Does late night political humor matter? Are late-night comedians merely entertaining, or do they have the power to influence the way we think about politics and politicians? Politics Is a Joke! situates late night comedy in the historical context of political humor and demonstrates how the public turn to this venue for political information, and are in turn affected by it.Using exclusive data collected by the Center for Media and Public Affairs, the authors conduct a detai...

In The Global President: International Communication and the US Government, scholars Stephen J. Farnsworth, S. Robert Lichter and Roland Schatz provide an expansive international examination of news coverage of US political communication, and the roles the US government and the Presidency play in an increasingly communicative and interconnected political world. This comprehensive yet concise text will engage and inform students in many intersecting disciplines, as it includes analyses of n...

The line dividing public life and private behavior in American politics is more blurred than ever. When it comes to questions about sex, substance abuse and family life, anything goes on the political desk in many newsrooms, including uncorroborated hearsay disguised as news. But some stories still never make it into print or on the air. What are the rules for politicians and journalists in the aftermath of Washington's biggest sex scandal?Peepshow looks behind the scenes ...

Political humor has been a staple of late-night television for decades. The Trump White House, however, has received significantly greater attention than that of past presidents, such as Barack Obama, George W. Bush, and even Bill Clinton. In response to Trump’s strident politics, late-night comics, including Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Kimmel, Trevor Noah and Jimmy Fallon, have sounded key policy notes, further blurring the boundary between news and satire. Weekly humorists, including John Oli...

The Nightly News Nightmare, Third Edition, examines news coverage of presidential nomination and election campaigns from 1988 to 2008. The book focuses on changes in the amount, tone, and focus of news coverage in these different electoral contexts. In addition to network news, the authors examine online news, cable television, talk radio, candidate campaign discourse in these election years. Farnsworth and Lichter find that the news media, despite the wide variety of outlets, hav...

In the past decade various studies have examined how political humor may influence various political attitudes and voting behavior; whether it affects learning, cognition and media literacy, how it might shape political participation; how people process different forms of political humor; and more. This book is devoted to anticipating and addressing where the field of political humor and its effects will move in the next generation of scholarship, exploring the continued evolution of the s...

Including late-breaking data from the Iraq occupation and the disastrous CBS News reports on Bush's Vietnam-era National Guard Service, acclaimed media scholars Stephen J. Farnsworth and S. Robert Lichter examine news coverage of military policy, economic policy, and scandals from the last four U.S. presidencies, including the current controversial administration. Using a quarter-century of content analysis data, the authors demonstrate how the White House dominates Capitol Hill o...

Barack Obama and his radical team of self-professed socialists, fringe activists, and others are trying to remake the American way of life. They have used their new Democratic majority to launch an alarming assault on our capitalist system—while abandoning the war on terror, undermining our national security, and weakening our position in the eyes of our enemies. The "candidate of change" is threatening to change our country irreparably, and for the worse—if we don't act to stop him now.

At a time when the national political debate is about inequality and fairness, bestselling author David Horowitz and coauthor Jacob Laksin have written an unsettling book about the distribution of power in America. Thoroughly researched and amply documented, The New Leviathan overturns the conventional wisdom about which end of the political spectrum represents the rich and powerful, and which represents the people.The Democratic Party presents itself to the electorate as ...

In this agenda-setting essay, journalist and historian Eric Alterman explains what is really happening with the Obama presidency. While Obama's many compromises have disappointed liberals, Alterman argues that these concessions are largely due to a political system that is rigged against progressive change. These structural impediments to democracy have made the keeping of Obama's campaign promises all but impossible.Brilliantly blending incisive political analysis with a clear age...

Millions of Americans—including many experienced politicians—viewed Barack Obama through a prism of high expectations, based on a belief in the power of presidential persuasion. Yet many who were inspired by candidate Obama were disappointed in what he was able to accomplish once in the White House. They could not understand why he often was unable to leverage his position and political skills to move the public and Congress to support his initiatives. Predicting the Presidency ex...

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...