Doctoral Dissertation Research in Political Science: The Process Revealed: News Media, Legislators and Constituents Connections, Interactions and Communications

美国政治学的政治学分支对政治代表过程中立法者、新闻媒体和选区互动和沟通的复杂性知之甚少。 政治科学家有许多拼图，但没有接近一个统一的模型。 在这篇博士论文研究支持的调查是一个关键的政治代表过程的理解是新闻媒体的作用，作为促进者和立法者和选民之间的信息提供者。 虽然本文不会回答关于这一过程的所有问题，但它开始弥合国会，政治沟通，投票以及在某种程度上政治心理学的相关领域和文献之间的差距。 在这个项目中提出的基本问题是如何引入新闻媒体作为一个战略行为体影响政治代表过程？ 的博士这位学生认为，这是政治代表如何在美国政治体系中表现出来的最关键的因素，然而政治学学科未能充分模拟其影响。本研究试图以三种整合的方式，填补立法者、新闻媒体与选民互动在政治代表过程中的研究空白。 首先，学生开发正式的模型来分析研究如何引入新闻媒体作为一个战略演员可以影响立法者-家庭风格和运动。 其次，他通过对报纸对美国众议院议员报道的内容分析，对分析结果进行了实证检验，以了解报道的实际情况。 对地方和全国性报纸进行了分析，并对正式模型产生的结果进行了直接的实证检验。 第三，使用内容分析数据，他实证调查公民是否以及在多大程度上回应各种类型的新闻报道他们的众议院代表。 这项调查研究了新闻媒体对连任概率的影响。 该项目通过加强对公民与媒体关系的了解和公民与立法者的互动，有可能产生更广泛的社会影响。

The American politics subfield of political science knows very little about the intricacies involved in legislator, news media and constituency interactions and communications in the political representation process. Political scientists have many pieces to the puzzle but nothing approaching a unified model. Critical in this doctoral dissertation research support's investigation is an understanding of the political representation process is the role of the news media as facilitator and provider of information between legislators and voters. While this dissertation will not answer all of the questions about this process, it begins to bridge the gaps between the relevant fields and literature of Congress, political communication, voting and, to some extent, political psychology. The fundamental question asked in this project is how does the introduction of the news media as a strategic actor affect the political representation process? The Ph.D. student argues that this is the single most crucial element in how political representation manifests itself in the U.S. political system, and yet the political science discipline has failed to adequately model its effect. This project attempts to fill the research gap for legislator, news media and constituency interactions in the political representation process in three integrative ways. First, the student develops formal models to investigate analytically how the introduction of the news media as a strategic actor can influence legislators - homestyles and campaigns. Second, he empirically tests the analytical results through content analyses of newspapers' coverage of U.S. House members to see what coverage actually looks like. Analyses are done on both local and national newspapers and serve as a direct empirical test of the results generated out of the formal models. Third, using the content analysis data, he empirically investigates whether and to what extent citizens respond to various types of news coverage about their House representatives. This investigation examines the news media's impact on reelection probabilities. The project has the potential for broader social impact by enhancing understanding of citizen-media relations and for citizen-legislator interactions.