Editor's Focus

Political Communication's commitment to publishing cutting edge research at the intersection of politics and communication continued in Volume 22, Issue 3 in which we featured an article by Geoffrey Baym, "The Daily Show: Discursive Integration and the Reinvention of Political Journalism." The article argues that the popular "fake" news show headed by comedian Jon Stewart is actually a revival of journalism's function of "critical inquiry". The show, Baym asserts, advocates a "model of deliberative democracy" by presenting an ideal of politics in which reasonable individuals engage in dialogue to find consensus over the common good.

In Volume 22, Issue 4, Political Communication published four articles on communication effects. Because the articles have different, even contradictory findings, we had the authors write responses in which they attempted to explain their different results.

Each issue of the journal now includes book and film reviews. In 22-4, we devoted the entire review section to a 12 page book review by John Zaller of "The 2000 Presidential Election and the Foundations of Party Politics", by Richard Johnston, Michael G. Hagen and Kathleen Hall Jamieson. We departed from our normal practice of publishing 10-15 book and film reviews because of the high quality of Zaller's review on a topic - how campaigns influence election outcomes - that addresses many of the general themes of the issue.

Volume 23 will continue our emphasis on publishing exceptional interdisciplinary and international research on political communication and book and film reviews of interest to our wide readership. In issue 1, we feature articles on the link between non-political dispositions and opinion leadership; the role of media bias in Senate and Presidential campaigns; the high rate of civic participation in Minnesota despite little television coverage of local political news; and the role of attributed sources in the debate over physician-assisted suicide. Issue 2 will be a special issue on "Neo-institutionalism and the News."

David L. Paletz
Editor

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