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Air Wars: Television Advertising in Election Campaigns, 1952-1996
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
April 16, 2025
It was informational, but started to get repetitive
September 15, 2017
Reading this book is like reading a upper level undergraduate book or perhaps a starting text for a graduate course about politics and campaigns. The tone is basic and the layout is similar to many textbooks I used as a student and a professor. Each of the 10 chapters starts with a simple introductory paragraph, breaks the topics up into easily digestible pieces, and then a summary.
There is talk of statistics and some charts but they are understandable if you read carefully. I never felt overwhelmed by the statistics and they are important when comparing 60+ years of history. It isn't exciting reading for the average person and it may upset some folks who are still stressed because of the 2016 elections. West does offer advice along with the analysis and history, a bit of hope for those who want more facts versus popular flash.
I found the pictorial history of campaigns very interesting and I wish those images had been spread throughout the book to help illustrate points being made. I realize that a lot of photos can increase the price of a book by a great deal but they could have been spread out more. Likewise the Appendix of "memorial ads" from 1984-2016 elections was hard emotionally to read in one big chunk and would have been better understand woven into the rest of the book.
There is talk of statistics and some charts but they are understandable if you read carefully. I never felt overwhelmed by the statistics and they are important when comparing 60+ years of history. It isn't exciting reading for the average person and it may upset some folks who are still stressed because of the 2016 elections. West does offer advice along with the analysis and history, a bit of hope for those who want more facts versus popular flash.
I found the pictorial history of campaigns very interesting and I wish those images had been spread throughout the book to help illustrate points being made. I realize that a lot of photos can increase the price of a book by a great deal but they could have been spread out more. Likewise the Appendix of "memorial ads" from 1984-2016 elections was hard emotionally to read in one big chunk and would have been better understand woven into the rest of the book.
May 21, 2008
not great! maybe I'm just not impressed by this style of policy research book.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews