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Democracy without Citizens

Media and the Decay of American Politics

Robert M Entman author

Format:Paperback

Publisher:Oxford University Press Inc

Published:15th Aug '91

Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back

Democracy without Citizens cover

This trenchant analysis questions why the interaction between the news media and their audiences fails to create the democratic potential everyone assumes occurs with such interaction. Drawing illustrations mainly from the Carter and Reagan years, the book presents a clear statement of the dilemmas facing the news media and their audience today. The book offers a portrait of citizenship in America, defined by the public's changing levels of political knowledge and participation from 1952 to 1984. Politically unsophisticated, the mass audience prefers simple, symbolic news, which means that journalists can offer little of the detached, detailed explorations of policy issues that would provide the public with the information needed to hold government to close account.

An important contribution to our understanding of both the role and limitations of the press in advancing the democratic agenda. * Marvin Kalb, Harvard University *
Entman's study shows how media-fed demagogy robs citizens of essential information. It also provides a guide through - and possibly out of - the contemporary dilemma of American democracy. * George Gerbner, Dean Annenburg School of Communications, University of Penn. *
Entman contributes some original criticism to the old debate, constructing arguments that will be more difficult to dismiss, for they avoid scapegoating politicians, media managers as greedy, or readers and viewers as apathetic... Democracy Without Citizens is, on the whole, an unusual departure from an often partisan and predictable body of literature. * Philadelphia Inquirer *

ISBN: 9780195065763

Dimensions: 203mm x 135mm x 14mm

Weight: 222g

256 pages