Includes bibliographical references and indexes.

Contents: Machine generated contents note: -- Entertainment Media and the Political Engagement of Citizens -- Do cosmopolitan communications threaten traditional moral values -- Political communication in a changing media environment -- Blogging and the future of news -- Political organizations and campaigning online -- Popular culture and political communication -- Government communication: An emerging field in political communication research -- What's good and bad in political communication research -- Digital media and citizenship -- Digital media and youth engagement -- The internet and citizenship: Democratic opportunity or more of the same -- Civic knowledge and audiovisual learning -- Women as political communicators: Candidates and campaigns --. The impact of negative campaigning on citizens' actions and -- Changes in European public service broadcasting: potential Consequences for political knowledge, attitudes and behavior -- Social networks, public discussion and civic engagement: A socialization perspective -- Measuring affect, emotion and mood in political communication -- Panels and the future of political communication research -- Social networks and political knowledge -- Understanding the content of news media -- Ethnography as theory and method in the study of political communication -- . Political visions: Visual studies in political communication -- News framing research: An Overview and new developments -- Dynamics in mass communication effects research -- Media, power and US foreign policy livingston -- News media and war -- The power of rhetoric: Understanding political oratory -- The power of everyday conversations: Mediating the effects of media use on policy understanding -- Leaders on the campaign trail: The impact of television news on perceptions of party leaders in British general elections -- The interdependency of mass media and social movements -- Media consolidation, fragmentation and selective exposure in the USA -- Democratization and the changing media environment in South Korea -- The changing landscape of political communications in China -- Political communication in Latin America -- Political communication and media effects in the context of new democracies of East-Central Europe -- Post-Soviet political communication -- Al-Jazeera Arabic, transnational identity and influence -- Grassroots political communication in India: Women's movements, vernacular rhetoric and street slay performance -- Political communication in post-apartheid South Africa -- Some caveats about comparative research in media studies -- Never waste a good crisis: The British phone hacking scandal and its implications for politics and the press.

This handbook provides a review of the major research associated with political communication and sets the agenda for future study in this important discipline. It explores influences on political communication such as the media and technology and looks at the influences on political communication research.