Hello and welcome to The Political Communication Report, the newsletter for the Political Communication Divisions of the International Communication Association (ICA) and the American Political Science Association (APSA)!
Editor’s Note: This is the last issue of my three-year term as newsletter editor and the end of my work on the division website, which I’ve been working on since 2004. I am delighted to pass the baton to Eike Rinke. Eike will bring wonderful new energy to the newsletter and website! It has been a pleasure serving the divisions in this way, and many thank yous to the newsletter contributors and the leadership in the divisions!
In this edition, please find:
(a) The Future of Political Communication
We have five stellar contributions:
1. Kevin Arceneaux and Martin Johnson discuss media fragmentation and political disengagement. They argue that the media environment allows citizens to choose around news and political content.
2. Catie Snow Bailard challenges us to think about the diffusion of information and communication technologies across the globe and the opportunites for field experiments.
3. Matt Levendusky also considers media choice to be an important component of political communication. He describes how partisan media can have polarizing effects on the electorate.
4. Richard Stanton asks how our teaching and practice in the political communication sphere can be updated. He describes his experimentation with conducting class over Twitter (a twecture!).
5. Dhavan Shah, Chris Wells, Alex Hanna, and JungHwan Yang provide insight from their work with Big Data and delve into how the availability of new datasets can help us learn more about political communication.
(b) Announcements with particular relevance to the field and our divisions, including several calls for papers.
Thank you to the contributors who helped with this newsletter!
With warmest regards,
Natalie (Talia) Jomini Stroud
Associate Professor, University of Texas at Austin