Political Campaign Communication

Political Campaign Communication: Theory, Method, and Practice brings a diversity of issues, topics, and events on political campaign communication around the concepts of theory, method and practice. The volume contains studies of political campaign communication utilizing a wide range of empirical, rhetorical, content analyses and social science methodologies as well as a variety of foci on the practice of political campaign communication with studies on the communication dimensions and elements of political campaigns. It reflects the growing depth, breadth, and maturity of the discipline and provides insight into a variety of topics related to political campaign communication.

This volume brings together insightful and original projects addressing campaign communication theory, method, and practice. It embraces multiple perspectives, methods, and cases. The chapters address historical and comparative work with many also shedding light on the conditions leading to the unexpected outcome of the 2016 presidential election., Bob Denton is the ideal scholar to help us understand the development of political communication as an area of study, particularly as he has been one of the leading figures in guiding the emergence of the discipline. In this collection of chapters, our knowledge of political communication is further advanced as we learn of key theories, methods of analysis and important insights regarding the practice of political communication. This book is a superb volume of research that illuminates where we’ve been and, perhaps more importantly, where we may be headed as discipline of study., Bob Denton has done it again.  In Political Campaign Communication: Theory, Method and Practice he has collected thoughtful and significant work by scholars connecting the unique and ground-breaking 2016 election to the important work in the field of political communication.  This timely collection offers insights on how the election evidenced practices that forced us to reexamine how we think about and study political communication in the contemporary world.  The authors adroitly navigate the complexities of numerous aspects of the election, from traditional campaign rhetoric, to the examination of the role played by mainstream media and late night comedians. This book needs to be on the shelves for anyone who teaches, studies or is even interested in the dynamic world of political communication.

Robert E. Denton, Jr. holds the W. Thomas Rice Chair in the Pamplin College of Business and is professor and head of the Department of Communication at Virginia Tech.