Political Communication and Social Theory

"'Davis skilfully blends social theory with a wealth of "insider" accounts from senior politicians and journalists to produce a classic text which sets a new benchmark for political communication scholarship.'-Bob Franklin, Professor of Journalism Studies, Cardiff School of Journalism, Media and Cultural Studies, UK. 'Davis brilliant new book is an engaging, lucid, and original tour d'horizon of political communication.'-Rodney Benson, Associate Professor of Media, Culture and Communication, New York University, USA. 'Davis's book could hardly be more timely ... Invaluable not only to students and researchers, but to practitioners in the media and in the political system.'-Michael Moran, Professor of Government, University of Manchester, UK. Political Communication and Social Theory presents and Advanced and challenging text for students and scholars of political communication and mass media in democracies. It draws together work from across political communication, media sociology and political sociology, and includes a mix of theoretical debate and current examples from several democratic media systems. Its wide-ranging discussions both introduce and contest the traditional scholarship on a number of contemporary topics. These include comparative political and media systems; theories of democracy, representation and the public sphere; political party communication, marketing and elections; the production of news media and public policy; media sociology and journalist-source relations; celebrity politics, popular culture and political leadership; new media and online democracy; national-global politics and international political communication; foreign policy-making, war and media; and the crisis of public communication in established democracies. At the same time, Political Communication and Social Theory offers a fascinating investigation of the causes of crisis in established political and media systems. In today's democracies, trust in politicians, state in