Televised legislatures : political information, technology and public choice
Author(s)
Bibliographic Information
Televised legislatures : political information, technology and public choice
Kluwer Academic Publishers, c1988
- :U.S.
Available at 12 libraries
  Aomori
  Iwate
  Miyagi
  Akita
  Yamagata
  Fukushima
  Ibaraki
  Tochigi
  Gunma
  Saitama
  Chiba
  Tokyo
  Kanagawa
  Niigata
  Toyama
  Ishikawa
  Fukui
  Yamanashi
  Nagano
  Gifu
  Shizuoka
  Aichi
  Mie
  Shiga
  Kyoto
  Osaka
  Hyogo
  Nara
  Wakayama
  Tottori
  Shimane
  Okayama
  Hiroshima
  Yamaguchi
  Tokushima
  Kagawa
  Ehime
  Kochi
  Fukuoka
  Saga
  Nagasaki
  Kumamoto
  Oita
  Miyazaki
  Kagoshima
  Okinawa
  Korea
  China
  Thailand
  United Kingdom
  Germany
  Switzerland
  France
  Belgium
  Netherlands
  Sweden
  Norway
  United States of America
Note
Bibliography: p. [113]-118
Includes index
Description and Table of Contents
Description
Our interest in studying televised legislatures was kindled by two episodes. The first was a series of rejections by the U.S. Senate between 1984 and 1986 of resolutions to permit live television coverage of floor proceedings. The second was the 1984 "Camscam affair," the media label given to a partisan war over camera coverage of U.S. House proceedings. Each episode, if nothing else, made plain the intensity of the feelings that elected representatives feel about televised sessions. Legislative television was not taken lightly by those who had the most to gain or lose. Surveys indicate that legislative watchers, "C-SP AN junkies," number in the millions and penetration of cable access to televised sessions numbered nearly 40 million in 1986. In addition to the direct viewers, television news programs increasingly use excerpts from the televised sessions as enhancements and sources for political reporting. Televising legislatures, in short, has attracted much new attention to the process oflegislating. The innovation and diffusion of the electronic Acropolis has transformed politics in the U.S. Yet, its impact on the democratic process has attracted little notice except from a few political journalists. Our predilections as economists working in the public choice tradition led us into the analysis of several questions surrounding television: What do televised sessions provide for legislators? How are incumbent reelection bids affected? Do all incumbents benefit? How are legislative sessions changed? Has the enactment of laws been influenced? For the most part, these questions had received only cursory treatment.
Table of Contents
1 The Architecture of Constitutions.- 2 Political Information Technology and Public Choice: Background.- Voter Shopping: Experience and Search.- Product Advertising and Information Theory.- Product Advertising as Political Advertising.- Technology and the Costs of Campaigning.- The Rational Voter Model.- Televised Legislatures.- History of Televised Legislatures.- Summary.- 3 Legislative Television: The Transformation of Politicians.- The Relationship Between Citizens and Politicians.- Political Services and the Content of Product Advertising.- Technology and the Relative Cost of Acquiring Political Information: Experience versus Search.- Summary.- 4 The Effect of Televising Legislatures on Elections: The Case of U.S. State Legislatures.- The Advantages to Incumbency in Televised Legislatures: State Lower Chamber.- Test for Reverse Causation.- State Upper Chambers.- Summary.- 5 The Effects of Televised Legislatures on Elections: The Case of the U.S. House of Representatives.- U.S. House Races: Before Versus After TV.- Test for Spurious Correlation.- Summary.- 6 The Effect of Televised Legislatures on the Output of Legislation.- A Model of Television and Legislative Outcomes.- Empirical Estimation.- Summary.- 7 The Politics of Adopting Televised Sessions.- Political Influences on Legislators.- Empirical Model of Support for Television in the U.S. Senate.- Summary.- 8 Modernity.- Appendix 1 Data Sources.- Appendix 2 Data.
by "Nielsen BookData"