Book
In-your-face politics : the consequences of uncivil media
Record details
- ISBN: 9780691165110
- ISBN: 0691165114
- ISBN: 9780691173535
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Physical Description:
print
xvii, 263 p. : ill. ; 25 cm - Publisher: Princeton, N.J. : Princeton University Press, [2015]
Content descriptions
| Bibliography, etc. Note: | Includes bibliographical reference and index. |
| Formatted Contents Note: | Machine generated contents note: ch. 1 What Is "In-Your-Face" Politics? -- pt. I What Difference Does It Make? The Effects of In-Your-Face Political Television -- ch. 2 The Consequences of In-Your-Face Politics for Arousal and Memory -- ch. 3 Effects on Public Perceptions of the Legitimacy of the Opposition -- ch. 4 The Costs of In-Your-Face Politics for Political Trust -- pt. II When Does In-Your-Face Politics Matter? -- ch. 5 Real-World Contexts -- ch. 6 Who Watches This Stuff Anyway? The Audience for In-Your-Face Politics -- pt. III Historical Implications for Political Television -- ch. 7 Does the Medium Matter? -- ch. 8 How Politics on Television Has Changed -- ch. 9 Making Politics Palatable: Political Television in an Era of Choice. |
Search for related items by subject
| Subject: | Television and politics Mass media -- Political aspects -- United States |
Available copies
- 1 of 1 copy available at Legislative Library.
Holds
- 0 current holds with 1 total copy.
| Location | Call Number / Copy Notes | Barcode | Shelving Location | Holdable? | Status | Due Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Legislative Library, Vaughan Street | P 95.8 Mut (Text) | 36970100009598 | General Collection | Volume hold | Available | - |
- Book News : Book News Reviews
Mutz offers a scholarly work that explores the nature of current political discourse and draws conclusions about the meaning and value of "in-your-face" politics. The material is divided into three parts. Part I, "What Difference Does It Make? The Effects of In-Your-Face Political Television," looks at the consequences of in-your-face politics for arousal and memory, effects on public perceptions of the opposition, and the costs in political trust. Part II, "When Does In-Your-Face Politics Matter?," considers various real-world contexts, and who is the audience for this kind of politics. Part III, "Historical Implications For Political Television," reports on experiments meant to distinguish whether the effects at issue are specific to television, and the way that visual content on television has changed. It also argues why it matters that people respond to in-your-face politics as if the politicians were present. Annotation ©2015 Ringgold, Inc., Portland, OR (protoview.com) - Choice Reviews : Choice Reviews 2015 October
Mutz (Univ. of Pennsylvania) offers an engagingly readable, data-rich work on mediated politics of a particular kind.  Her focus is upon television, long known to be most Americans' primary source of political information and here documented as the medium most capable of arousing positive and/or negative feelings about political phenomena.  The words in your face come with a double meaning in the context of political messaging via television.  TV carries the illusion that political actors are spatially much closer to viewers than they really are.  And jousting among political adversaries on television can reach levels of incivility that violate norms of everyday discourse in interpersonal relationships.  Drawing upon experiments and other methods she used, Mutz explains the impact of in-your-face elements upon viewer cognition and affect.  Although in your face is readily available from liberal as well as conservative television, its most typical consumer is a conservative white man.  In your face does make some contribution to democracy in attracting an audience and by informing viewers, especially about views of the opposition.  But there are very high costs in the form of polarization and loss of trust.  In-Your-Face Politics is strongly recommended for college and university libraries. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Lower-division undergraduates and above.
--J. D. Gillespie, College of Charleston
J. David Gillespie
College of Charleston
http://dx.doi.org/10.5860/CHOICE.192317
Copyright 2014 American Library Association. - Kirkus Reviews : Kirkus Reviews 2015 February #1
A prominent political scientist asks why politicians and political advocates so often seem like "nasty, boorish sorts who somehow feel they need not obey the same social norms as ordinary citizens."Observing George W. Bush's face on TV, Mutz (Political Science and Communication/Univ. of Penn.; Hearing the Other Side: Deliberative versus Participatory Democracy, 2006, etc.) realized that "[t]o obtain the same visual perspective in person, [one] would need to be either his lover or his dentist." With ample humor and sufficient exposition for a lay audience, she conducts and analyzes a series of experiments carefully crafted to study how extreme close-ups and uncivil behavior in political TV affect the public discourse. Unsurprisingly, the results suggest that incivility erodes trust in government: "[U]ncivil political exchanges prime people to think about less savory, more strongly disliked examples of politicians and politics. This, in turn, prompts them to evaluate the whole enterprise more negatively." Examining people's political viewing habits, Mutz finds that "Republicans are exposed to fewer programs [than Democrats], a much larger proportion of which are uncivil." (She does not make the connection that many Republican policies are themselves designed to limit the power and appeal of government, pointing to potential positive externalities of incivility for Republican actors.) Few of Mutz's conclusions are surprising, and the most entertaining chapter is the last, in which she proffers an assortment of delightfully bizarre remedies to the fact that "[f]or most people, politics on its own merits is not sufficiently excitingâ¦so it requires the drama and tension of uncivil human conflict to make it more interesting to watch." Taking a page from the Korean networks, perhaps election coverage should involve "animations based on popular movies and sporting events to show who [is] surging ahead or falling behind," or maybe candidates should c ompete on a season of Political Idol. An approachable yet scientifically rigorous look at what passes for political discourse in America. Copyright Kirkus 2015 Kirkus/BPI Communications.All rights reserved.
