Michael McDevitt | University of Colorado, Boulder (original) (raw)

Papers by Michael McDevitt

Mass Communication and Society

InterActions: UCLA Journal of Education and Information Studies, 2011

Where Ideas Go to Die

A climate of punitive populism during election campaigns constitutes both a threat to journalism’... more A climate of punitive populism during election campaigns constitutes both a threat to journalism’s authority and an opportunity to command attention in ways reminiscent of the pre-digital era. Chapter 3 considers whether the press has internalized a proto-democratic duty to represent public mood by redeeming the same irrationalism that it helps to mobilize. Affirmation of anger in conjunction with downplaying of policy expertise is antithetical to journalism’s understanding of its contribution to an informed electorate. This contradiction leads to an appraisal of how journalists critique their work. The chapter compares commentaries of media scholars to interpretations of reporters and columnists following the startling 2016 election. While journalists recognized audiences as intolerant of quality news, they appeared unable to contemplate how this critique shaped their reporting. Disproportionate attention to candidate Trump was not so much justified as large sectors of the electora...

This data collection is gathered from interviews with parent-youth dyads in Arizona, Colorado, an... more This data collection is gathered from interviews with parent-youth dyads in Arizona, Colorado, and Florida across two election cycles: 2002 and 2004. Adolescent respondents were juniors and seniors in high school during a midterm campaign, and old enough to vote during the subsequent presidential election. The civics curriculum Kids Voting USA (KVUSA) provided conditions for a quasi-experimental field intervention in the three selected states. Measures of civic engagement include student and parent voting, political knowledge, and deliberative activities like news media attention, active political discussion, and willingness to listen and to disagree with others.

Where Ideas Go to Die explores the troubled relationship of US journalism and intellect. A defend... more Where Ideas Go to Die explores the troubled relationship of US journalism and intellect. A defender of common sense, the press is irked at intellect yet often dependent on its critical autonomy. A postwar observation from Richard Hofstadter applies to contemporary journalists: “Men do not rise in the morning, grin at themselves in their mirrors, and say: ‘Ah, today I shall torment an intellectual and strangle an idea!’ ” The book nevertheless documents the prowess of news media in policing intellect. Control extends beyond suppression of ideas and ways of thinking to the aggressive rendering of dissent into deviance. The social control of intellect by journalism is accompanied by social control of journalism in newsrooms and in classrooms where norms are cultivated. Anti-intellectualism consequently operates like dark matter in media, a presence inferred by its effects rather than directly observed or acknowledged. When journalists anticipate a punitive public, the reified resentmen...

The SAGE Handbook of Political Sociology: Two Volume Set

Where Ideas Go to Die, 2020

The book concludes with a discussion of how intellectual journalism would forge a healthier relat... more The book concludes with a discussion of how intellectual journalism would forge a healthier relationship with the public by overcoming recursion. The uptake of authoritarian thinking is not easily reversed in political communication as a self-reinforcing system. For realists, truth is obtained in a correspondence between statements and facts. In recursion, truth is experienced as reassurance in a compressed universe of legitimate and legitimating discourse. Earlier chapters examined aftershocks of the 2016 election, professional education, and other contexts that might engender a rethinking of media engagement with intellect. Drawing on these insights, the final chapter suggests where to look for intellectual journalism as an emerging ethos. Intellectual journalism asserts itself in a shift from public-oriented to craft-oriented accountability; the wisdom to reject misguided reform; alliances with risk-tolerant scholars; and forms of resistance that reject the bad faith of insincere...

Where Ideas Go to Die, 2020

Chapter 5 explicates how resentment and suspicion of intellect is condoned in the news. Feeling t... more Chapter 5 explicates how resentment and suspicion of intellect is condoned in the news. Feeling toward intellect is only consequential to the extent that it finds a voice, a rationale, and a medium for mobilization. Antipathy toward intellect embedded in the news explains how this sentiment is mobilized and aligned through the news in configurations such as moral panic, social drama, and reification of a punitive public. The news provides the grounding from which resentment and suspicion outside journalism gain traction in redress of ideational transgressions. A cyclical dynamic emerges in phases of latency and activation. The chapter proposes a recursive regime to account for journalism’s role in the activation of antipathy; alignment of anti-rationalism with populist anti-elitism in symbolic action; and return to equilibrium. Long after news media respond to an intellectual breach, residual resentment is left behind, awaiting reactivation when the climate is ripe.

Chapter 6 applies social drama—adapted from the anthropology of Victor Turner—to portray... more Chapter 6 applies social drama—adapted from the anthropology of Victor Turner—to portray media ritual in punishment of an intellectual breach. The transgression occurred when Ward Churchill, a University of Colorado scholar of ethnic studies, hammered out an essay in response to the suicidal/homicidal attacks of September 11, 2001. Churchill plowed through consequences of US involvement in various regions of the globe, dismissing with contempt the notion that Americans could have been surprised by payback. Analysis of the media frenzy uncovers a fractal-like structure, such that ritualistic punishment as a cultural response is anticipated in the first wave of news text. Exposure of the macro-micro constitution, in turn, leads to a discussion as to whether journalism's performance is best understood as culturally conscripted or opportunistic. The former is the more benign interpretation. In the latter scenario, a predatory press elevates its cultural status at intellect's expense.

Journalism following 9/11 became fiercely protective of American innocence, and while th... more Journalism following 9/11 became fiercely protective of American innocence, and while the Colorado social drama demonstrates the prowess of proximate media in punishment of intellectual dissent, the case also offers an opportunity to observe resistance at the epicenter of redress. The drama illustrates <italic>idea rendering</italic> and <italic>repair</italic> as a dynamic in which news prompts a corrective response. Content analysis focuses on de-contextualization as the rendering practice in newspaper coverage. Idea repair is explored in how contributors to Front Range opinion pages bypassed news to engage directly with Churchill's polemic. Journalists, for their part, are not simply enlisted in suppression of ideas. When confronted with evidence of de-contextualization, reporters and editors responded across a range of denial, ambivalence, regret, and resistance. A concluding section contemplates the role of parochial media in regulation of ideas across time and place.

Journalism’s resentment toward intellect is tangled up with the profession’s democratic commitmen... more Journalism’s resentment toward intellect is tangled up with the profession’s democratic commitments: its egalitarian ethos, identification with “the public,” ambivalence toward experts, and pleasure in holding up the haughty and highbrow to ridicule. Chapter 1 illustrates the vexed orientation of news media to intellect in templates such as the ridicule of aging Marxists and the willingness of reporters to humiliate themselves in sciencey-sounding stories. Some of these tropes could be viewed as harmless eccentricities of newswork, but the introduction reveals journalism’s complicity in reification and rationalization of a punitive public. A tactical relationship to intellect is in some respects innate to journalism. Communication is constitutive of community, which is bound by core beliefs, which are inevitably dissected by intellect. A reticence to engage with intellect can veer into bouts of overt hostility, a dynamic shaped by the obligation of mainstream media to defend moral f...

Interviews of 25 scholars targeted by watchlists probe how public intellectuals invest i... more Interviews of 25 scholars targeted by watchlists probe how public intellectuals invest in trusting relationships with reporters in ways that ensure the successful brokering of ideas. Chapter 9 documents practices of "dangerous professors" that allow them to navigate uncertainty and vigilante blowback. The academic-media nexus can seem like a kaleidoscopic space, where public scholars experience reversals of hierarchy and where rules of engagement are, at best, implicit and contingent. Over time, risk-tolerant and conflict-seeking activists should become sensitive to constraints of news production on the free play of intellect. One way or another, they must rework relationships with reporters to confront the news as a paradigm of conventional wisdom. For a reporter, striking gold in interviews sometimes requires the acknowledgment of a scholar's critique of the news. The disorientation of a hybrid field is consequently generative of reflexivity in efforts to reconcile intellect with journalism.

Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 2020

Abstract A panel study of high school seniors during the 2006 midterm elections (N = 567) shows a... more Abstract A panel study of high school seniors during the 2006 midterm elections (N = 567) shows a striking pattern of Democratic youth thriving when exposed to counter-attitudinal climates. Democratic adolescents were more likely to disagree and listen to opponents if they lived in conservative counties compared with Democratic youth living in liberal counties. We infer that Democratic identity is distinguished from Republican identity as outwardly agonistic during adolescence. This pattern was partially replicated during the 2012 presidential election with emerging adults (N = 186). Compared with Republicans, Democrats appeared more motivated to shore up their attention to news and acquire knowledge in support of informed voting when exposed to dissonant climates in battleground states. Looking to the 2020 presidential election and beyond, we advocate for study designs that account for multiple opinion climates salient to conflict-seeking youth. The paper concludes with recommendations for civics education that promotes spirited albeit civil expression in interpersonal and mediated contexts.

Journalism, 2017

This study explores how support for journalistic anti-intellectualism is condoned in the views of... more This study explores how support for journalistic anti-intellectualism is condoned in the views of emerging adults in the United States as they develop attitudes toward news, audiences, and authority. Anti-rationalism and anti-elitism as cultural expressions of anti-intellectualism correlate as expected with approval of corresponding news practices. Identification with professional roles generally fails to inoculate college students against the endorsement of journalistic anti-rationalism and anti-elitism. With the exception of the adversarial function, role identities appear to justify journalistic anti-intellectualism beyond the influence of cultural anti-intellectualism. While reflexivity is often viewed as conducive to critical thinking, affinity for transparency in news work associates with a populist suspicion of intellectuals and their ideas.

A study of adolescents living in red and blue counties during the 2006 midterm elections shows a ... more A study of adolescents living in red and blue counties during the 2006 midterm elections shows a striking pattern of Democratic youth thriving in political expression and debate when exposed to Republican ideological climates. Democratic adolescents were more likely to talk with parents and friends about politics, disagree openly, test opinions, and listen to opponents if they lived in Republican counties compared with Democratic youth living in liberal or balanced counties. Compared to Republican youth residing in the same communities, Democratic youth in Republican counties were also more likely to engage in political discussion, to pay attention to news media, and to express confidence in their ability to comprehend campaign issues. The frequency of disagreeing in conversations predicted support for liberal activism. Disagreeing was a particularly strong predictor of supporting liberal activism for youth living in red counties. These findings support the theory-proposed by McDevitt and colleagues in other studies-that young people sometimes express political identities through conflict and disagreement, not because they come to share the views of parents, teachers, or majorities in their communities. The same pattern was not found for Republican youth in Democratic counties during the 2006 elections; they were not more politically expressive when exposed to hostile ideological climates. However, Republican identity (like Democratic identity) correlated with knowledge of the political parties. The results suggest that Democratic identity is frequently expressed in deliberative and conflict-seeking activities, while Republican identity is often grounded in knowledge. Overall, the study suggests the value of peer-centered, critical discussion as a strategy for youth political mobilization.

This progress report provides evidence for persistent influence of Kids Voting USA, an interactiv... more This progress report provides evidence for persistent influence of Kids Voting USA, an interactive civic curriculum taught during election campaigns. The entire research project consists of multiple waves of student and parent interviews, covering a three-year period. Respondents were recruited from families in Arizona, Colorado, and Florida. The students were juniors and seniors when first interviewed in the aftermath of the 2002 election. The survey results from that year, described in an earlier report, are used as a baseline indication of the immediate influence of KVUSA. Those results provided substantial evidence for the initial effects of Kids Voting on students, on parents, and on family norms for political competence. The question now is whether this optimistic impression is warranted once we take a look at the long-term effects. In other words, did the curriculum exert a lasting influence or was its impact fleeting and ultimately inconsequential in the lives of students and parents? Based on a second wave of interviews, this report describes the extent of Kids Voting effects one year after student participation. The results show a consistent and robust influence of Kids Voting after the passage of 12 months despite controlling for demographics such as family socioeconomic status and parent history of voting. In 25 tests of curriculum influence, KVUSA netted 21 effects in the areas of news media use, discussion, cognition, opinion formation, and civic participation. Deliberative Democracy. We judge KVUSA as a successful catalyst for deliberative democracy, as students continued on toward a discursive path to citizenship after the end of the curriculum. Not only did the frequency of discussion increase in the long run, students became more skilled at holding political conversations. For instance, the curriculum promoted dispositions such as the willingness to listen to opponents and feeling comfortable about challenging others in discussion. Students learned to partake in passionate-but civil and respectful-discourse. Also evident is a desire that is at the heart of deliberative democracy: motivation to validate opinions by testing them out in conversations and seeing if they are persuasive. Curriculum Components. When considering the curriculum components collectively, service learning and encouraging people to vote exerted the most consistent influence. Both activities allow older students to interact with people outside the high school, providing realistic opportunities for community involvement. Taking sides in debates and teacher encouragement of student opinion expression also stood out as particularly effective elements of Kids Voting. Thus, peer discussion that allows for uninhibited and heartfelt expression is more beneficial for civic education than safe, subdued exchanges. High School Journalism. In light of the Knight Foundation's interest in high school journalism, this report provides a supplemental analysis of the effects of newspaper experience on various dimensions of civic involvement. In a process that seems to parallel KVUSA effects, participation in journalism increased the number of discussion partners, active processing of political information, and opinion formation. Effects on Parents. Our prior studies showed that Kids Voting stimulates parents' civic involvement indirectly, by prompting student-initiated discussion at home. Here we were able to show that these results persist over time. This phenomenon illustrates that political socialization should not be viewed as a process that begins and ends in childhood. We present a model of second-chance citizenship in which parents increase their political involvement due to their children's participation in Kids Voting.

Social Science Quarterly, 2014

ABSTRACT Objective The etiology of active parenting remains almost entirely unexplored in politic... more ABSTRACT Objective The etiology of active parenting remains almost entirely unexplored in political socialization. Applying ecological and dialectic perspectives, we propose a model of developmental provocation to capture contributions of youth to a politicization of parenting during campaigns.Methods Parent-youth dyads in Arizona, Colorado, and Florida were interviewed across two election cycles. Adolescent respondents were juniors and seniors during a midterm campaign, and old enough to vote during the subsequent presidential election.ResultsYouth news attention, opposition to U.S. military involvement, and first-time voting contributed to conditional change in active political parenting across campaigns, and these activities were more consequential than corresponding behaviors of parents.Conclusions Parenting is not driven primarily by political expertise readily available and deployed in family interaction; of greater consequence is the observable development of youth. A child's potential for political growth is thereby ingrained in an evolving relationship that periodically demands more and more from parents.

The Social Science Journal, 2001

Public journalism is a fairly recent phenomenon, having been formally articulated in practice in ... more Public journalism is a fairly recent phenomenon, having been formally articulated in practice in the United States for only about the past ten years. Nevertheless, the opinions of most journalists tend to be fairly polarized: journalists either embrace public journalism as an appropriate strategy to "reconnect" with communities and citizens, or they reject it as an inappropriate departure from traditional journalistic standards of editorial detachment and subjectivity. Anthony Eksterowicz and Robert Roberts, both professors of political science at James Madison University, have assembled a very concise, articulate, and intelligent set of writings on public journalism (also sometimes referred to as civic journalism). The editors could have acknowledged that most journalists have strong opinions on the subject and, as a result, taken the easy way out-by assembling a body of work that took one position or the other. In a sense they have done that, but in a scholarly and appropriate way. This book most certainly does take a favorable stance on public journalism but, in so doing, it also fully and fairly addresses every major argument levied against the genre (at least every one that this long-time journalist could think of). Where traditional journalistic practice conceptualizes reporters and editors as detached observers who subsequently report on public events, public journalism puts journalists right in the middle of the action. The public journalist is expected to identify and frame the important issues for citizens and then "form partnerships with civic groups, universities, and local governments for the purposes of reporting and reform." Thus, public journalism "emphasizes citizen participation as a virtue that eventually enhances representative gov ernment." Public Journalism and Political Knowledge is made up of nine chapters, each addressing a different aspect of, or case study in, public journalism. Its three sections address the origins

Political Behavior, 2010

Why do men score better than women do on tests of political knowledge? We consider the roots of t... more Why do men score better than women do on tests of political knowledge? We consider the roots of the gender gap in political knowledge in late adolescence. Using a panel survey of high school seniors, we consider the differences between young men and young women in what they know about politics and how they learn over the course of a midterm election campaign. We find that even after controlling for differences in dispositions like political interest and efficacy, young women are still significantly less politically knowledgeable than young men. While campaigns neither widen nor close the gender gap in political knowledge, we find important gender differences in how young people respond to the campaign environment. While partisan conflict is more likely to promote learning among young men, young women are more likely to gain information in environments marked by consensus rather than conflict. Keywords Political socialization Á Gender Á Knowledge Á Learning Political knowledge is arguably one of the most useful resources that people hold in executing the responsibilities of citizenship. Political information helps voters connect their preferences to the slate of candidates (Gelman and King 1993; Lau and Redlawsk 2006) and drives the criteria that voters use to select their preferred

Mass Communication and Society

InterActions: UCLA Journal of Education and Information Studies, 2011

Where Ideas Go to Die

The SAGE Handbook of Political Sociology: Two Volume Set

Where Ideas Go to Die, 2020

Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 2020

Journalism, 2017

Social Science Quarterly, 2014

The Social Science Journal, 2001

Political Behavior, 2010