Media, Politics, and Democracy: In the Election Season
Monday, March 19, 2012 - 15:31
in Mathematics & Economics
What role do Bill O'Reilly, Rachel Maddow, Sean Hannity, and Jon Stewart play in shaping public opinion during an election? Is their impact positive or negative? Professor Eleanor Townsley, an expert on the role and influence of media opinion expressed on television and radio shows and in print, recently wrote The Space of Opinion, Media, Intellectuals and the Public Sphere (co-authored with Ron Jacobs, Oxford, 2011). Looking at the growing influence and partisanship of opinion formats in political journalism, she argues these formats are not necessarily bad for democracy.