Echo Chamber: Rush Limbaugh and the Conservative Media Establishment

by Kathleen Hall Jamieson, Joseph N. Cappella

Rupert Murdoch's recent multibillion-dollar purchase of the Wall Street Journal made international news. Yet it is but one more chapter in an untold the rise of an integrated conservative media machine that all began with Rush Limbaugh in the 1980s.
Now Kathleen Hall Jamieson and Joseph Cappella--two of the nation's foremost experts on politics and communications--offer a searching analysis of the conservative media establishment, from talk radio to Fox News to the editorial page of the Wall Street Journal . Indeed, here is the first
serious account of how the conservative media arose, what it consists of, and how it operates. To show how this influential segment of the media works, the authors examine the uproar that followed when Senator Trent Lott seemed to endorse Strom Thurmond's segregationist past. Limbaugh called the
remarks "utterly indefensible," but added that a "double standard" was in play. That signaled a broad counterattack by the conservative media establishment, charging the mainstream media with hypocrisy (yet using its reports when convenient), creating a knowledge base (a set of facts or allegations
for partisans to draw upon), and fostering an in-group identity. By analyzing such cases, together with survey data, Jamieson and Cappella find that Limbaugh, Fox News, and the Wall Street Journal opinion pages create a self-protective enclave for conservatives, shielding them from other information
sources, and promoting strongly negative associations with political opponents. Limbaugh in particular, they write, fuses the roles of party leader and opinion leader in a fashion reminiscent of the nineteenth century's partisan newspaper editors.
The rise of conservative media has fundamentally changed American politics. This thoughtful study offers the most authoritative and insightful account of this revolutionary phenomenon available today.

Genres: Politics, Nonfiction, Research

320 pages, Hardcover

First published July 1, 2008

Reviews

[Jenny · Rating 4 out of 5]

Before the term “echo chamber” became mainstream owing to social media, this book was exploring its nature and effects from traditional media. Highly insightful book, I particularly loved how they showed “reciprocal influence” to the often asked question, is media the cause or effect of polarization? Some of the conclusions on the upsides of polarized engagement did not convince me, and am not sure the authors would make the same assertions now with social media, but overall I learned a lot from this book.

[Tim · Rating 4 out of 5]

In ‘Echo Chamber: Rush Limbaugh and the Conservative Media Establishment,’ authors Jamieson and Cappella take a much deeper and scientific approach to their study of the connection between Limbaugh, Fox News and the Wall Street Journal’s editorial pages. Backed by the Annenberg Public Policy Center, ‘Echo Chamber’ is an exacting and through accounting of the detailed factors (framing, name calling, collusion) employed by the ‘conservative opinion media’ to not only broadcast their message to a narrowly chosen demographic (white, older, southerners that make up the sweet spot of the GOP), but whose agenda actually reaches right into the heart of the Republican party to do everything in their power to either anoint, or deny political success to, candidates that pass their litmus test of Reagan conservatism (anti-regulation, gun rights, small government, anti-welfare, pro-life, etc.) Examples of those who have benefitted (Bush, Palin) as well those who have been attacked, or perhaps killed, politically for not being conservative enough (McCain, Huckabee.)

The missing piece in both books is the deep dive, where the authors look way under the hood at the true germination and funding of these messaging campaigns (lobbyists), the benefactors of the message (corporations) and the true innerworkings of the skunkworks who pull the strings on all of this (Frank Luntz, Dick Armey, RNC operatives, etc.) The opportunity here is for a new Woodward and Bernstein to emerge to get beyond the surface speakers of this movement and to reveal the real shadow players in this political agenda.

In other words, it’s time for a new Deep Throat.

[Blog on Books · Rating 4 out of 5]

In ‘Echo Chamber: Rush Limbaugh and the Conservative Media Establishment,’ authors Jamieson and Cappella take a much deeper and scientific approach to their study of the connection between Limbaugh, Fox News and the Wall Street Journal’s editorial pages. Backed by the Annenberg Public Policy Center, ‘Echo Chamber’ is an exacting and through accounting of the detailed factors (framing, name calling, collusion) employed by the ‘conservative opinion media’ to not only broadcast their message to a narrowly chosen demographic (white, older, southerners that make up the sweet spot of the GOP), but whose agenda actually reaches right into the heart of the Republican party to do everything in their power to either anoint, or deny political success to, candidates that pass their litmus test of Reagan conservatism (anti-regulation, gun rights, small government, anti-welfare, pro-life, etc.) Examples of those who have benefitted (Bush, Palin) as well those who have been attacked, or perhaps killed, politically for not being conservative enough (McCain, Huckabee.)

The missing piece in both books is the deep dive, where the authors look way under the hood at the true germination and funding of these messaging campaigns (lobbyists), the benefactors of the message (corporations) and the true innerworkings of the skunkworks who pull the strings on all of this (Frank Luntz, Dick Armey, RNC operatives, etc.) The opportunity here is for a new Woodward and Bernstein to emerge to get beyond the surface speakers of this movement and to reveal the real shadow players in this political agenda.

In other words, it’s time for a new Deep Throat.

[Peter · Rating 4 out of 5]

I stopped reading this about halfway through. Not because it was bad, but because I didn't need to be convinced of the case the book was making. Interesting book if you want a look at conservative talk radio.

[Rob · Rating 2 out of 5]

Reads a little too much like a thesis to give a higher rating. A good thesis, perhaps, but the authors spend to much time explaining their methodology, rather then providing an engaging read.

[Smsu Library]

found in "Choice" as an "essential" purchase... Maria

NYP - 12/09 sh

[Sharon Beers · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book reveals the agenda of the right wing media