University of Michigan Press
Electoral Campaigns, Media, and the New World of Digital Politics
Key Metrics
- David Taras
- University of Michigan Press
- Paperback
- 9780472055180
- -
- -
- Political Science > Political Process - Campaigns & Elections
- English
Secure TransactionBook Description
Today, political leaders and candidates for office must campaign in a multi-media world not only through the traditional media forums - newspapers, radio, and television - but also through new digital media, particularly social media. Electoral Campaigns, Media, and the New World of Digital Politics chronicles how Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, email, and memes are used successfully and unsuccessfully to influence elections. Each of these platforms have different affordances and reach different audiences in different ways and campaigns often have to wage different campaigns on each of these mediums. In some instances, they are crucial in altering coverage in the mainstream media. In others, digital media remains under-utilized and undeveloped. As has always been the case in politics, outcomes that depend on economic and social conditions often dictate people's readiness for certain messages. However, the method and content of those messages has changed with great consequences for the health and future of democracy.
This book answers several questions: How do candidates/parties reach audiences that are preoccupied, inattentive, amorphous and bombarded with so many other messages? How do they cope with the speed of media reporting in a continuous news cycle that demands instantaneous responses? How has media fragmentation altered the campaign styles and content of campaign communication, and general campaign discourse? Finally and most critically, what does this mean for how democracies function?
Author Bio
David Taras is professor of Communication Studies and holds the Ralph Klein Chair in Media Studies at Mount Royal University.
Before coming to Mount Royal, David taught at the University of Toronto, the University of Amsterdam and, most recently, the University of Calgary, where he served as the Ernest C. Manning Chair in Canadian Studies. While there, he received the Students' Union Award for Teaching Excellence five times and was inducted into the Teaching Excellence Awards Hall of Fame in 2011.
David received a PhD in Political Science from the University of Toronto and is a graduate of the Legislative Internship Program at Queen's Park.
He has served as an advisor to the Alberta government on national unity and as an expert advisor to the House of Commons Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage during its two-year review of Canadian broadcasting policy from 2001 to 2003.
He was president of the Canadian Communications Association and served two terms on the Board of Governors of the University of Calgary. He received the Alberta Centennial Medal in 2005.
A leading expert in the area of Canadian media policy and its relationship to Canadian identity and democracy, David is a regular commentator on Global TV's Morning News. He is the author of The Newsmakers: The Media's Influence on Canadian Politics and of Power & Betrayal in the Canadian Media. He is co-author of The Last Word: Media Coverage of the Supreme Court of Canada.
In addition, he has edited or co-edited more than a dozen books including three volumes in the How Canadians Communicate series, four editions of A Passion for Identity: Introduction to Canadian Studies and, most recently, Making a Difference: The Internet and Elections in Comparative Perspective.
A co-edited book, How Canadians Communicate IV: Media and Politics was published in 2012 and Media Shock and the Future of Canadian Democracy will be published in 2013.
Source: Mount Royal University
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