Review of Michael Schudson, \u3cem\u3eThe Good Citizen: A History of American Civic Life\u3c/em\u3e

In his important and provocative book, The Good Citizen, Michael Schudson argues that there have been four distinct eras of American civic life, each characterized by a different model of citizenship. In the first era, roughly corresponding to the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, citizens deferred to the leadership of political elites, and civic responsibility consisted mainly of affirming the legitimacy of this ruling caste. In the second era, in place throughout the remainder of the nineteenth century, citizens played a more central role, though one orchestrated by strong local party organizations that mobilized the masses through patronage, entertainment, and other individual, material rewards rather than through detailed appeals to ideology or issues

An Overview of the State of Citizens\u27 Knowledge About Politics

In a letter to W. T. Barry, James Madison wrote that a popular government, without popular information or the means of acquiring it, is but a prologue to a farce or a tragedy, or perhaps both. Much like Madison\u27s words to Barry, the title of this book Communicating Politics: Engaging the Public in Democratic Life-is based on two principal assumptions: that an informed public is crucial to democracy; and that the key to assuring such a public is the availability of engaging yet informative and accessible campaign communication. While many of the studies and essays contained in this volume are devoted to assessing, and making recommendations for improving, the current state of campaign communication, this chapter provides an overview of what Americans know about politics and why it matters. The information presented here draws heavily from my previous work in this area (Delli Carpini & Keeter, 1996). The literature on political knowledge provides fairly compelling evidence for five characterizations regarding what Americans know: (1) the average American is poorly informed but not uninformed; (2) aggregate levels of political knowledge have remained relatively stable over the past 50 years; (3) Americans appear to be slightly less informed about politics than are citizens of other comparable nations; (4) average levels of knowledge mask important differences across groups; and (5) knowledge is tied to many attributes of good citizenship

The Tasks in Creating a New Journalism

Journalism is not going to disappear. As author Michael Schudson observed, if there were not journalists, we’d have to invent them. The real issue is what journalism will look like and if it — and the larger media environment of which it is a part — will ably serve our democracy

In Search of the Information Citizen: What Americans Know About Politics and Why It Matters

In The Good Citizen, Michael Schudson describes four interconnected but ultimately distinct eras of American civic life, each characterized by the dominance of a particular model of citizenship. In the first era, roughly corresponding to the 18th and early 19th centuries, citizens deferred to the leadership of political elites – civic responsibility consisted mainly of affirming the legitimacy of this ruling caste. The second era, in place throughout the remainder of the 19th century, was characterized by the dominance of political parties. In this period, citizens played a more central role, though this role was orchestrated by strong local party organizations that mobilized the masses through the tangible incentives of patronage, entertainment and other individual, material rewards rather than through detailed appeals to ideology or issues

Scooping the Voters? The Consequences of the Networks\u27 Early Call of the 1980 Presidential Race

The election projection of the 1980 presidential contest by NBC raised much speculation concerning its possible impact on voting in states where the polls were still open. Research on the subject has started from different assumptions, used different data and methods, and come to different conclusions concerning the real-world effects of such early calls. Using district-level voting and demographic data and focusing on deviations from normal voting patterns, this study finds the early call to have had a small but measurable impact on presidential and congressional turnout, and a somewhat larger impact on depressing the vote for Democratic candidates at both levels. In addition, higher income, white collar, and better educated populations appear to have been affected to a greater extent. While the overall impact was too small to have affected the outcome of the presidential race, at the congressional level as many as fourteen races were won by margins smaller than the estimated impact of the early call in those districts

Voters, Candidates, and Campaigns in the New Information Age

New information technologies are slowly changing the conduct of campaigns and elections in the United States. This article provides an overview and synthesis of extant research on the use of this technology by candidates, journalists, and voters and discusses the implications for elections and democratic governance in the United States

Black Panther Party: 1966-1982

The Black Panther party was founded in Oakland, California, in 1966. From its beginnings as a local, community organization with a handful of members, it expanded into a national and international party. By 1980, however, the Black Panther party was once again mainly an Oakland-based organization, with no more than fifty active members. In 1982, the party came to an official end. Despite its relatively short history, its modest membership, and its general eschewing of electoral politics, the Black Panther party was arguably the best known and most controversial of the black militant political organizations of the 1960s, with a legacy that continues to this day

Monica and Bill All the Time and Everywhere

This article argues that by providing virtually unlimited sources of political information, the new media environment undermines the idea that there are discrete gates through which political information passes: If there are no gates, there can be no gatekeepers. The difficulty of elites (political and media both) and academics in understanding the Lewinsky scandal stems from their failure to recognize the increasingly limited ability of journalists to act as gatekeepers. The disjuncture between elite attempts to both control and understand the scandal on one hand and the conclusions the public drew about this political spectacle on other hand speaks to some fundamental changes that have occurred in the role of the press in American society in the late 20th century

Radio\u27s Political Past

The history of radio is inextricably suffused with politics. Though licensed experimental stations were transmitting as early as 1916, the first scheduled and advertised radio program in America-broadcast on November 2, 1920, from Pittsburgh\u27s KDKA-was an 18-hour marathon on the election returns of the Harding-Cox presidential race. Over the following months, KDKA broadcast numerous other civic-oriented programs. In November 1921, radio beamed the voice of the .U.S. president overseas for the first time when RCA\u27s powerful Port Jefferson, Long Island, station went on the air with an international address by President Harding that was heard by radio listeners in Europe, Japan, Australia and Central and South America. While Harding was the fi rst president to use radio as a means of political communication, Calvin Coolidge - who succeeded Harding on his death in August 1923 - was more adept at it, a fact Coolidge recognized. I am very fortunate that I came in with the radio, Coolidge commented. I can\u27t make an engaging, rousing or oratorical speech...but I have a good radio voice, and now I can get my message across to [the public] without acquainting them with my lack of oratorical ability