Most political learning today is through mediated political realities and occurs far less frequently through experiential of interpersonal modes. Whether one likes it or not, television is the single most important source of political learning for the American citizenry, with radio, print, and interpersonal channels of communication playing supporting roles. A comprehensive survey of media use in 1990 by the Times Mirror Center for People and the Press found that 745 reported watching news on TV regularly, compared to 54% who read a daily newspaper and 46% who listen to news on the radio. On a typical evening, over fifty million Americans tune in the newscasts of the three major networks, with many others viewing CNN, PBS, and cable channels. Third, television news is perceived by the public as the most trusted source. By a wide margin, people believe that television -- not newspapers, not magazines, not radio - - provides the most complete and impartial coverage of public affairs and national elections.

This trend has resulted in the emergence of a new subfield called political communication and it is officially recognized as such by the American Political Science Association, the International Communication Association, and the Speech Communication Association. Here scholars study more than just television, and investigate all channels of communication from mass media to interpersonal modes. There has been a virtual explosion of new books in the area, and the purpose of this review essay is to call attention to a few of them that would be of use to students of public policy.

One of the leading scholars in the field is Doris Graber of the University of Chicago, who has updated her superb Mass Media and American Politics in a fourth edition. This is the most comprehensive introduction to the area, and it offers both extensive descriptive background as well as a thoughtful and integrated orientation to a vast amount of contemporary social science research. The first half of the book covers media power and government control, the ownership and regulation of media, press freedom and the law, the routines of news making and news reporting, and the reporting of extraordinary events. Of particular interest to policy students is the second half of the book with chapters on media as policymakers (from muckraker to agenda building), media impact on attitudes and behavior, elections in a television age, the struggle for control: news form the president and Congress, the justice system and state and local news, foreign affairs coverage, and trends in media policy. Graber's book provides both a descriptive and analytic introductory endeavor that few subfields in political science and communication can match. It also draws extensively on her own research, and this reader was particularly impressed by her insightful analysis of visual communication. A considerable body of research has studied television by looking at the audio content and transcripts of the news, a focus that is characteristic in studies if radio and one that does not capture the most distinctive feature of television - - namely pictures or visual. A key ingredient in Ronald Reagan's political popularity and policy success was the ability to influence the visuals that appeared on the nightly news. In the event of contradictory messages in the visual images versus audio commentary, the Reagan philosophy was that the eye would triumph over the year with respect to message reception and retention. In Graber's book, one of the many topics in which she offers considerable insight is how we can best study visual and audio messages. For policy students unfamiliar with the media area, this book offers an excellent introduction as well as an extensive bibliography on a wide variety of topics in numerous footnotes. If one has time to read only one book on media and politics, this should be the one.

If Graber offers the most comprehensive text, the most innovative and stimulating contemporary contribution is Shanto Iyengar's Is Anybody Responsible? How Television Frames Issues. Co-author of an earlier pioneering endeavor News that Matters (1989) with Donald Kinder, Iyengar demonstrates again how television news, in choice and format of coverage, determines which issues became important to citizens. In his current work he examines television's role in defining our notion of accountability: the way we understand both causes and solutions of major national problems. Although Iyengar makes use of survey data and content analyses, the main data base sustaining his analysis is the use of sophisticated experimental research. Although vulnerable to criticism on grounds of representativeness of samples, this research strategy provides a stronger hold on claims to scientific control and analysis of causation.

At the heart of Iyengar's analysis is a classification scheme that examines television framing as thematic or episodic. Although every news segment has elements of both, stories predominantly lean toward one or the other category. "The episodic news frame takes the form of a case study or event-oriented report that depicts issues in terms of concrete instances" (p.14). The plight of an unemployed person, for example, or the effect budget cuts on a particular community are instances of episodic framing. "The thematic frame, by contrast, places public issues in some more general or abstract context and takes the form of a 'takeout' or 'backgrounder' report directed at general outcomes or conditions" (p. 14). Examples of thematic coverage could include statistical data on changes in the economy, or Congressional-presidential debates about unemployment policy, etc. Iyengar's use of framing examines both "casual responsibility" on the origin of the problem and "treatment responsibility" on who or what has the power to alleviate a problem. His experimental research suggests that thematic framing tends to promote political and policy learning while episodic framing tends to obscure interconnections and discourages seeing a bigger picture.

Iyengar's endeavor is a lean and provocative contribution. It covers the policy issues of crime, terrorism, poverty, unemployment, racial inequality, and the Iran-Contra affair. His analysis of the psychology of media effects includes dispositional (party affiliation, education, personality traits, etc.) versus contextual influences and he argues that "exposure to thematic news frames can and does override these predispositions" (p. 130). He also looks at the "accessibility bias" that suggests that the influence of television stems from its power to make information "accessible" or retrievable from memory. In doing so he covers three major manifestations of accessibility bias in public opinion: (1) agenda setting effects (what we think about), (2) priming effects (how we think about issues and the criteria we use to evaluate elected officials), and (3) bandwagon effects in political campaigns. Iyengar pulls all of this together to spell out what he feels are the pernicious effects of episodic framing and its impact on political accountability. He concludes by contending that "in the long run, episodic framing contributes to the trivialization of public discourse and the erosion of electoral accountability. Because of its reliance on episodic reporting, television news provides a distorted depiction of public affairs" (p. 143). He further notes that "the portrayal of recurring issues as unrelated events prevents the public from cumulating the evidence toward any logical ultimate consequence" (p. 143). Whether you agree with Iyengar's emphasis or not, this is a very stimulating book that should be of interest to students of policy.

Having put forth a stimulating thesis on the effects of thematic framing on political accountability, Iyengar has used his expertise to team up with Stephen Ansolabehere and Roy Behr to produce a new 1993 test entitled The Media Game: American Politics in the Television Age. It is a well written description of the workings of the media and its impact on politicians and voters. The author utilize both striking experimental and survey data with current affairs examples from national and state politics. This book is shorter and less comprehensive than Graber's classic text, but its lively writing, excellent organization, and penetrating coverage of the topic merits the attention of policy scholars.

This book gives a useful background contribution on American politics in the age of television and the organizes the remaining material into an analysis of the news media (the rise of broadcasting, getting into the news), politicians (campaigning and news styles of governing), voters (evaluations of media effects research, multiple effects of television on public opinion, the consequences of political campaigns, public opinion and the power to govern) and evaluation of the system (media as educator, media as monitor, the changing relationship between politicians and the media, and the changing relationship between media and the voters).

Of particular interest to some policy researchers in the Ansolabehere, Behr, and Iyengar treatment of four different avenues by which the media leave their imprint on public opinion. These include: "enabling people to keep up with what is happening in the world (learning), defining the major political issues or problems of the day (agenda setting), influencing who gets blamed or rewarded for issues and events in the news (framing responsibility), and, finally, shaping people's political preferences, and choices (persuasion)" (p. 139). The authors later follow with an informative chapter on public opinion and the power to govern, with a useful summary of the policy cost of presidential popularity.

Another impressive contribution to the literature on media and politics is by W. Russell Neuman, Marion R. Just, and Ann N. Crigler and it is entitled Common Knowledge: News and the Construction of Political Meaning (1992). It is a model endeavor for empirically oriented social scientists and uses a multimethod approach to understand the process of constructing meaning. More than any other recent media book, Neuman, Just, and Crigler make the strongest contribution to information processing by citizen respondents. Influenced by the work of Gamson and other scholars, the authors identify seven features of their constructionist model of political communication. The emphasis is on "common knowledge" rather than "public opinion" and what people think and how they think. The authors focus on (1) what do they already know?, (2) what do they learn?, (3) how does learning vary by medium and by issue?, and (4) how does learning vary by cognitive skills and political interests of the individual.

Their endeavor is comprehensive as they look at three media channels - television, newspapers, and magazines - exploring the presentational vocabulary, the structural syntax of news stories and the use of visuals. Using content analyses, survey research, in depth interviews, and experimental research, this study examines five policy issues during the second half of the Reagan era (1985-1988). The issues analyzed include South Africa, the Strategic Defense Initiative, the stock market crash of 1987, cocaine and drug abuse, and the AIDS crisis. Although one can have reservations about some of the empirical operationalization (e.g. transcribing television scripts into magazine and newspaper formats) one is impressed, nonetheless, by the thoughtfulness of the research and the contention that in some policy arenas television is more influential and informative than its newspaper and magazine counterparts.

Many policy students will be fascinated by the identification of five frames to interpret news, and how citizen audience framing differs from professional media framing. The five frames are: conflict, moral values, economics, powerlessness, and human impact. the most dramatic difference is the heavy emphasis on conflict in the media (29% of all frames), compared with only 6% in the in- depth citizen interviews. Conversely, the human impact (36%) and moral values (15%) frames are more prominent in the public's framing than in the media (only 18% and 4% respectively). One surprising finding was that 33% of all media frames emphasized powerlessness, a finding that runs against the grain of much of the literature, including the recent work of Iyengar. Common Knowledge is necessary reading for all scholars and journalists who seek to understand how different audiences construct meaning from media reports in different issue domains, This is an important work to learn how and what the citizen thinks about different policy issues, regardless of how the issues are framed by the media.

Finally, students of policy may find stimulating an engaging macro-level or critical theory contribution of W. Lance Bennett, The Governing Crisis: Media, Money, and Marketing in American Elections (1992). Although this reviewer is not a great fan of theme texts, this one is hard to put down and it is well argued, well written, and provocative. Drawing upon a wide variety of sources that include major newspapers, magazines, academic articles, and historical works, Bennett hones in on why we have a governing crisis. Unlike many contemporary scholars, he focuses more on the culpability of Congress more so than the president, particularly in the area of how money has corrupted the policy process. He looks at so-called postmodern elections, the origins of the new American politics, and persuasively argues that the new phenomena is quite different from our past. For Bennett, the current interrelationship of media, money, and marketing is radically different from anything we have seen before.

Bennett examines our political culture at the crossroads, looking at recent presidential elections, failing the presidential character test, and a detailed analysis of the 1990 election. This critical theory look at should be taken seriously by scholars concerned about the policy process, and should not be caricatures as a simplistic and non-empirical critical theory endeavor. Bennett's analysis is penetrating and provocative.

One area of the Bennett book, however, that is less convincing concerns his policy solutions, that include a limited proportional representation system, campaign finance reform, regulating political advertising in the broadcast media, reform of media coverage of the elections, and voter registration reform. This reviewer has grave doubts about the alleged beneficial effect of a limited proportional registration system and also believes that the potential result of voter registration reform is greatly exaggerated. Likewise, regulating political advertising without violating the first amendment will be no easy task, and the likelihood of reformed media coverage of elections seems improbable. Of the five reforms, the one that is most persuasive and merits serious consideration is campaign finance reform.

Bennett also completed his book before the completion of the 1992 election. His rather pessimistic tone about voter distrust, low turnout, political disillusionment, etc. was not borne out in our most recent presidential election, where voter turnout increased by 5% and all the indicators of political interest (watching the debates, indicating whether one voter for or against a particular ticket, etc.) reflected a substantial renewal of citizen interest. To Bennett's credit, however, he provides an interesting framework for scholars to react to and offer suggestions for improvement.

Although all five of these books are recent, they include little material about media changes in 1992, including the use of television talk shows, the use of 800 phone numbers and video and audio cassettes, longer "infomercial" political advertising, varied debate formats, video by satellite, and town hall meetings. Policy scholars should pay particular attention to see how well Clinton, the successful candidate, use them in office as president.

Due to the end of the Cold War and recent changes in mass communications, the role that Clinton assumes as president will be far different from that played by Roosevelt, Kennedy and Reagan. To be successful, Clinton, must play effectively three facets of what Hedrick Smith called the power game. These are the priorities game, the coalition game, and the image game. He must focus on a few important priorities and not pursue a cluttered agenda. To do so will result in a Carter type rather than Reagan type policy performance. Clinton must calculate strategically and build coalitions, including the inclusion of some Republicans on select policy issues. To enhance his elite bargaining leverage, he build a strong political image with the public in an environment in which many presidential news conferences are no longer covered by the networks and when the major presidential address get lower ratings than in the past due to cable competition. In the pre-cable era, most televised addresses Nixon, Ford, Carter, and Reagan attracted 60% of all television households. Many people are unaware that Bush never drew more than 40% of the television audience except for one speech during the Gulf War. Clinton's efforts to enhance his image must, therefore, consider a variety of media and smaller audiences, including morning shows, talk radio and television, C-SPAN and MTV. In the spring of 1993 White House sources mentioned the possibility of electronic town meetings to build support for Clinton's health care policy.

The five books reviewed provide policy students with a useful orientation to understanding the role of media in politics. Even though they are recent, new books need to be written to explain the role of the media in the 1992 campaign and in Clinton's first year in office. Presidents who have achieved major and substantial policy so during their first year "window of opportunity." These include Roosevelt in 1933, Johnson in 1965, and Reagan in 1981. The success of a well conceived presidential communication strategy in a vastly changed media environment will determine, more than anything, Clinton's success at the image game, which of course will affect his performance at the coalition game and the priorities game. To understand contemporary public policy one needs to have a good understanding of the role of media in American political life.