Political Junkies - by Claire Bond Potter (Hardcover)

About the Book

"For years, we were promised the Internet would make our politics more open and inclusive. And its influence has certainly been decisive: the 2016 election was debated, won, and lost on social media and the Internet. But with Facebook and Twitter embroiled in controversy over privacy issues, ongoing revelations about foreign interference through hacking and social media trolls, and coverage of controversial viral videos monopolizing the attention of the press, it's increasingly unclear whether the Internet is a benign public arena, let alone one for the public good. In Political Junkies, historian Claire Potter explains how we got here by situating today's online politics in a much longer history of new media technologies repurposed for political purposes, including independent newsletters, talk radio, direct mail, and cable television. Beginning in the 1950s, pioneers across the political spectrum, from I.F. Stone to Phyllis Schlafly, used these tools to create increasingly influential political media that were entrepreneurial, alarming, and sharply partisan. Simultaneously, traditional media outlets embraced the same technologies and expanded their ideas about what counted as political news. Cheap and free digital tools introduced in the 1990s simply further sped transformations already under way: email became an inexpensive form of direct mail, blogging updated the political newsletter for a wider audience, and YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter ads displaced vintage campaign commercials. The results were evident in the insurgent presidential campaigns of John McCain and Howard Dean, the hashtag activism of the early 2010s, and of course, the rise of Donald Trump. The Internet and social media made the populist insurgency of 2016 possible, but so too did a far longer transformation in our political media. In today's online world, political engagement has never been greater, but trust in political institutions and processes has never been more fragile. To understand why, Potter argues, we must avoid the shock of the present and look to history. For anyone lost in the online wilderness or the thread of some political argument, Political Junkies is essential reading for understanding how the Internet became the defining feature of 21st century politics"--

Book Synopsis

A wide-ranging history of seventy years of change in political media, and how it transformed -- and fractured -- American politics
With fake news on Facebook, trolls on Twitter, and viral outrage everywhere, it's easy to believe that the internet changed politics entirely. In Political Junkies, historian Claire Bond Potter shows otherwise, revealing the roots of today's dysfunction by situating online politics in a longer history of alternative political media.
From independent newsletters in the 1950s to talk radio in the 1970s to cable television in the 1980s, pioneers on the left and right developed alternative media outlets that made politics more popular, and ultimately, more partisan. When campaign operatives took up e-mail, blogging, and social media, they only supercharged these trends. At a time when political engagement has never been greater and trust has never been lower, Political Junkies is essential reading for understanding how we got here.

Review Quotes

"Do you follow political news obsessively? Do you tweet about it even more obsessively still, compulsively dismissing and disbelieving all information that doesn't fit your ideological lens? You might be a political junkie! You're not alone. In this incisive, clear-headed book, Claire Potter diagnoses the condition ailing so many of us, and persuasively argues that it's bad for democracy. Political Junkies is wise, open-minded, and bracing."--Liza Featherstone, author of Divining Desire: Focus Groups and the Culture of Consultation

"I'm a political junkie, and if you're reading this, you probably are too. Which means you're going to want to grab Claire Potter's new book and dive in. This vivid, lively narrative shows us how the rise of political populism and the emergence of alternative media have gone hand in hand. Spotlighting the operatives you haven't heard of, the innovations you didn't know about, and the stories you haven't heard, Potter reveals the history that happened when we were looking the other way. The gatekeepers have fallen, the barbarians are inside the city, and Political Junkies -- with insight, fresh detail, and delicious wit -- makes sense of how it all happened."--David Greenberg, author of Republic of Spin: An Inside History of the American Presidency

"In her lively new book, Claire Potter tackles a topic too many historians ignore -- the central role media play in shaping our political lives. From the political newsletters of the 1950s to cables news in the 1980s to the social-media revolution of the 2000s, Potter maps the ways alternative media remade our politics, broke our democracy, and gave birth to a new kind of American: the political junkie."--Nicole Hemmer, author of Messengers of the Right: Conservative Media and the Transformation of American Politic

"Potter's brisk and well informed account suggests that alternative media, by refocusing on truth seeking and informed debate, can help solve many of the threats to American democracy that it has produced. Newshounds on both the right and the left will be encouraged"--Publishers Weekly

"To understand 21st-century populism, we need to know the media that helped to create it. Claire Potter's Political Junkies tells that story -- sometimes glorious, sometimes dismal, but always fascinating and well worth the read."--Beverly Gage, author of The Day Wall Street Exploded: A Story of America in Its First Age of Terror

About the Author

Claire Bond Potter is a political historian at the New School for Social Research. She is executive editor of Public Seminar and was the author of the popular blog Tenured Radical from 2006 through 2015. She lives in New York City.