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Explores the various images of publics in democratic theory & identifies the ideological uses of the leading definitions of public opinion. The argument shows why sweeping theories of the consciousness of publics inevitably fail to explain patterns of opinion formation, yet do support competing ideologies of power in society & government. An alternative analytical framework is suggested, based on the symbolic construction of public opinion following the work of Murray Edelman. 32 References. AA

The ways in which political systems & their members respond to social strains are little understood. When citizens are confronted by unfathomable problems or intense pressures, they often seek to suspend serious activities or escape rigid & alienating roles in order to attain psychological release, mutual involvement, & insights about their lives. Release, involvement, & insight are consequences of a universal human activity called play. People play for several reasons: to make room for personal expression in rigid social structures; to create & maintain the bounds necessary for community; & to generate the novelty, perspective, & invention necessary for social & political change. HA.

One of the central dilemmas of politics is the problem of maintaining public morality without unleashing the violence, oppression, & corruption that can result from moralistic uses of political symbols. The frequent abuses of the symbols of civil religions in modern life have provoked increasing demands to dismantle the sacred trappings of the state. However, this solution is much too simple. It begs the question of how civic morality can be generated in the absence of sacred symbols, rules, & rituals. A careful analysis of civil religion suggests a set of conditions that would permit the ordinary use of sacred symbols of state, & minimize their abuses. AA.

Our knowledge of ideology & mass belief systems has evolved from a fairly general consensus about findings, their theoretical implications, & the agenda of future research questions, to a state of increasing disagreement about these matters. A model of the basis of scientific consensus in the field explains the emergence of the central breakdown in knowledge, & suggests four general alternatives for the future development of the field. The model also identifies the key scientific practices responsible for problematic knowledge in mass belief studies. The identification of these practices provides a focus for a number of remedies that may move the major "problems of knowledge" in the field toward resolution. 1 Figure. HA.

The Logic of Connective Action explains the rise of a personalized digitally networked politics in which diverse individuals address the common problems of our times such as economic fairness and climate change. Rich case studies from the United States, the United Kingdom and Germany illustrate a theoretical framework for understanding how large-scale connective action is coordinated. In many of these mobilizations, communication operates as an organizational process that may replace or supplement familiar forms of collective action based on organizational resource mobilization, leadership, and collective action framing. In some cases, connective action emerges from crowds that shun leaders, as when Occupy protesters created media networks to channel resources and create loose ties among dispersed physical groups. In other cases, conventional political organizations deploy personalized communication logics to enable large-scale engagement with a variety of political causes. The Logic of Connective Action shows how power is organized in communication-based networks, and what political outcomes may result

How do citizens and leaders in democratic nations communicate about their problems and prospects for the future? What can be learned from other nations about how to communicate in more effective and satisfying ways? These are important questions in an age of instant electronic communication in which the populations of the world's industrial democracies are wired for all manner of input. This book, first published in 1997, explores the institutional links between society and government that shape political communication. These regulators of national communication include parties and electoral representation systems, interest group processes, campaign finance mechanisms, and the media - factors that are familiar to anyone who follows politics yet that may not be recognized for their combined effects on the quality of political discourse. The authors show how these core elements of political systems affect the ways in which people communicate, and how effective that communication is at defining public problems and identifying workable solutions.

In recent years, many once stable democracies have experienced various degrees of disruptive communication, along with the erosion of core institutions such as the press, elections, courts, and the rights of citizens. We propose a framework to compare the logics of illiberal and liberal democratic communication and contrast traditionally dominant communication norms of tolerance, civility, responsiveness, and reasoned resolution of differences in liberal democracies with transgressions of those norms by illiberal rightwing movements, parties, leaders, and voters. We suggest that unlike 'counter publics' that seek inclusion in liberal democratic systems, engagement with illiberal communication creates "transgressive publics" that attempt to exclude others in the process of promoting ethnic and religious nationalism. This framework offers a corrective to recent scholarship on democratic public spheres that focuses mainly on why the ideals of more inclusive and egalitarian communication are ever more remote. We shift the focus to the systematic disruptions of mainstream public communication and the authority of public institutions. Our analysis develops a broader theoretical context in which interactions between illiberal leaders and publics occur, with the aim of understanding national variations in how communication systems contribute to democratic erosion.