Description: "Accurate information about politics is at the heart of democratic functioning. For decades, those concerned with the information environment have understandably focused on mass media, but many Americans do not learn about politics from direct engagement with the news. Indeed, about one-third of Americans learn about politics from socially transmitted information they acquire from conversations with others and social media. How does socially transmitted information differ from information communicated by mass media? And what are the consequences for political behavior? Drawing on evidence from experiments, surveys, and Twitter, Taylor Carlson finds that, as information flows from the media to person to person, it becomes sparse, more biased, less accurate, and more mobilizing. The result is what Carlson calls distorted democracy. Although socially transmitted information does not necessarily render democracy dysfunctional, it does contribute to a public that is at once underinformed, polarized, and engaged"--
Brief description: Taylor N. Carlson is associate professor of political science at Washington University in St. Louis. Her previous books include Talking Politics and What Goes Without Saying.
Review Quotes: "Many citizens learn about politics through conversations with their friends and family. Such engagement can come with a steep cost. In this terrific and meticulously researched book, Carlson argues that interpersonal conversations about politics may do more harm than good. As citizens discuss what they read or hear in media reports, the actual information transmitted through conversation degrades and becomes more partisan in character, more negative in tone, and less accurate in nature."--Adam J. Berinsky Massachusetts Institute of Technology