Journalism and Democratic Backsliding: Critical Realism as a Diagnostic and Prescription for Reform

References

• Achen, C. H., & Bartels, L. M. (2016). Democracy for realists: Why elections do not produce responsive governance. Princeton University Press.
   Google Scholar
• Alizada, N., Cole, R., Gastaldi, L., Grahn, S., Hellmeier, S., Kolvani, P., Lachapella, J., Lührmann, A., Maerz, S. F., Pillai, S., & Lindberg, S. I. (2021). Autocratization turns viral: Democracy report 2021. University of Gothenburg, V-Dem Institute.
   Google Scholar
• Anderson, B. (1987). Imagined communities: Reflections on the rise and spread of nationalism. Verso.
   Google Scholar
• Atton, C. (2010). Alternative journalism: Ideology and practice. In S. Allan (Ed.), The Routledge companion to news and journalism. (pp. 213-222). Routledge.
   Google Scholar
• Beckers, K. (2020). The voice of the people in the news: A content analysis of public opinion in routine and election news. Journalism Studies, 21(15), 2078–2095. https://doi.org/10.1080/1461670X.2020.1809498
   Web of Science ®Google Scholar
• Benkler, Y., Faris, R., & Roberts, H. (2018). Network propaganda: Manipulation, disinformation, and radicalization in American politics. Oxford University Press.
   Google Scholar
• Bermeo, N. (2016). On democratic backsliding. Journal of Democracy, 27(1), 5–19. https://doi.org/10.1353/jod.2016.0012
   Web of Science ®Google Scholar
• Bhaskar, R. (1979). The possibility of naturalism: A philosophical critique of the contemporary human sciences. Harvest Press.
   Google Scholar
• Bhaskar, R. (1989). Reclaiming reality: A critical introduction to contemporary philosophy. Verso.
   Google Scholar
• Blumler, J. G., & Kavanagh, D. (1999). The third age of political communication. Political Communication, 16(3), 209–230. https://doi.org/10.1080/105846099198596
   Web of Science ®Google Scholar
• Borden, S. L. (2014). Communitarian journalism and the common good: Lessons from the Catholic Worker. Journalism, 15(3), 273–288. https://doi.org/10.1177/1464884913477283
   Web of Science ®Google Scholar
• Brubaker, R. (2020). Populism and nationalism. Nations and Nationalism, 26(1), 44–66. https://doi.org/10.1111/nana.12522
   Web of Science ®Google Scholar
• Cater, D. (1959). The fourth branch of government. Houghton Mifflin.
   Google Scholar
• Chambers, S. (2018). Human life is group life: Democracy for realists. Critical Review, 30(1–2), 36–48. https://doi.org/10.1080/08913811.2018.1466852
   Web of Science ®Google Scholar
• Cook, T. E. (1998). Governing with the news: The news media as a political institution. University of Chicago Press.
   Google Scholar
• Crouch, C. (2020). Post-democracy after the crisis. Polity.
   Google Scholar
• Crozier, M. (2007). Recursive governance: Contemporary political communication and public policy. Political Communication, 24(1), 1–18. https://doi.org/10.1080/10584600601128382
   Web of Science ®Google Scholar
• Disch, L. (2015). The “constructivist turn” in democratic representation: A normative dead-end? Constellations, 22(4), 487–499. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8675.12201
   Web of Science ®Google Scholar
• Dunn, J. (1999). Situating democratic political accountability. In A. Prezeworski, S. G. Stokes, & B. Manin (Eds.), Democracy, accountability, and representation (pp. 328–344). Cambridge University Press.
   Google Scholar
• Dunn, J. (2000). The cunning of unreason: Making sense of politics. Basic Books.
   Google Scholar
• Ehrenreich, B. (2001). Nickle and dimed: On (not) getting by in America. Holt.
   Google Scholar
• Ekström, M., Patrona, M., & Thornborrow, J. (2020). The normalization of the populist radical right in news interviews: A study of journalistic reporting on the Swedish democrats. Social Semiotics, 30(4), 466–484. https://doi.org/10.1080/10350330.2020.1762984
   Web of Science ®Google Scholar
• Election Coverage and Democracy Network. (2020). Recommendations for media coverage during the 2020. U.S. Presidential Election. https://mediafordemocracy.org/
   Google Scholar
• Ettema, J. S., & Glasser, T. L. (1998). Custodians of conscience: Investigative journalism and public virtue. Columbia University Press.
   Google Scholar
• Ferrucci, P., Nelson, J. L., & Davis, M. P. (2020). From “public journalism” to “engaged journalism”: Imagined audience and denigrating discourse. International Journal of Communication, 14, 1586–1604 http://ijoc.org.
   Web of Science ®Google Scholar
• Fraser, N. (2010). Rethinking the public sphere: A contribution to the critique of actually existing democracy. In J. Gripsrud, H. Moe, A. Molander, & G. Murdock (Eds.), The idea of the public sphere: A reader (pp. 127–149). Lexington Books.
   Google Scholar
• Gans, H. J. (1979). Deciding what’s news: A study of CBS Evening News, NBC Nightly News, Newsweek and Time. Vintage/Random House.
   Google Scholar
• Gorski, P. S. (2013). What is critical realism? And why should you care? Contemporary Sociology, 42(5), 658–670. https://doi.org/10.1177/0094306113499533
   Web of Science ®Google Scholar
• Graham, M. H., & Svolik, M. W. (2020). Democracy in America? Partisanship, polarization, and the robustness of support for democracy in the United States. America Political Science Review, 114(2), 392–409. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0003055420000052
   Web of Science ®Google Scholar
• Guardino, M. (2020). “Rediscovering” ideology critique (again): Toward a critical realist analysis of political media effects. International Journal of Communication, 14, 2633–2652 http://ijoc.org.
   Web of Science ®Google Scholar
• Haggard, S., & Kaufman, R. (2021). Backsliding: Democratic regress in the contemporary world. Cambridge University Press.
   Google Scholar
• Heywood, A. (2017). Political ideologies: An introduction. Palgrave.
   Google Scholar
• Hofstadter, R. (1963). Anti-intellectualism in American life. Alfred A. Knopf.
   Google Scholar
• Iyengar, S., Lelkes, Y., Levendusky, M., Malhotra, N., & Westwood, S. J. (2019). The origins and consequences of affective polarization in the United States. Annual Review of Political Science, 22(1), 129–146 https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-polisci-051117-073034.
   Web of Science ®Google Scholar
• Kohn, M. (2000). Language, power, and persuasion: Towards a critique of deliberative democracy. Constellations, 7(3), 408–429. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8675.00197
   Google Scholar
• Konieczna, M. (2018). Journalism without profit. Columbia University Press.
   Google Scholar
• Krämer, B. (2014). Media populism: A conceptual clarification and some theses on its effects. Communication Theory, 24(1), 42–60. https://doi.org/10.1111/comt.12029
   Web of Science ®Google Scholar
• Krämer, B., & Langmann, K. (2020). Professionalism as a response to right-wing populism? An analysis of a metajournalistic discourse. International Journal of Communication, 14, 5643–5662 http://ijoc.org.
   Web of Science ®Google Scholar
• Langer, A. I., & Gruber, J. B. (2021). Political agenda setting in the hybrid media system: Why legacy media still matter a great deal. The International Journal of Press/Politics, 26(2), 313–340. https://doi.org/10.1177/1940161220925023
   Web of Science ®Google Scholar
• Lau, R. W. K. (2004). Critical realism and news production. Media, Culture & Society, 26(5), 693–711. https://doi.org/10.1177/0163443704045507
   Web of Science ®Google Scholar
• Leonhardt, D. (2021, June 29). New York’s lessons for Democrats. Are they willing to listen? The New York Times.
   Google Scholar
• Levendusky, M., & Malhotra, N. (2016). Does media coverage of partisan polarization affect politial attitudes? Political Communication, 33(2), 283–301. https://doi.org/10.1080/10584609.2015.1038455
   Web of Science ®Google Scholar
• Levitsky, S., & Ziblatt, D. (2018). How democracies die: What history reveals about our future. Penguin Random House.
   Google Scholar
• Lim, E. T. (2008). The anti-intellectual presidency: The decline of presidential rhetoric from George Washington to George W. Bush. Oxford University Press.
   Google Scholar
• Mazzarella, W. (2019). The anthropology of populism: Beyond the liberal settlement. Annual Review of Anthropology, 48(1), 45–60. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-anthro-102218-011412
   Web of Science ®Google Scholar
• McCoy, J., & Somer, M. (2019). Toward a theory of pernicious polarization and how it harms democracy: Comparative evidence and possible remedies. The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 681(1), 234–271. https://doi.org/10.1177/0002716218818782
   Web of Science ®Google Scholar
• McDevitt, M. (2020). Where ideas go to die: The fate of intellect in American journalism. Oxford University Press.
   Google Scholar
• McDevitt, M., & Ferrucci, P. (2018). Populism, journalism, and the limits of reflexivity: The case of Donald J. Trump. Journalism Studies, 19(4), 512–526. https://doi.org/10.1080/1461670X.2017.1386586
   Web of Science ®Google Scholar
• Mechkova, V., Lührmann, A., & Lindberg, S. I. (2017). How much democratic backsliding? Journal of Democracy, 28(4), 162–169. https://doi.org/10.1353/jod.2017.0075
   Web of Science ®Google Scholar
• Mickey, R., Levitsky, S., & Way, L. (2017). Is America still safe for democracy? Why the United States is in danger of backsliding. Foreign Affairs, 96 20 , 20–29.
   Google Scholar
• Moffitt, B. (2018). Populism 2.0: Social media and the false allure of “unmediated” representation. In G. Fitzi, J. Mackert, & B. S. Turner (Eds.), Populism and the crisis of democracy volume 2: Politics, social movements and extremism (pp. 30–46). Routledge.
   Google Scholar
• Mouffe, C. (2010). Deliberative democracy or agonistic liberalism? In J. Gripsrud, H. Moe, A. Molander, & G. Murdock (Eds.) The idea of the public sphere: A reader (pp. 270–278. 1999). Lexington Books.
   Google Scholar
• Moy, P., & Pfau, M. (2000). With malice toward all? The media and public confidence in democratic institutions. Praeger.
   Google Scholar
• Mudde, C. (2004). The populist zeitgeist. Government and Opposition, 39(4), 541–563. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1477-7053.2004.00135.x
   Web of Science ®Google Scholar
• Nielsen, R. K. (2017). The one thing journalism just might do for democracy: Counterfactual idealism, liberal optimism, democratic realism. Journalism Studies, 18 (10), 1251–1262. politics across Eastern Europe. Problems of post-communism, 66(1), 1–7. https://doi.org/10.1080/1461670X.2017.1338152
   Web of Science ®Google Scholar
• Norris, P. (2017). Is Western democracy backsliding? Diagnosing the risks. Harvard Kennedy School Faculty Research Working Paper Series RWP17-012, 1-26. https://www.hks.harvard.edu/publications/western-democracy-backsliding-diagnosing-risks
   Google Scholar
• Patterson, T. E. (2016a). Pre-primary news coverage of the 2016 presidential race: Trump’s rise, Sanders’ emergence, Clinton’s struggle. Harvard Kennedy School Working Paper, https://ssrn.com/abstract=2798258.
   Google Scholar
• Patterson, T. E. (2016b). News coverage of the 2016 general election: How the press failed the voters. Harvard Kennedy School Working Paper, https://shorensteincenter.org/news-coverage-2016-general-election/.
   Google Scholar
• Patterson, T. E. (2020). Election beat 2020: How news outlets become misinformation superspreaders. Journalist’s Resource. https://journalistsresource.org/studies/society/news-media/news-misinformation-superspreaders/
   Google Scholar
• Penguin Random House. (2018). How democracies die. History News Network. http://hnn.org/article/170809
   Google Scholar
• Phillips, W. (2018, May 22). The oxygen of amplification: Better practices for reporting on extremists, antagonists, and manipulators online. Data & Society, https://datasociety.net/library/oxygen-of-amplification/
   Google Scholar
• Quinn, C. (2021, March 13). When candidates make reckless statements just to get attention, should they get attention? cleveland.com. https://www.cleveland.com
   Google Scholar
• Reese, S. D. (2021). The crisis of the institutional press. Polity.
   Google Scholar
• Richardson, A. V. (2017). Bearing witness while black. Digital Journalism, 5(6), 673–698. https://doi.org/10.1080/21670811.2016.1193818
   Web of Science ®Google Scholar
• Rosen, J. (1999). What are journalists for? Yale University Press.
   Google Scholar
• Rosen, J. (2020, May 27). You cannot keep from getting swept up in Trump’s agenda without a firm grasp on your own. PressThink, https://pressthink.org/2020/05/you-cannot-keep-from-getting-swept-up-in-trumps-agenda-without-a-firm-grasp-on-your-own/
   Google Scholar
• Roudakova, N. (2017). Losing Pravda: Ethics and the press in post-truth Russia. Cambridge University Press.
   Google Scholar
• Smooha, S. (2018). How do western democracies cope with the challenge of societal diversity? Nations and Nationalism, 24(2), 215–236. https://doi.org/10.1111/nana.12402
   Web of Science ®Google Scholar
• Somer, M. (2019). Turkey: The slippery slope from reformist to revolutionary polarization and democratic breakdown. The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 681(1), 42–61. https://doi.org/10.1177/0002716218818056
   Web of Science ®Google Scholar
• Standaert, O., Hanitzsch, T., & Dedonder, J. (2021). In their own words: A normative-empirical approach to journalistic roles around the world. Journalism, 22(4), 919–936. https://doi.org/10.1177/1464884919853183
   Web of Science ®Google Scholar
• Thomas, R. J. (2016). In defense of journalistic paternalism. Journal of Media Ethics, 31(2), 86–99. https://doi.org/10.1080/23736992.2016.1152895
   Web of Science ®Google Scholar
• Thomas, R. J. (2019). Helpfulness as journalism’s normative anchor. Journalism Studies, 20(3), 364–380. https://doi.org/10.1080/1461670X.2017.1377103
   Web of Science ®Google Scholar
• Tuchman, G. (1972). Objectivity as strategic ritual: An examination of newsmen’s notions of objectivity. American Journal of Sociology, 77(4), 666–679. https://doi.org/10.1086/225193
   Web of Science ®Google Scholar
• Urbinati, N. (2019). Political theory of populism. Annual Review of Political Science, 22(1), 111–127. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-polisci-050317-070753
   Web of Science ®Google Scholar
• Waldner, D., & Lust, E. (2018). Unwelcome change: Coming to terms with democratic backsliding. Annual Review of Political Science, 21(1), 93–113. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-polisci-050517-114628
   Web of Science ®Google Scholar
• Wettstein, M., Esser, F., Büchel, F., Schemer, C., Wirz, D. S., Schulz, A., Ernst, N., Engesser, S., Müller, P., & Wirth, W. (2019). What drives populist styles? Analyzing immigration and labor market news in 11 countries. Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, 96(2), 516–536. https://doi.org/10.1177/1077699018805408
   Web of Science ®Google Scholar
• Wolkenstein, F. (2019). Populism, liberal democracy and the ethics of peoplehood. European Journal of Political Theory, 18(3), 330–348. https://doi.org/10.1177/1474885116677901
   Web of Science ®Google Scholar
• Wright, K. (2011). Reality without scare quotes: Developing the case for critical realism in journalism research. Journalism Studies, 12(2), 156–171. https://doi.org/10.1080/1461670X.2010.509569
   Web of Science ®Google Scholar