After Broadcast News Media Regimes, Democracy, and the New Information Environment

The new media environment has challenged the role of professional journalists as the primary source of politically relevant information. After Broadcast News puts this challenge into historical context, arguing that it is the latest of several critical moments, driven by economic, political, cultural and technological changes, in which the relationship among citizens, political elites and the media has been contested. Out of these past moments, distinct 'media regimes' eventually emerged, each with its own seemingly natural rules and norms, and each the result of political struggle with clear winners and losers. The media regime in place for the latter half of the twentieth century has been dismantled, but a new regime has yet to emerge. Assuring this regime is a democratic one requires serious consideration of what was most beneficial and most problematic about past regimes and what is potentially most beneficial and most problematic about today's new information environment.

1. Is there a difference between Tina Fey and Katie Couric?: policing the boundaries between news and entertainment; 2. Media regimes and American democracy; 3. And that's the way it (was): the rise and fall of the age of broadcast news; 4. Political reality, political power and political relevance in the changing media environment; 5. Politics in the emerging new media age: hyperreality, multiaxiality, and 'the Clinton scandals'; 6. When the media really matter: coverage of the environment in a changing media environment; 7. 9/11 and its aftermath: constructing a political spectacle in the new media environment; 8. Shaping a new media regime.

Most people assume professional journalists are the legitimate source for political information and that the role of 'good' citizens is to watch, read or listen to the news. While this model has some valuable aspects, it also has very narrow notions of politically relevant information and the role of citizens.

Bruce A. Williams teaches in the Department of Media Studies at the University of Virginia. He received his Ph.D. in political science from the University of Minnesota and has taught at the Pennsylvania State University, the University of Michigan, the University of Illinois and the London School of Economics. He has published four books and more than forty scholarly journal articles and book chapters. His book Democracy, Dialogue, and Environmental Disputes: The Contested Languages of Social Regulation (with Albert Matheny) won the Caldwell Prize as best book for 1996 from the Science, Technology, and Environmental Politics section of the American Political Science Association. His textbook, The Play of Power: An Introduction to American Politics (with James Eisenstein, Mark Kessler and Jacqueline Switzer), was selected by the Women's Caucus of the American Political Science Association in 1997 as the political science text that best deals with women's issues and diversity. His most recent book is The New Media Environment: An Introduction (with Andrea L. Press). Also with Andrea Press, he is the editor of The Communication Review. Over the last five years, he has been active in a number of initiatives in the area of media policy and ethics.
Michael X. Delli Carpini, Dean of the Annenberg School for Communication, received his B.A. and M.A. from the University of Pennsylvania (1975) and his Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota (1980). Prior to joining the University of Pennsylvania faculty in July 2003, Professor Delli Carpini was Director of the Public Policy program of the Pew Charitable Trusts (1999–2003) and a member of the Political Science Department at Barnard College and the graduate faculty of Columbia University (1987–2002), serving as chair of the Barnard department from 1995 to 1999. Delli Carpini began his academic career as an Assistant Professor in the Political Science Department at Rutgers University (1980–7). His research explores the role of the citizen in American politics, with particular emphasis on the impact of the mass media on public opinion, political knowledge and political participation. He is author of Stability and Change in American Politics: The Coming of Age of the Generation of the 1960s; What Americans Know about Politics and Why It Matters (winner of the 2008 American Association of Public Opinion Researchers Book Award); A New Engagement? Political Participation, Civic Life and the Changing American Citizen; and Talking Together: Public Deliberation and Political Participation in America. He has also authored or edited numerous articles, essays and edited volumes on political communications, public opinion and political socialization. Professor Delli Carpini was awarded the 2008 Murray Edelman Distinguished Career Award from the Political Communication Division of the American Political Science Association.