenever oppositional voices elsewhere in government fall silent. Contrasting these grave failures with the refreshingly critical reporting on Hurricane Katrina—a rare event that caught officials off guard, enabling journalists to enter a no-spin zone—When the Press Fails concludes by proposing new practices to reduce reporters’ dependence on power. “The hand-in-glove relationship of the U.S. media with the White House is mercilessly exposed in this determined and disheartening study that repeatedly reveals how the press has toed the official line at those moments when its independence was most needed.”—George Pendle, Financial Times “Bennett, Lawrence, and Livingston are indisputably right about the news media’s dereliction in covering the administration’s campaign to take the nation to war against Iraq.”—Don Wycliff, Chicago Tribune “[This] analysis of the weaknesses of Washington journalism deserves close attention.”—Russell Baker, New York Review of Books

Since the election of Richard Nixon in 1968 to Donald Trump’s victory in 2016, both presidential campaigns and television news have undergone significant changes, perhaps most noticeably in the use of public opinion polls in campaign reporting by the national evening newscasts of ABC, CBS, and NBC. The Influence of Polls on Television News Coverage of Presidential Campaigns explores how during the past 50 years the three networks have quadrupled their use of polls during general election campaigns while the amount of time spent covering the actual issues facing the nation has dwindled. The increasing focus on polls over the years by television news has resulted in an overall diminished quality of journalism which is relying more and more on sensationalism and theatrics. The competition between the candidates has become a central focus of reporting, which has led to presidential campaigns being covered like sporting events. Major party candidates are portrayed increasingly less like potential leaders of the free world and more like athletes who are winning or losing a ballgame. The problem is not exit polls prematurely projecting a winner several hours before voting ends, but pre-election polls which do the same thing weeks before Election Day. Recommended for scholars interested in communication, political science, history, and sociology.

In a campaign for state or local office these days, you’re as likely today to hear accusations that an opponent advanced Obamacare or supported Donald Trump as you are to hear about issues affecting the state or local community. This is because American political behavior has become substantially more nationalized. American voters are far more engaged with and knowledgeable about what’s happening in Washington, DC, than in similar messages whether they are in the South, the Northeast, or the Midwest. Gone are the days when all politics was local. With The Increasingly United States, Daniel J. Hopkins explores this trend and its implications for the American political system. The change is significant in part because it works against a key rationale of America’s federalist system, which was built on the assumption that citizens would be more strongly attached to their states and localities. It also has profound implications for how voters are represented. If voters are well informed about state politics, for example, the governor has an incentive to deliver what voters—or at least a pivotal segment of them—want. But if voters are likely to back the same party in gubernatorial as in presidential elections irrespective of the governor’s actions in office, governors may instead come to see their ambitions as tethered more closely to their status in the national party.

This book analyses the coverage of elections that occurred between September 2015 and February 2016 in six European countries (Greece, Portugal, Poland, Croatia, Spain and Ireland). The sample examined includes all news stories published during the official electoral campaign in different types of media outlets: three newspapers per country covering centre-left and centre-right wing political leaning, as well as reference and tabloid papers; three main television news broadcasts covering commercial/private and public broadcast television channels; and three papers that are published only online, taking into account their levels of audience and importance within each national media and political system. The book also examines different connections to the EU and to the Euro Crisis. Questions such as the following guide the overall analysis: In what ways is news election coverage similar and different in these countries? Which issues are mostly covered by the news media and how? Are there patterns of election news coverage in these six European countries? This book is indispensable reading for researchers and students in the field of the media coverage of election campaigns, political communication and populism. Chapters 4 and 8 are available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License via link.springer.com.

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?e 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.