Political communication scholars often mark the increasing popularity of electronically broadcast news film as a dividing line between a text-based information culture that survived through World War II and a visually oriented electronic information culture that was in place by the late 1960s.Yet this standard view is incomplete, for it neglects a forgotten but extremely popular worldwide system of visual news reporting based on documentary film shorts.

The choice to seek out political information is a function both of the individual traits of consumers and of the supply of news content in particular media markets, but previous research has tended to focus only on the individual-level correlates of news exposure. This article explores how the size and complexity of local information markets influence levels of exposure to local, network, and cable television news, as well as exposure to talk radio, online news sources, and daily newspapers.

This article explores the sources of the Bush administration’s decision to embed reporters in military units to cover real-time, frontline combat for the 2003 invasion of Iraq. In doing so, the authors have two primary goals. First, the administration’s embrace of the embedded reporter program is explained by reference to events transpiring during the war in Afghanistan, the communication technologies at the disposal of the media, and the policymaking context in which the U.S. Department of Defense determined its media-management strategy.

The Cline Center for Democracy at the University of Illinois recently released a study chronicling systematic revisions to official presidential press releases on the White House website listing the members of the Coalition of the Willing that backed United States military action in Iraq. Although these archived press releases are presented as original and unaltered documents, three list documents underwent a series of content revisions. In total, the documents were altered at least seven different times, with three countries added and one removed.

The turnout literature has identified individual, social, and institutional factors that increase citizen voting. Our article shows that local television market size also affects turnout. Larger television markets tend to give disproportionate attention to higher-level races involving statewide or national offices. Because voters in larger markets should be exposed to less information about the lower-ticket races in which they are eligible to vote, we expect market size to affect levels of turnout.

Empirical research on public opinion has tended to misjudge the normative rationales for modern democracy. Although it is often presumed that citizens' policy preferences are the opinions of interest to democratic theorists, and that democracy requires a highly informed citizenry, neither of these premises represents a dominant position in mainstream democratic theory. Besides incorrect assumptions about major tenets of democratic theory, empirical research on civic engagement is running into dead ends that will require normative analysis to overcome.

Empirical research on public opinion has tended to misjudge the normative rationales for modern democracy. Although it is often presumed that citizens' policy preferences are the opinions of interest to democratic theorists, and that democracy requires a highly informed citizenry, neither of these premises represents a dominant position in mainstream democratic theory. Besides incorrect assumptions about major tenets of democratic theory, empirical research on civic engagement is running into dead ends that will require normative analysis to overcome.

The health of democracy rests on the vigilance of its citizens, and democracy works best when citizens pay attention to the governing process. Different models of democracy envision different roles for citizens to fulfill, but every theory of democracy agrees that the most basic role of the citizen is to hold leaders accountable for what they have done or intend to do. Yet we know little about the conditions under which citizens are most likely to exercise such vigilance by going out and seeking political information.

Online research report detailing pattern of deletion and revision of documents in the public record by the Bush White House