Suchergebnisse

AbstractBorn between 1946 and 1964, "baby boomers" represent the largest 20-year age cohort in US history and still account for over 30% of the adult population. Drawing on over half a century of survey data from the American National Election Studies I explore the political legacy of this generational cohort as measured by 16 indicators of political engagement. The results suggest that while evidence of lasting generational differences in political attitudes and behaviors between boomers and those who preceded or followed them exist, they are generally small to modest, with variation over time driven more by the times in which people live than the times in which they were socialized.

The breaking of boundaries extends to those among different theoretical and methodological traditions. In this essay, I attempt to clarify and critically assess two such divides: those between "positivism," "critical studies," and "cultural studies"; and the related but distinct divide between quantitative and qualitative research. Drawing on and critiquing Anderson and Baym, I make the case that (a) positivism has potential as a complement and supplement to, and perhaps even a collaborator with, critical and cultural studies; (b) quantitative methods, once untangled from some of positivism's more restrictive tenets, can be a useful tool for critical and cultural studies scholarship; and (c) the study of entertainment and politics may provide a unique opportunity for rethinking some of our field's reified boundaries in ways that could produce a more integrated approach to the study of media and politics.

This article argues that by providing virtually unlimited sources of political information, the new media environment undermines the idea that there are discrete gates through which political information passes: If there are no gates, there can be no gatekeepers. The difficulty of elites (political and media both) and academics in understanding the Lewinsky scandal stems from their failure to recognize the increasingly limited ability of journalists to act as gatekeepers. The disjuncture between elite attempts to both control and understand the scandal on one hand and the conclusions the public drew about this political spectacle on other hand speaks to some fundamental changes that have occurred in the role of the press in American society in the late 20th century.