Books Received
W. Lance
Bennett
News: The Politics of Illusion, 4th ed.
New York: Longman,
2001. $37.90 (paper), ISBN 0-8013-1921.
Like the previous three editions of News: The Politics of Illusion, the new edition describes the changing nature of the news and its relationship to American politics. Developments such as fragmentation of the news audience, emerging new technologies, increased audience targeting, growing negativity and cynicism in journalism, and the growing news reform movement are analyzed as important new components of news in its social and economic contexts. In addition, Bennett examines media corporation mergers, the effects of the 1996 Telecommunications Act, and differences in the use of the Internet and other news media.
Kathleen
Hall Jamieson
Everything You Think You Know About Politics . . . And Why You're Wrong.
New York: Basic Books, 2000. 287 pages.
$39.95 (cloth), ISBN 0-8138-2940-2; $15 (paper), ISBN 0-465-03627-9.
As if in anticipation of the 2000 U.S. presidential election, Jamieson announces the news in her title. The book combines a variety of chapters, some only a page or two, some involving longer case studies, along with table and graphs, cartoons, and quotations from transcripts, to show how the common knowledge of political campaigns often gets things backwards. Jamieson begins with a quiz (with answers supplied on the next page) that will immediately get readers scratching their heads about the prvailing political wisdom.
Robert D.Putnam
Bowling Alone:
The Collapse and Revival of American Community.
New York: Simon
& Schuster, 2000. $26 (cloth) ISBN 0-684-83283-6.
Tocqueville noted the widespread associationism in nineteenth century America, and Weber witnessed the shift from religious sectarian affiliation to benevolent civic association at that century's end. A century later Putnam has now observed a shift, this time away from membership and participation in many sorts of voluntary groups. He points to television as one of several factors leading toward privatization of once-public life.