Sean D. Ehrlich
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- January 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199737536
- eISBN:
- 9780199918645
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199737536.001.0001
- Subject:
- Political Science, American Politics
Access Points develops a new theory about how democratic institutions influence policy outcomes. Access Point Theory argues that the more points of access that institutions provide to ...
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Access Points develops a new theory about how democratic institutions influence policy outcomes. Access Point Theory argues that the more points of access that institutions provide to interest groups, the cheaper lobbying will be, and, thus, the more lobbying will occur. This will lead to more complex policy, as policymakers insert specific provisions to benefit special interests, and, if one side of the debate has a lobbying advantage, to more biased policy, as the advantaged side is able to better take advantage of the cheaper lobbying. This book then uses Access Point Theory to explain why some countries have more protectionist and more complex trade policies than others; why some countries have stronger environmental and banking regulations than others; and why some countries have more complicated tax codes than others. In policy area after policy area, this book finds that more access points lead to more biased and more complex policy. Access Points provides scholars a powerful tool to explain how political institutions matter and why countries implement the policies they do.Less
Access Points develops a new theory about how democratic institutions influence policy outcomes. Access Point Theory argues that the more points of access that institutions provide to interest groups, the cheaper lobbying will be, and, thus, the more lobbying will occur. This will lead to more complex policy, as policymakers insert specific provisions to benefit special interests, and, if one side of the debate has a lobbying advantage, to more biased policy, as the advantaged side is able to better take advantage of the cheaper lobbying. This book then uses Access Point Theory to explain why some countries have more protectionist and more complex trade policies than others; why some countries have stronger environmental and banking regulations than others; and why some countries have more complicated tax codes than others. In policy area after policy area, this book finds that more access points lead to more biased and more complex policy. Access Points provides scholars a powerful tool to explain how political institutions matter and why countries implement the policies they do.
Neta Crawford
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- January 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780199981724
- eISBN:
- 9780199369942
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199981724.001.0001
- Subject:
- Political Science, International Relations and Politics, American Politics
United States officials argued during America’s post-9-/11 wars that the US took every precaution to prevent unintended civilian death and injury — known as collateral damage — due to US military ...
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United States officials argued during America’s post-9-/11 wars that the US took every precaution to prevent unintended civilian death and injury — known as collateral damage — due to US military operations. Yet, during the first years of the wars, officials accepted the inevitability of the harm, and tens of thousands of civilians were killed and injured by the US and its allies. The book explores moral responsibility for three kinds of collateral damage incidents. Accidents were unforeseen and sometimes unforeseeable, and arguably they were comparatively rare. More numerous were systemic collateral damage deaths, the foreseeable consequence of rules of engagement, weapons choices, standard operating procedures and military doctrine. Proportionality/double effect collateral damage is foreseeable, and foreseen, yet anticipated military advantages are said to excuse this unintentional killing. Both systemic collateral damage, and proportionality/double effect collateral damage are produced in part by expansive and permissive conceptions of military necessity. The other causes of systemic collateral damage are found in the organization of warmaking — the institutionalized rules, procedures, training, and stresses of war. Depending on choices that are made at the organizational and command level, the likelihood of causing civilian casualties may rise or fall. When those factors, including beliefs about military necessity, change the incidence of collateral damage also changes. This book offers a new way to think about moral agency and accountability. The dominant paradigm of legal and moral responsibility in war stresses both intention and individual accountability. Yet that framework is inadequate for cases of systemic and proportionality/double effect collateral damage because the causes of those deaths and injuries lie at the organizational level — where doctrine, tactics, and weapons are decided. The author supplements theories of individual agency and accountability with a theory of collective moral responsibility, treating organizations as imperfect moral agents. The US military exercised moral agency when it began, mid-way through the Post-9/11 wars, to change its organizational procedures in order reduce collateral damage deaths. The book offers ways to increase political and public moral responsibility for conduct in war.Less
United States officials argued during America’s post-9-/11 wars that the US took every precaution to prevent unintended civilian death and injury — known as collateral damage — due to US military operations. Yet, during the first years of the wars, officials accepted the inevitability of the harm, and tens of thousands of civilians were killed and injured by the US and its allies. The book explores moral responsibility for three kinds of collateral damage incidents. Accidents were unforeseen and sometimes unforeseeable, and arguably they were comparatively rare. More numerous were systemic collateral damage deaths, the foreseeable consequence of rules of engagement, weapons choices, standard operating procedures and military doctrine. Proportionality/double effect collateral damage is foreseeable, and foreseen, yet anticipated military advantages are said to excuse this unintentional killing. Both systemic collateral damage, and proportionality/double effect collateral damage are produced in part by expansive and permissive conceptions of military necessity. The other causes of systemic collateral damage are found in the organization of warmaking — the institutionalized rules, procedures, training, and stresses of war. Depending on choices that are made at the organizational and command level, the likelihood of causing civilian casualties may rise or fall. When those factors, including beliefs about military necessity, change the incidence of collateral damage also changes. This book offers a new way to think about moral agency and accountability. The dominant paradigm of legal and moral responsibility in war stresses both intention and individual accountability. Yet that framework is inadequate for cases of systemic and proportionality/double effect collateral damage because the causes of those deaths and injuries lie at the organizational level — where doctrine, tactics, and weapons are decided. The author supplements theories of individual agency and accountability with a theory of collective moral responsibility, treating organizations as imperfect moral agents. The US military exercised moral agency when it began, mid-way through the Post-9/11 wars, to change its organizational procedures in order reduce collateral damage deaths. The book offers ways to increase political and public moral responsibility for conduct in war.
Zizi Papacharissi
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- November 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780199999736
- eISBN:
- 9780190213329
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199999736.001.0001
- Subject:
- Political Science, American Politics, Political Theory
The past few decades have witnessed the growth of movements that use digital means to connect with broader publics and express their point of view. Social media facilitate feelings of engagement, in ...
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The past few decades have witnessed the growth of movements that use digital means to connect with broader publics and express their point of view. Social media facilitate feelings of engagement, in ways that frequently make people feel reenergized about what it means to be political. In doing so, media do not make or break revolutions but they do lend emerging, storytelling publics their own means for feeling their way into the developing event, frequently by making them a part of the developing story. Digital technologies network us but it is our stories that connect us to each other, making us feel close to some and distancing us from others. Affective Publics explores how storytelling practices on Twitter facilitate affective engagement for publics tuning into a current issue or event by employing three case studies: Arab Spring movements, various iterations of Occupy, and everyday casual political expressions as traced through the archives of trending topics on Twitter.Less
The past few decades have witnessed the growth of movements that use digital means to connect with broader publics and express their point of view. Social media facilitate feelings of engagement, in ways that frequently make people feel reenergized about what it means to be political. In doing so, media do not make or break revolutions but they do lend emerging, storytelling publics their own means for feeling their way into the developing event, frequently by making them a part of the developing story. Digital technologies network us but it is our stories that connect us to each other, making us feel close to some and distancing us from others. Affective Publics explores how storytelling practices on Twitter facilitate affective engagement for publics tuning into a current issue or event by employing three case studies: Arab Spring movements, various iterations of Occupy, and everyday casual political expressions as traced through the archives of trending topics on Twitter.
Thomas M. Holbrook
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- August 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780190269128
- eISBN:
- 9780190632809
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780190269128.001.0001
- Subject:
- Political Science, American Politics, Democratization
This book looks at change in party fortunes in presidential elections since 1972, documenting the magnitude, direction, and consequences of changes in party support in the states. It finds that the ...
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This book looks at change in party fortunes in presidential elections since 1972, documenting the magnitude, direction, and consequences of changes in party support in the states. It finds that the Democrats do not have a “lock” on the Electoral College, but that their position has improved dramatically over the past forty years in a number of formerly competitive or Republican-leaning states in the Northeast, Southeast, and Southwest. Republican candidates have made many fewer gains, mostly improving their position in “misplaced,” formerly Democratic states, such as Kentucky and West Virginia, or in already deeply Republican states in the Plains and Mountain West. The book looks at the ways that changes in the racial and ethnic composition of the state electorates, internal (state to state) and external (foreign born) migratory patterns, and changes in other key demographic and political characteristics drive these changes. Additionally, it explores the ways in which increasing partisan polarization at the national level has altered group-based party linkages and contributed to changes in party support at the state level. These factors, along with an increasingly inefficient distribution of Republican votes, have converted what was once a Republican edge in electoral votes to an advantage for Democratic presidential candidates.Less
This book looks at change in party fortunes in presidential elections since 1972, documenting the magnitude, direction, and consequences of changes in party support in the states. It finds that the Democrats do not have a “lock” on the Electoral College, but that their position has improved dramatically over the past forty years in a number of formerly competitive or Republican-leaning states in the Northeast, Southeast, and Southwest. Republican candidates have made many fewer gains, mostly improving their position in “misplaced,” formerly Democratic states, such as Kentucky and West Virginia, or in already deeply Republican states in the Plains and Mountain West. The book looks at the ways that changes in the racial and ethnic composition of the state electorates, internal (state to state) and external (foreign born) migratory patterns, and changes in other key demographic and political characteristics drive these changes. Additionally, it explores the ways in which increasing partisan polarization at the national level has altered group-based party linkages and contributed to changes in party support at the state level. These factors, along with an increasingly inefficient distribution of Republican votes, have converted what was once a Republican edge in electoral votes to an advantage for Democratic presidential candidates.
Joseph E. Uscinski and Joseph M. Parent
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- August 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780199351800
- eISBN:
- 9780190203955
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199351800.001.0001
- Subject:
- Political Science, American Politics
Conspiracies theories are some of the most striking features in the American political landscape: the Kennedy assassination, aliens at Roswell, subversion by Masons, Jews, Catholics, or communists, ...
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Conspiracies theories are some of the most striking features in the American political landscape: the Kennedy assassination, aliens at Roswell, subversion by Masons, Jews, Catholics, or communists, and modern movements like Birtherism and Trutherism. But what do we really know about conspiracy theories? Do they share general causes? Are they becoming more common? More dangerous? Who is targeted and why? Who are the conspiracy theorists? How has technology affected conspiracy theorizing? This book draws on three sources of original, systematic, data—120,000 letters to the editor of the New York Times and Chicago Tribune from 1890 and 2010, a two-wave survey around the 2012 presidential election, and a representative sample of Internet discussions—to offer the first century-long view of these issues. Many popular explanations find little support, but an explicitly political explanation fares well. To succeed, conspiracy theories need to follow a strategic logic that mirrors shifts in power. From this perspective, conspiracy theories are a form of threat perception that tracks foreign and domestic power asymmetries to focus attention, integrate groups, and recover from setbacks.Less
Conspiracies theories are some of the most striking features in the American political landscape: the Kennedy assassination, aliens at Roswell, subversion by Masons, Jews, Catholics, or communists, and modern movements like Birtherism and Trutherism. But what do we really know about conspiracy theories? Do they share general causes? Are they becoming more common? More dangerous? Who is targeted and why? Who are the conspiracy theorists? How has technology affected conspiracy theorizing? This book draws on three sources of original, systematic, data—120,000 letters to the editor of the New York Times and Chicago Tribune from 1890 and 2010, a two-wave survey around the 2012 presidential election, and a representative sample of Internet discussions—to offer the first century-long view of these issues. Many popular explanations find little support, but an explicitly political explanation fares well. To succeed, conspiracy theories need to follow a strategic logic that mirrors shifts in power. From this perspective, conspiracy theories are a form of threat perception that tracks foreign and domestic power asymmetries to focus attention, integrate groups, and recover from setbacks.
Michael Foley
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- January 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780199232673
- eISBN:
- 9780191716362
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199232673.001.0001
- Subject:
- Political Science, American Politics
American society may be hostile to the thought of ideologies, but it possesses a sophisticated but little understood ability to engage in deep conflicts over political ideas, while at the same time ...
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American society may be hostile to the thought of ideologies, but it possesses a sophisticated but little understood ability to engage in deep conflicts over political ideas, while at the same time reducing adversarial positions to legitimate derivatives of American history and development. This book asks how this occurs; how the sources, traditions, and usages of core ideas and their derivative compounds animate political discourse and structure the basis of political conflict; and how it is possible to sustain a high incidence of competitive value-laden argument and principled political conflict within a stable political order. The fundamental aim of this book is to examine the traditions and usages of American political ideas within the arena of practical politics. By locating them in their respective contexts, it is possible to assess both their changing meanings and their shifting relationships to one another. In surveying America's core ideas, the book facilitates an informed awareness of their political and cultural leverage as forms of persuasion and sources of legitimacy. The book roots the examination of American political ideas firmly in the milieu of social drives, political movements, and contemporary issues within which the ideas themselves are embedded. This not only allows the study to investigate the interior properties and traditional priorities of America's key values, but permits the theoretical implications and practical consequences of these ideas to be traced and evaluated.Less
American society may be hostile to the thought of ideologies, but it possesses a sophisticated but little understood ability to engage in deep conflicts over political ideas, while at the same time reducing adversarial positions to legitimate derivatives of American history and development. This book asks how this occurs; how the sources, traditions, and usages of core ideas and their derivative compounds animate political discourse and structure the basis of political conflict; and how it is possible to sustain a high incidence of competitive value-laden argument and principled political conflict within a stable political order. The fundamental aim of this book is to examine the traditions and usages of American political ideas within the arena of practical politics. By locating them in their respective contexts, it is possible to assess both their changing meanings and their shifting relationships to one another. In surveying America's core ideas, the book facilitates an informed awareness of their political and cultural leverage as forms of persuasion and sources of legitimacy. The book roots the examination of American political ideas firmly in the milieu of social drives, political movements, and contemporary issues within which the ideas themselves are embedded. This not only allows the study to investigate the interior properties and traditional priorities of America's key values, but permits the theoretical implications and practical consequences of these ideas to be traced and evaluated.
Lyn Ragsdale and Jerrold G. Rusk
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- May 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780190670702
- eISBN:
- 9780190670740
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780190670702.001.0001
- Subject:
- Political Science, American Politics, Democratization
The book explores the impact of uncertainty in the national campaign context on nonvoting in presidential and midterm House elections from 1920 through 2012. While previous studies have focused on ...
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The book explores the impact of uncertainty in the national campaign context on nonvoting in presidential and midterm House elections from 1920 through 2012. While previous studies have focused on individuals' motivations to vote and candidates' mobilization efforts, this book considers how uncertain national circumstances in the months before the election affect whether people vote or not. Uncertainty is defined as decision makers being unable to accurately predict future conditions, possible options, or final outcomes based on the current situation. Within the national campaign context, uncertainty arises from economic volatility, technological advances in mass communication, dramatic national events including wars, and changes in suffrage requirements. The book examines this uncertainty across four historical periods: the government expansion period (1920–1944), the post-war period (1946–1972), the government reassessment period (1974–1990), the internet technology period (1992–2012). The book considers the nature of politics during these periods with key occurrences including the economic swings of the Roaring 20s, the Great Depression, the post-World War II boom, and the Great Recession, voting rights for women, African-Americans, and young people, and the effects of radio, television, cable television, and the Internet on nonvoting. It concludes that the higher the degree of uncertainty in the national scene, the more likely eligible voters will go to the polls. Conversely, the lower the degree of uncertainty, as the national scene remains stable, the less likely eligible voters will participate. As one example, throughout all four historical periods, economic change decreases nonvoting, while economic stability increases nonvoting.Less
The book explores the impact of uncertainty in the national campaign context on nonvoting in presidential and midterm House elections from 1920 through 2012. While previous studies have focused on individuals' motivations to vote and candidates' mobilization efforts, this book considers how uncertain national circumstances in the months before the election affect whether people vote or not. Uncertainty is defined as decision makers being unable to accurately predict future conditions, possible options, or final outcomes based on the current situation. Within the national campaign context, uncertainty arises from economic volatility, technological advances in mass communication, dramatic national events including wars, and changes in suffrage requirements. The book examines this uncertainty across four historical periods: the government expansion period (1920–1944), the post-war period (1946–1972), the government reassessment period (1974–1990), the internet technology period (1992–2012). The book considers the nature of politics during these periods with key occurrences including the economic swings of the Roaring 20s, the Great Depression, the post-World War II boom, and the Great Recession, voting rights for women, African-Americans, and young people, and the effects of radio, television, cable television, and the Internet on nonvoting. It concludes that the higher the degree of uncertainty in the national scene, the more likely eligible voters will go to the polls. Conversely, the lower the degree of uncertainty, as the national scene remains stable, the less likely eligible voters will participate. As one example, throughout all four historical periods, economic change decreases nonvoting, while economic stability increases nonvoting.
David Karpf
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- December 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780190266127
- eISBN:
- 9780190266165
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780190266127.001.0001
- Subject:
- Political Science, American Politics, Democratization
Some of the most remarkable impacts of digital media on political activism lie not in the new types of speech it provides to disorganized masses, but in the new types of listening it fosters among ...
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Some of the most remarkable impacts of digital media on political activism lie not in the new types of speech it provides to disorganized masses, but in the new types of listening it fosters among organized pressure groups. Beneath the easily visible waves of e-petitions, “likes,” hashtags, and viral videos lie a powerful undercurrent of activated public opinion. In this book, David Karpf offers a rich, detailed assessment of how political organizations carefully monitor this online activity and use it to develop new tactics and strategies that help them succeed in the evolving hybrid media system. Karpf discusses the power and potential of this new “analytic activism,” exploring the organizational logics and media logics that determine how digital inputs shape the choices that political campaigners make. He provides the first careful analysis of how organizations like Change.org and Upworthy.com influence the types of political narratives that dominate our Facebook newsfeeds and Twitter timelines. He investigates how MoveOn.org and its “netroots” peers use analytics to listen more effectively to their members and supporters. He also identifies two boundaries of analytic activism—the analytics floor and analytics frontier—which define the scope of this new style of organized citizen engagement. The book concludes by examining the limitations of analytic activism, raising a cautionary flag about the ways that putting too much faith in digital listening can lead to a weakening of civil society as a whole.Less
Some of the most remarkable impacts of digital media on political activism lie not in the new types of speech it provides to disorganized masses, but in the new types of listening it fosters among organized pressure groups. Beneath the easily visible waves of e-petitions, “likes,” hashtags, and viral videos lie a powerful undercurrent of activated public opinion. In this book, David Karpf offers a rich, detailed assessment of how political organizations carefully monitor this online activity and use it to develop new tactics and strategies that help them succeed in the evolving hybrid media system. Karpf discusses the power and potential of this new “analytic activism,” exploring the organizational logics and media logics that determine how digital inputs shape the choices that political campaigners make. He provides the first careful analysis of how organizations like Change.org and Upworthy.com influence the types of political narratives that dominate our Facebook newsfeeds and Twitter timelines. He investigates how MoveOn.org and its “netroots” peers use analytics to listen more effectively to their members and supporters. He also identifies two boundaries of analytic activism—the analytics floor and analytics frontier—which define the scope of this new style of organized citizen engagement. The book concludes by examining the limitations of analytic activism, raising a cautionary flag about the ways that putting too much faith in digital listening can lead to a weakening of civil society as a whole.
Elvin T. Lim
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195342642
- eISBN:
- 9780199851843
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195342642.001.0001
- Subject:
- Political Science, American Politics
Why has it been so long since an American president has effectively and consistently presented well-crafted, intellectually substantive arguments to the American public? Why have presidential ...
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Why has it been so long since an American president has effectively and consistently presented well-crafted, intellectually substantive arguments to the American public? Why have presidential utterances fallen from the rousing speeches of Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, Wilson, and FDR to a series of robotic repetitions of talking points and 60-second soundbites, largely designed to obfuscate rather than illuminate? This book draws on interviews with more than 40 presidential speechwriters to investigate this relentless qualitative decline, over the course of 200 years, in our presidents' ability to communicate with the public. The book argues that the ever-increasing pressure for presidents to manage public opinion and perception has created a “pathology of vacuous rhetoric and imagery” where gesture and appearance matter more than accomplishment and fact. The book tracks the campaign to simplify presidential discourse through presidential and speechwriting decisions made from the Truman to the present administration, explaining how and why presidents have embraced anti-intellectualism and vague platitudes as a public relations strategy. The book sees this anti-intellectual stance as a deliberate choice rather than a reflection of presidents' intellectual limitations. Only the smart, it suggests, know how to dumb down. The result, it shows, is a dangerous debasement of our political discourse and a quality of rhetoric which has been described, charitably, as “a linguistic struggle” and, perhaps more accurately, as “dogs barking idiotically through endless nights.”Less
Why has it been so long since an American president has effectively and consistently presented well-crafted, intellectually substantive arguments to the American public? Why have presidential utterances fallen from the rousing speeches of Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, Wilson, and FDR to a series of robotic repetitions of talking points and 60-second soundbites, largely designed to obfuscate rather than illuminate? This book draws on interviews with more than 40 presidential speechwriters to investigate this relentless qualitative decline, over the course of 200 years, in our presidents' ability to communicate with the public. The book argues that the ever-increasing pressure for presidents to manage public opinion and perception has created a “pathology of vacuous rhetoric and imagery” where gesture and appearance matter more than accomplishment and fact. The book tracks the campaign to simplify presidential discourse through presidential and speechwriting decisions made from the Truman to the present administration, explaining how and why presidents have embraced anti-intellectualism and vague platitudes as a public relations strategy. The book sees this anti-intellectual stance as a deliberate choice rather than a reflection of presidents' intellectual limitations. Only the smart, it suggests, know how to dumb down. The result, it shows, is a dangerous debasement of our political discourse and a quality of rhetoric which has been described, charitably, as “a linguistic struggle” and, perhaps more accurately, as “dogs barking idiotically through endless nights.”
C.W. Anderson
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- September 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780190492335
- eISBN:
- 9780190492373
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780190492335.001.0001
- Subject:
- Political Science, American Politics
Apostles of Certainty: Data Journalism and the Politics of Doubt traces the way American journalists have made use of quantitative information in their news reporting from the early twentieth century ...
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Apostles of Certainty: Data Journalism and the Politics of Doubt traces the way American journalists have made use of quantitative information in their news reporting from the early twentieth century to the present day. In so doing, it examines changing notions of journalistic objectivity and truth telling, particularly as these have evolved alongside social science disciplines such as political science and sociology. Apostles of Certainty uses methodological techniques pioneered in science and technology studies to link the study of newsroom ontologies and epistemologies to a broader analysis of how public knowledge is produced and distributed in the digital age. Though largely historical, the book also sheds light on politics and media in the twenty-first century, with findings that speak to current public conversations around so-called post-truth and the spread of fake news. The book concludes that, viewed over the long term, journalistic reporting in the United States has improved in its accuracy, subtlety, and professional self-certainty, but we have not witnessed a simultaneous improvement in the conduct of US political discourse. In part this is because political journalism only influences politics to a limited degree. To the degree it does have an impact on the political process, the book argues that data-oriented journalism plays a largely tribal and aesthetic role and divides Americans into empirical “tribes” based in part on the perceived elitism of data-based reporting.Less
Apostles of Certainty: Data Journalism and the Politics of Doubt traces the way American journalists have made use of quantitative information in their news reporting from the early twentieth century to the present day. In so doing, it examines changing notions of journalistic objectivity and truth telling, particularly as these have evolved alongside social science disciplines such as political science and sociology. Apostles of Certainty uses methodological techniques pioneered in science and technology studies to link the study of newsroom ontologies and epistemologies to a broader analysis of how public knowledge is produced and distributed in the digital age. Though largely historical, the book also sheds light on politics and media in the twenty-first century, with findings that speak to current public conversations around so-called post-truth and the spread of fake news. The book concludes that, viewed over the long term, journalistic reporting in the United States has improved in its accuracy, subtlety, and professional self-certainty, but we have not witnessed a simultaneous improvement in the conduct of US political discourse. In part this is because political journalism only influences politics to a limited degree. To the degree it does have an impact on the political process, the book argues that data-oriented journalism plays a largely tribal and aesthetic role and divides Americans into empirical “tribes” based in part on the perceived elitism of data-based reporting.
