Political Communication and Public Opinion

Abstract

It is a remarkable time to be a scholar of public opinion and political communication. Not only has the political media environment been fundamentally transformed in the past 20 years, but the rate of ongoing transformation shows no sign of slowing. Digital platforms like Facebook (and its subsidiaries such as Instagram and WhatsApp) are increasingly powerful curators of news and political content. Algorithms designed by platform companies enable high levels of personalization and fragmentation of media audiences; platform-initiated changes to algorithms and newsfeed features can open, or close, the floodgates of visitors to news media websites; the social actions of digital media...