Colin Sparks’s scientific contributions

Mediated Politics explores the changing media environments in contemporary democracy: the internet, the decline of network news and the daily newspaper; the growing tendency to treat election campaigns as competing product advertisements; the blurring lines between news, ads, and entertainment. By combining new developments in political communication with core questions about politics and policy, a distinguished roster of international scholars offers new perspectives and directions for further study. Several broad questions emerge from the book: with ever-increasing media outlets creating more specialized segments, what happens to broader issues? Are there implications for a sense of community? Should media give people only what they want, or also what they need to be good citizens? These and other tensions created by the changing nature of political communication are covered in sections on the changing public sphere; shifts in the nature of political communication; the new shape of public opinion; transformations of political campaigns; and alterations in citizens' needs and involvement.