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9. POLITICAL COMMUNICATION EFFECTS 247

tions have been investigated to improve the power of journalism to fight
advertising, including greater attention to the audiovisual narrative ele-
ments of ads, and focusing on larger patterns, not details (Richardson,
1998).

Deliberative Forums. The deliberative forms of democracy have been
emphasized more in the past decade as a result of growing concern about
erosion of the ability of average citizens to influence their own futures.
Although the media may do much to raise consciousness of issues, the
argument goes, they do little to help their audiences to work through issues
to connect them to their own lives (Yankelovich, 1991). Forums and other
means of bringing average citizens together to discuss issues have been
used as a potential corrective. Deliberative polling, bringing a cross-
section sample of citizens from across the country to Austin, Texas, in 1996
to discuss campaign issues was the most ambitious (and expensive) of
these experiments (Fishkin, 1996).
Though the sponsors of this Deliberative Polling program claim very
positive results, others view the evidence less favorably (Merkle, 1996).
More common have been local issue forums, often sponsored by local
media as part of their civic journalism efforts. Contrasting citizens
attracted to these local forums with participants in more traditional polit-
ical behavior reveals some marked differences. The effects of education,
age, income, and home ownership are much stronger for traditional than
for forum participation (McLeod, Daily, et al., 1996; Mcleod, Guo, et al.,
1996, McLeod et al., 2001). Beyond social status, large discussion net-
works appear to recruit citizens for traditional behaviors also character-
ized by high levels of civic knowledge. In contrast, values, public affairs
media use, reflection, and perceptions of citizen efficacy have stronger
impact on forum attendance (McLeod et al., 2001). The lesser status influ-
ence on the composition of forums is an advantage by egalitarian democ-
ratic standards; however, their lack of selectivity in terms of knowledge
may limit their utility for exchange of information between citizens.

Civic/Public Journalism. Civic journalism emerged in the 1990s as a
broad-based grassroots movement, primarily within local news organiza-
tions. The approach is motivated by a critique of existing journalistic
norms and workways promulgated by Mathews (1994), Merritt (1995),
and Rosen (1999) and supported by foundations including the Kettering
Foundation and Pew Charitable Trusts. A variety of typical practices have
become associated with civic journalism, although no single civic journal-
ism product has emerged. Typical practices involve ways to engage citi-
zens such as civic forums, putting ordinary citizens in touch with power-
ful officeholders, and saturation coverage of social issues such as crime or