Professor’s Book on Political Communication Named Best of Decade

AUSTIN, Texas—Sept. 2, 2009— “Campaign Talk: Why Elections Are Good for Us,” written by Roderick P. Hart, the Shivers-Cronkite Chair in Communication at The University of Texas at Austin, has been named the best political communication book in the past decade by the American Political Science Association (APSA).

Hart, dean of the College of Communication and an expert on politics and the mass media, will be honored with the Graber Book Award at the annual APSA meeting in Toronto on Sept 4.

In “Campaign Talk” (Princeton University Press, 2000) Hart conducts a long-term (1948-1996) analysis of thousands of texts from several genres of campaign discourse, including campaign speeches, print and television news coverage, debates, advertisements and letters to the editor, with his computerized content analysis program DICTION. By analyzing the language candidates, media and citizens’ use, the book sheds light on the important role campaigns play in sustaining democracy by creating a national dialogue.

Dr. Hart has previously won the 2000 Murray Edelman Distinguished Career Award from the APSA.

Named for Doris Graber, professor of political science at the University of Illinois at Chicago, the award honors the “best book of the past 10 years” in the field of political communication. The award is not made every year.

###

Contact:
Erin Geisler
512-475-8071