Scott Althaus' Presentation on News Policy

The next meeting of the ICR's project on Communications, Culture, and Policy, funded by the Ford Foundation, will be held on Friday, February 13, at 1:30 p.m. in the Peterson Conference Room (231 Gregory Hall). The very distinguished speaker will be Scott Althaus, Associate Professor of Speech Communication and Associate Professor of Political Science at UIUC. The title of his talk is: "Can the American News Media Supply Critical Coverage During Wartime if the Public Doesn't Demand It?"

ABSTRACT Do national security crises cause the American public to become more interested in international affairs than usual? If so, how do patterns of news consumption during the recent 2001 Afghanistan campaign and 2003 Iraq war compare to those during the 1990-1 Persian Gulf crisis? And if the American public doesn't demand critical news coverage about wars, can the American media system still maintain its independence from governmental spin efforts to provide critical reporting? Professor Althaus details findings on these questions and more from his research on the behavior of news audiences and journalists in times of war.

Background Readings:
REQUEST COPIES by contacting Alice at filmer@uiuc.edu and giving me your campus address.

Althaus, Scott. 2003. "When News Norms Collide, Follow the Lead: New Evidence for Press Independence." Political Communication 20(4): 381-414.

Scott Althaus is Associate Professor of Speech Communication and Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. His research interests center on the communication processes that equip ordinary citizens to exercise popular sovereignty in democratic societies, as well as on the communication processes by which the opinions of these citizens are conveyed to government officials. His research has appeared in the American Political Science Review, the American Journal of Political Science, Communication Research, Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly, the Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, and Political Communication. His book on the political uses of opinion surveys in democratic societies, Collective Preferences in Democratic Politics: Opinion Surveys and the Will of the People, was published in 2003 by Cambridge University Press.