Originally published: Lanham, MD : Rowman & Littlefield, c2007.

Includes bibliographical references (p. 185-192).

News, politics, and the public interest on September 10, 2001 -- Frames of reference in an era of casual spectatorship -- Forces shaping the news business -- Discovery and discourse in the new media -- Staging of the contemporary presidency -- Congress and the courtroom -- Nationalism, foreign news, and war reporting -- Art, entertainment, politics.

Distribution is restricted to RFB&D members who have a documented print disability such as a visual impairment, learning disability or other physical disability.

[This book] examines how the staging of modern mediated political events,the professionalizaiton of politics,and a relatively passive citizenry come together to provide an opportunity for us to rekindle the nation's impaired capacity for political imagination. [The book] conveys the drama of modern political stagecraft through exquisite narrative while simultaneously supporting arguments and analysis with a wide range of research studies and rhetorical and political theory. [It also] explores how American civic culture is variously enriched and diminished by the ways practitooners and journalists organize narratives, or stories, about our civic life. -Back cover.