Norris. (2000) Virtuous Circle.

Part I News Media and Civic Malaise
Media potential role: (1) Watch Dog (2) Civic Forum (3) Mobilizing Agent

Part II Trends in PolComm
Newspapers: sales are still relatively high; the concentration of news ownership does not effect the coverage or freedom of the press; whether or not there has been a ‘tabloidization’ of newspapers is still understudied.
TV: There has been an increase in entertainment coverage
Internet: Mobilization Theory vs. Reinforcement Theory (does the Internet bring more people into the political discussion, or merely reinforce the digital gap theory. Is Norris’s analysis dated? She does not consider the recent boom in Internet use, especially among younger people and people of lower socioeconomic status. When she wrote her book about 20% of the population was connected.

Part III The Impact on Democracy
In conclusion, Norris associates high levels of news consumption with higher levels of efficacy, higher levels of political participation and low levels of government cynicism.

Chapter 10 Knows Little? Information and Choice
Three perspectives are common in the literature to establish political knowledge benchmarks:
(1) Civics approach assumes narrow type of ideal info about gov and public policy that all citizens need to know
(2) Relativist stances acknowledges that people have a limited reservoir of political information but suggests that it is sufficient to cast a vote.
(3) Practical Knowledge: citizens need enough knowledge to help them connect their political and social prefs to the available options.
Pg 214: 5 questions that measure political knowledge.

General class discussion: What is the difference between civic and practical knowledge, and which is more important for informing citizens?
-Civic knowledge would be knowledge of Supreme Court Justices, etc.
-Practical knowledge would be a knowledge of which political party is likely to support privatized health care, etc. Which type of knowledge is more important to measures of sophistication? Which type of knowledge does Norris capture in her surveys?