Battleground
Asymmetric Communication Ecologies and the Erosion of Civil Society in Wisconsin

This Element looks into how politics, social life, and communication intersect and create conditions of polarization and democratic decline.

Lewis A. Friedland (Author), Dhavan V. Shah (Author), Michael W. Wagner (Author), Katherine J. Cramer (Author), Chris Wells (Author), Jon Pevehouse (Author)

9781108925068, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 4 August 2022

75 pages
22.8 x 15.1 x 0.6 cm, 0.18 kg

Battleground models Wisconsin's contentious political communication ecology: the way that politics, social life, and communication intersect and create conditions of polarization and democratic decline. Drawing from 10 years of interviews, news and social media content, and state-wide surveys, we combine qualitative and computational analysis with time-series and multi-level modeling to study this hybrid communication system – an approach that yields unique insights about nationalization, social structure, conventional discourses, and the lifeworld. We explore these concepts through case studies of immigration, healthcare, and economic development, concluding that despite nationalization, distinct state-level effects vary by issue as partisan actors exert their discursive power.

1. Introduction: Why Wisconsin?
2. Communication ecologies, social structure, and lifeworld
3. Studying the Wisconsin communication ecology
4. Immigration: Complex issues and conservative asymmetries
5. Healthcare: A national issue with lifeworld implications
6. Foxconn and economic development in the local communication ecology
7. Understanding communication ecologies in asymmetric media systems
8. Conclusion
References.

Subject Areas: Political activism [JPW], Political structures: democracy [JPHV], Elections & referenda [JPHF], Politics & government [JP]