Echo Chamber: Rush Limbaugh and the Conservative Media Establishment

by Kathleen Hall Jamieson, Joseph N. Cappella

Overview

Kathleen Hall Jamieson and Joseph Cappella-two of the nation's foremost experts on politics and media-offers a searching analysis of the conservative media establishment, from talk radio to Fox News to the editorial page of The Wall Street Journal. Echo Chamber is the first serious account of how the conservative media arose, what it consists of, and how it operates. Jamieson and Cappella find that Limbaugh, Fox News, and The Wall Street Journal opinion pages create a self-protective enclave for conservatives, shielding them from other information sources and promoting highly negative views toward conservatism's political opponents. A thoughtful and incisive study, Echo Chamber offers the most authoritative and insightful account of this revolutionary phenomenon and its indelible effect on the American political landscape.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780195398601
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	01/15/2010
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	320
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Kathleen Hall Jamieson is Director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center, which runs FactCheck.org. Her books include unSpun, Capturing Campaign Dynamics, and The Press Effect.

Joseph N. Cappella is Gerard R. Miller Chair at the Annenberg School for Communication, University of Pennsylvania. A nationally recognized communications theorist, he is a past president of the International Communications Association and the co-author (with Kathleen Hall Jamieson) of the award-winning Spiral of Cynicism: The Press and the Public Good.

Table of Contents

Preface

1. How the Conservative Opinion Media Attack the Democratic Opposition

2. How the Conservative Opinion Media Defend Conservatism

3. Conservative Opinion Media: The Players

4. The Conservative Opinion Media as Opponents of Liberalism and Custodians of the Reagan Narrative

5. Effects of an Echo Chamber

6. Speaking to the Republican Base: An Analysis of Conservative Media's Audience

7. Vetting Candidates for Office

8. Stirring Emotion to Mobilize Engagement

9. Framing and Reframing the Mainstream Media

10. Engendering and Reinforcing Distrust of Mainstream Media

11. Defining and Defending an Insular Interpretive Community

12. Balkanization of Knowledge and Interpretation

13. Distortion and Polarization

14. Conclusion: Echo Chamber: Cause for Concern or Celebration?

Afterward

Notes

Index

Preface
1. How the Conservative Media Attack the Democratic Opposition
2. How the Conservative Opinion Media Defend Conservatism
3. Conservative Opinion Media: The Players
4. The Conservative Opinion Media as Opponents of Liberalism and Custodians of the Reagan Narrative
5. Effects of an Echo Chamber
6. Speaking to the Republican Base: An Analysis of Conservative Media's Audience
7. Vetting Candidates for Office
8. Stirring Emotion to Mobilize Engagement
9. Framing and Reframing the Mainstream Media
10. Engendering and Reinforcing Distrust of Mainstream Media
11. Defining and Defending an Insular Interpretive Community
12. Balkanization of Knowledge and Interpretation
13. Distortion and Polarization
14. Conclusion: Echo Chamber: Cause for Concern or Celebration?
Afterward
Notes
Index

Editorial Reviews

"Readers seeking a carefully researched view of the changing face of news media will be rewarded for their efforts."—Publishers Weekly

"Fascinating, illuminating, fun—and also a little scary. Highly recommended, even indispensable, reading for anyone who wants a clear understanding of the current relationship between the media and democratic self-government."—Cass R. Sunstein, Harvard Law School and author of Republic.com 2.0

"Echo Chamber is powerful, original and an antidote to the 'swift-boating' that poisons our democracy. It is the latest in a series of groundbreaking studies in which Kathleen Hall Jamieson has revealed the inner workings and impact of the forces that shape public opinion and political outcomes in America. Now Jamieson and Joseph Cappella brilliantly pull back the curtain on the right-wing media imperium."—Bob Shrum, author of No Excuses: Concessions of a Serial Campaigner

From the Publisher

In this heavily researched analysis of the conservative media establishment, Jamieson and Cappella (coauthors of Spiral of Cynicism) contend that Rush Limbaugh, the opinion pages of the Wall Street Journal and "key players" at Fox News share evidence, arguments and "tactical approaches in their defense of conservatism and their attack on its opponents." The authors argue that these three news outlets disseminate Reagan-era conservatism by creating a "common roguesa' gallery of enemies," which they fight by forming an "echo chamber"-a "bounded, enclosed media space that has the potential to both magnify the messages delivered within it and insulate them from rebuttal," turning audiences into a "balkanized cohort." The authors take pains to note that they are not arguing that "the conservative media menace the countrya's well-being"; rather, they are interested in the way changing media influence contemporary electoral politics. Their highly academic approach and chart- and citation-laden narration might be slow and difficult reading for those unfamiliar with the social sciences. However, readers seeking a carefully researched view of the changing face of news media will be rewarded for their efforts. (Aug.)

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