Mass Media and Political Thought

Résumé du livre

This collection of original, state-of-the-art research on the cognitive psychology of political communication addresses the central question of how individuals process political information. Using a model developed by the editors, political information processing is examined in several stages: (1) voters' ability to process political information; (2) voters' motivation to process such information; (3) the effects of political messages; and (4) the impact of these processes and effects on the polity. The contributors' approaches to the investigation of information processing represent a broad spectrum of methodologies and disciplinary perspectives; ranging from the macrosociological to microcognitive to affective. All reflect the central beliefs that voters play an active role in the construction of political reality and that cognitive processes do help explain why communication has certain types of effects and why they minimize media influence.