Political Junkies: From Talk Radio to Twitter, How Alternative Media Hooked Us on Politics and Broke Our Democracy (Hardcover) (ISBN-13: 9781541644991)

A wide-ranging history of seventy years of change in political media, and how it transformed -- and fractured -- American politics
With fake news on Facebook, trolls on Twitter, and viral outrage everywhere, it's easy to believe that the internet changed politics entirely. In Political Junkies, historian Claire Bond Potter shows otherwise, revealing the roots of today's dysfunction by situating online politics in a longer history of alternative political media.
From independent newsletters in the 1950s to talk radio in the 1970s to cable television in the 1980s, pioneers on the left and right developed alternative media outlets that made politics more popular, and ultimately, more partisan. When campaign operatives took up e-mail, blogging, and social media, they only supercharged these trends. At a time when political engagement has never been greater and trust has never been lower, Political Junkies is essential reading for understanding how we got here.


Author: Claire Bond Potter
ISBN-10: 1541644999
ISBN-13: 9781541644991
Publisher: Basic Books
Language: English
Published: 07/07/2020
Pages: 368
Format: Hardcover
Weight: 1.20lbs
Size: 9.30h x 6.30w x 1.40d

Review Citation(s):
Publishers Weekly 04/20/2020