When Politicians Attack

With his book When Politicians Attack! Party Cohesion in the Media, Tim Groeling goes a long way toward providing a roadmap to understand partisan talk and parties' efforts to create a brand name for themselves, and he identifies a somewhat surprising challenge for party unity-being the president's party, especially in unified government...Groeling has created a clear theoretical framework for analyzing partisan communication and its impact that can be applied well beyond the messages and media he has chosen to study. - C. Danielle Vinson, Furman University, Political Communication Tim Groeling is one of our most imaginative younger scholars of communications and politics. Groeling builds a theory of news production, and its implications on public opinion, rooted in the interactions of journalists and politicians. He finds that cheap talk, when members of the president's party support him and the opposition criticizes, is less likely to lead to news coverage than costly rhetoric, criticism from the president's party and support from the opposition. Costly rhetoric too has larger effects on public opinion than cheap talk. This is a highly nuanced and well crafted study that helps us understand news coverage political rhetoric and the implication of that coverage on politics and public opinion. --Jeffrey Cohen, Fordham University This book provides an amazing wealth of data and interesting insights into today's highly polarized world of party communications. The way in which parties talk to voters and the news media as well as the tone of their comments go a long way toward creating party name brands and distinguishing legislators from one another. Groeling has written a book that will be of tremendous interest to people who study Congress, political parties, and political communications. --Darrell M. West, Brookings Institution This is a major contribution to our understanding of American politics. Groeling displays unparalleled breadth and insight by showing how the interaction of political institutions, audience demands, and media practices determines the workings of representative government. It is top-rate scholarship that should be read by anyone interested in how democracy works in America. --James N. Druckman, Northwestern University