New book: Social Fragmentation and the Decline of American Democracy

This is an announcement regarding a new book by NCA members and Communication Scholars Dr. Robert Denton and Dr. Ben Voth

A new monograph on political communication and the United States is now published by Palgrave Macmillan.  The book draws upon a diverse set of sources to critique the unique political era of partisanship that has divided the nation in ways apparent to all.  The opening chapter, “A Divided and Selfish Nation: A United States of America No More,” effectively captures the current 2017 sense of division that appears destined to render the American civic body untenable.  The book does progress toward proposals of renewal that suggest that these manifestations of cynical political ethics can not only be stopped but profoundly reversed.  An analysis of the postmodern communication trends contributing to these disruptions is interspersed with insights such as chapter six, “De-mock-racy:  Comic Framing as Political Wrecking Ball” that explain how postmodern communication patterns in habits such as political humor contribute to the divided political sense we find ourselves in.!
   Another chapter notes how Americans are suffering the effects of an “epistemological poisoning” that leaves them without trust for the epistemological organs of the nation found in academia, the media, Hollywood, the Church and the Federal government.  The renaissance of America is discovered in lost idealist frameworks such as the forgotten "great debater," James Farmer Jr. who led a largely forgotten successful American revolution against Jim Crow segregation.  His techniques were rooted in the Communication pedagogy of debate and are ready to make Black Lives Matter in ways largely forgotten until now.  Ultimately, an ethic of communication idealism that celebrates America’s diverse thoughts and opinions is offered as a solution to our divisive politics.  This book is unique in its effort to offer both an in depth confession of current problems alongside compelling and empirical remedies for the current problems of 2017.

We hope our communication colleagues will take a look at this scholarly approach to real contemporary political communication problems.

http://www.springer.com/gp/book/9783319439211#aboutBook