Battleground

Abstract

Battleground models Wisconsin's contentious political communication ecology: the way that politics, social life, and communication intersect and create conditions of polarization and democratic decline. Drawing from 10 years of interviews, news and social media content, and state-wide surveys, we combine qualitative and computational analysis with time-series and multi-level modeling to study this hybrid communication system – an approach that yields unique insights about nationalization, social structure, conventional discourses, and the lifeworld. We explore these concepts through case studies of immigration, healthcare, and economic development, concluding that despite nationalization, distinct state-level effects vary by issue as partisan actors exert their discursive power.

Delegitimizing Rural Public Health Departments: How Decaying Local News Ecologies, Misinformation, and Radicalization Undermine Community Storytelling Networks

“…Counties do have local radio broadcasts and, unlike large cities, are able to take advantage of the locally owned spectrum on uncrowded airwaves. However, rural local radio tends to feature religious broadcasting with minimal local news coverage, other than daily announcements (Friedland et al 2022). In southeast Illinois, residents can access Indiana, Kentucky, and Illinois local television news stations; local news is more a genre than a descriptor for television news in these areas.…”