Skip to main content

The Spectacle of U.S. Senate Campaigns (9780691005041)



This book offers a bold, comprehensive look at how campaigns actually work, from the framing of issues to media coverage to voters' decisions. In so doing, it challenges the common wisdom that campaigns are a noisy, symbolic aspect of electoral politics, in which the outcomes are determined mainly by economic variables or presidential popularity. Campaigns, the authors argue, do matter in the political process. Examining contested U.S. Senate races between 1988 and 1992, Kim Kahn and Patrick Kenney explore the details of the candidates' strategies and messages, the content, tone, and bias of the media coverage, and the attitudes and behaviors of potential voters. Kahn and Kenney discover that when the competition between candidates is strong, political issues become clearly defined, and the voting population responds.

Through a mix of survey data, content analysis, and interviews, the authors demonstrate how competition influences serious political debates in elections. Candidates take stands and compare themselves to their opponents. The news media offer more coverage of the races, presenting evaluations of the candidates' positions, critiques of their political careers, and analyses of their campaign ads. In response, the voters pay closer attention to the rhetoric of the candidates as they learn more about central campaign themes, often adjusting their own voting criteria. The book concentrates on Senate races because of the variance in campaign strategy and spending, media coverage, and voter reactions, but many of the findings apply to elections at all levels.


Product details

  • Hardback | 256 pages
  • 197 x 254 x 19.05mm | 567g
  • New Jersey, United States
  • English
  • 0691005044
  • 9780691005041


Download The Spectacle of U.S. Senate Campaigns (9780691005041).pdf, available at moraysteinerschool.org for free.

DOWNLOAD

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Family Medici : The Hidden History of the Medici Dynasty (9781977355508)

Having founded the bank that became the most powerful in Europe in the fifteenth century, the Medici gained massive political power in Florence, raising the city to a peak of cultural achievement and becoming its hereditary dukes. Among their number were no fewer than three popes and a powerful and influential queen of France. Their influence brought about an explosion of Florentine art and architecture. Michelangelo, Donatello, Fra Angelico, and Leonardo were among the artists with whom they were socialized and patronized. Thus runs the "accepted view" of the Medici. However, Mary Hollingsworth argues that the idea that the Medici were enlightened rulers of the Renaissance is a fiction that has now acquired the status of historical fact. In truth, the Medici were as devious and immoral as the Borgias-tyrants loathed in the city they illegally made their own. In this dynamic new history, Hollingsworth argues that past narratives have focused on a sanitized and fictitious view...
Post a Comment
Read more

Guide to Rebuilding Public Sector Services in Stability Operations: A Role for the Military (9781304886910)

The guide is designed to provide peacekeepers with a thorough and nuanced understanding on the policy, planning, cultural and ethnic implications, tradeoffs, and options for public services reconstruction. It takes the position ultimately that the host government is responsible for public goods. Stability actors and host country governments can cooperate on policy, resource allocation, and service planning, even when the majority of services may initially be provided by nonstate or external actors, but the host country is in the lead. Issues addressed include control of corruption, administration of public services, policy, resource allocation and joint budgeting for restoration, reconstruction, and maintenance. Immediately after a conflict, the flight of skilled professionals may have left little capacity for public services restoration, making it a critical priority to rebuild capacity in engineering, planning, budgeting, and maintenance as well as to reestablish the revenue generati...
Post a Comment
Read more

Factfulness : Ten Reasons We're Wrong About The World - And Why Things Are Better Than You Think (9781473637467)

'A hopeful book about the potential for human progress when we work off facts rather than our inherent biases.' BARACK OBAMA The perfect Christmas gift: a message of hope for our troubled times. *the #1 Sunday Times bestseller * instant New York Times bestseller * an Observer 'best brainy book of the decade' * #1 Wall Street Journal bestseller * Irish Times bestseller * Audio bestseller * Guardian bestseller * ---Longlisted for the 2018 Financial Times/McKinsey Business Book of the Year--- 'One of the most important books I've ever read - an indispensable guide to thinking clearly about the world.' BILL GATES 'Hans Rosling tells the story of "the secret silent miracle of human progress" as only he can. But Factfulness does much more than that. It also explains why progress is so often secret and silent and teaches readers how to see it clearly.' MELINDA GATES Factfulness: The stress-reducing habit of only carrying opinions for which...
Post a Comment
Read more