 October, 2011 Social Media
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The Flow of Political Information in the Digital Age: What's Better and What's Worse? | ||
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Please click below to see comments from the roundtable participants: Scott L. Althaus, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Michael X. Delli Carpini, University of Pennsylvania and Bruce A. Williams, University of Virginia Shanto Iyengar, Stanford University W. Russell Neumann, University of Michigan Gadi Wolfsfeld, Hebrew University Introduction from Chair Gadi Wolfsfeld It is clear that the digital age has led to some important changes in the way the public receives political information. On the one hand, citizens, especially engaged citizens, have a wealth of different possibilities for obtaining political information due to the creation of a multitude of new channels that provide access to a wide variety of sources and perspectives. In addition, new technology turns every member of the public into a potential journalist able to film and record events as they happen and distribute them to a large audience. Some argue that having more information flowing from the bottom-up provides the traditional news media with greater independence as journalists have less need to rely on stories initiated and framed by government officials. At the same time, many researchers also are talking about some of the negative consequences of the new communication technology. There is an increasing fragmentation of the audience as an increasing number of citizens find comfort staying within informational communities with a partisan view of the political world. Given that a good deal of the rhetoric in such communities consists of caustic attacks on political rivals such a development may be leading to a rise in the level of political hate and intolerance. A related concern has to do with the increasing economic difficulties the traditional mass media face in an increasingly competitive news market. As news organizations are forced to cut operating costs, they have little choice but to lower or eliminate the expenses associated with the production of news stories that involve investigative reporting, foreign news, or other more demanding forms of journalism. This roundtable dealt with these issues by thinking about what current theories and research in political communication has to say. The goal of the session was to share some insights about our current state of knowledge, to think about the types of questions we should be asking, and to suggest some methodological approaches for trying to answer them.
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