Nobody knows what created the tear in the sky, or who caused it. All anyone knew was the tear could be seen everywhere...and everywhen. It stretched not just across the sky but across time itself. Smaller tears began to form around the world. People feared them, used them, investigated them. But the mystery about these tears was dwarfed when a shadowy figure started to show interest in them. A being without form and known only by a name that caused terror for all who heard it:The W...

Political Marketing in the United States explores how politicians and parties utilize marketing concepts and tools, providing an up-to-date and broad overview of how marketing permeates U.S. politics. The volume focuses on current and recent elections and leaders, and covers a range of topics, including market research, marketing parties and volunteers, strategy and branding, communications, delivery, and marketing in government.The main themes and objectives of the book are to cov...

This book gives insight into the thoughts, desires and frustrations that an intelligent man experiences when he is totally dependent and imprisoned in an unresponsive body due to cerebral palsy. Mike Conley has managed to live over 70 years as such a man, and this enlightening book takes us on his amazing journey through life, with special emphasis on his most recent challenge - moving from his home in San Antonio, Texas, to Florida to live with his brother after their mother died. Mike ha...

Substantially revised throughout, the third edition of Political Marketing continues to offer students the most comprehensive introduction to this rapidly growing field. It provides an accessible but in-depth guide to what political marketing is and how it is used in practice and encourages reflection on how it should be used in the future.New Features and benefits of the third edition:Fully updated throughout with new research on emerging practices...

The symptoms of the crisis of the U.S. media are well-known-a decline in hard news, the growth of info-tainment and advertorials, staff cuts and concentration of ownership, increasing conformity of viewpoint and suppression of genuine debate. McChesney's new book, The Problem of the Media, gets to the roots of this crisis, explains it, and points a way forward for the growing media reform movement.Moving consistently from critique to action, the book explores the po...

A political insider tells us how we can make a difference. A must-read for fans of The Rebel Sell and Naomi Klein’s No Logo.What difference can one person make? If I’m not a famous actor, rock star, or multi-millionaire philanthropist, what do I really have to offer?The notion that the government is open only to a few is a myth. In fact, our political system is incredibly accessible, but the misguided belief that people can only participate...

Fresh from the first 10 billion election campaign, two award-winning authors show how unbridled campaign spending defines our politics and, failing a dramatic intervention, signals the end of our democracy.Blending vivid reporting from the 2012 campaign trail and deep perspective from decades covering American and international media and politics, political journalist John Nichols and media critic Robert W. McChesney explain how US elections are becoming controlled...

Political campaigns today are won or lost in the so-called ground war--the strategic deployment of teams of staffers, volunteers, and paid part-timers who work the phones and canvass block by block, house by house, voter by voter. Ground Wars provides an in-depth ethnographic portrait of two such campaigns, New Jersey Democrat Linda Stender's and that of Democratic Congressman Jim Himes of Connecticut, who both ran for Congress in 2008.Rasmus Kleis Nielsen examines how Ame...

Essays by Thomas Frank, Clay Shirky, David Simon, and others: "Anyone concerned about the state of journalism should read this book." — Library JournalThe sudden meltdown of the news media has sparked one of the liveliest debates in recent memory, with an outpouring of opinion and analysis crackling across journals, the blogosphere, and academic publications. Yet, until now, we have lacked a comprehensive and accessible introduction to this new and shiftin...

The labor movement sees coalitions as a key tool for union revitalization and social change, but there is little analysis of what makes them successful or the factors that make them fail. Amanda Tattersall—an organizer and labor scholar—addresses this gap in the first internationally comparative study of coalitions between unions and community organizations.Tattersall argues that coalition success must be measured by two criteria: whether campaigns produce social c...

Campaign Communication and Political Marketing is a comprehensive, internationalist study of the modern political campaign. It indexes and explains their integral components, strategies, and tactics.Offers comparative analyses of campaigns from country to countryCovers topics such as advertising strategy, demography, the effect of campaign finance regulation on funding, and moreDraws on a variety of international case studies including the campaigns of Bar...

In early 2012, conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh claimed that Sandra Fluke, a Georgetown University law student who advocated for insurance coverage of contraceptives, "wants to be paid to have sex." Over the next few days, Limbaugh attacked Fluke personally, often in crude terms, while a powerful backlash grew, led by organizations such as the National Organization for Women. But perhaps what was most notable about the incident was that it wasn't unusual. From Limbaugh's venomous atta...