News Grazers: Media, Politics, and Trust in an Information Age

Book Synopsis: How has growing media choice transformed the way we gather news? News Grazers: Media, Politics, and Trust in an Information Age offers you an integration of the emerging effects that cable news, online news, and social media have had on American politics. Author Richard Forgette, an expert on the U.S. Congress and public policy, draws on direct experimental research to argue that the diffusion of media outlets and media technologies has resulted in an increasingly fragmented and distracted news audience. This unprecedented level of media choice is not only altering who accesses the news and how they do it; more important, it is changing the news itself.

With chapters on commentary news, partisan news, breaking news, and fake news, News Grazers gives you the tools you need to critically analyze the ever-shifting media landscape. Special attention is also paid to the effects of the media and political trust on the 2016 election.

Key Features:

• Coverage of the media's effects on the 2016 election encourages you to discuss the election while taking into account the broader theoretical concerns about changing news consumption habits and declining political trust.
• The chapter on partisan news helps you understand the impact of politically polarized news audiences.
• The chapter on fake news offers you current examples of the political impact of this phenomenon.
• Examples of the ways in which Americans increasingly have become news grazers show you how growing media choice has transformed how we gather news and is resulting in an increasingly distracted news audience.
• Discussions about the development of commentary news show how producers have combined drama, opinion, immediacy, and entertainment with straight news content - allowing you to see the impact that this form of news has on the public's trust in Congress and the media.