Kathleen Hall Jamieson: "Finding Out" what matters in the world of national politics.

Romer, D., Kenski, K., Winneg, K., Adasiewicz, C., & Jamieson, K. H. (2006). Capturing campaign dynamics 2000 and 2004: The National Annenberg Election Survey. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania. 287 pages.

Jamieson, K.H. (Ed.). (2006). Electing the president 2004: The insiders' view. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania. 251 pages.

Bertrand Russell once offered some advice that still applies today, especially in the realm of national politics: "What we need is not the will to believe but the will to find out." For the past 20 years, Kathleen Hall Jamieson has helped Americans "find out" about the communication process as it pertains to the realms of national presidential politics and campaigns. As a prolific critic, theorist, researcher, and educator, Jamieson has contributed greatly to the national conversation concerning politics, the press, and public affairs. Jamieson has participated in the publication of two books during 2006, both of which demonstrate her dedication to the idea that voters ought to have information that allows them to develop insight into political campaigns and their candidates. Why? Those running for national office must be held accountable for their campaign statements and conduct, as well as for their performance if they are elected to office.

Concerned that too many Americans appear to believe that national campaigns don't matter, Jamieson co-authored and edited Capturing Campaign Dynamics 2000 and 2004 with a group of researchers and writers from across the country. Following up on a book published in 2004 under the title Capturing Campaign Dynamics, it reports on a set of massive studies of the 2000 and 2004 elections conducted by the National Annenberg Election Survey (NAES). Jamieson directs the project at the University of Pennsylvania's Annenberg School for Communication. Under her leadership, the team serves as an example of the utility of integration in the field of applied communication research: Daniel Romer is Associate Director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center and Director of Adolescent Risk Communication Institute of APPC at the University of Pennsylvania; Kate Kenski teaches at the Department of Communication at the University of Arizona; Kenneth Winneg is Managing Director of the National Annenberg Election Survey; and Christopher Adasiewicz is Data Manager for NAES. In addition, several graduate students contribute to various chapters in the book.

Because of its highly technical nature, the book is not as useful for the general public as it is for political researchers, educators, and professionals in the field of political communication. Its ten chapters begin with remarks on the survey and its history. Considered a landmark in the history of American political opinion polling, the 2000 survey studied the public's day-to-day reactions to that year's presidential election and its court challenges. As it was continued in 2004, its rolling cross-sectional design (RCS) "allows one to study campaign dynamics in a way that has seldom been possible in U.S. elections" (p. vii).

Chapter 1, authored by Jamieson and Kenski, provides insight into the assumptions that led to the surveys. "Campaigns do matter" (p. 1), they argue, and knowing what and how the citizenry has learned (or not) in elections reveals much about how decisive campaign events can influence the electorate. In chapter 2, Winneg, Kenski, and Adasiewicz describe the 2000 and 2004 surveys in detail, while discussing practical considerations regarding the use of surveys in elections. In chapter 3, Kenski reviews concepts in survey and research design, showing how they apply to the design of the various survey methods that can be employed in research on elections.

The remaining chapters focus on the NAES more specifically. Kenski, in chapter 4, reviews the underlying strategy of the RCS design along with sampling and interview protocols that ensured comparable samples and questioning on each day of the survey. In chapter 5, Romer, along with Natalie Jomini Stroud, reviews univariate and exploratory data analytic strategies to help readers understand subsequent information on data analyses. In chapter 6, Kenski reviews graphical analysis of survey data. Romer, in chapter 7, reviews the use of linear and logistic regression for the analysis of cross-sectional data. In chapter 8, Kenski and Romer review strategies for the analysis of panel data. Chapter 9, by Romer, provides an overview of the use of time series analysis for the NAES. And chapter 10, by Romer and Kenski, along with Dannagal Goldsthwaite Young and Russell Tisinger, examines the use of the NAES to study trends in segments of the population that might be too small to analyze in most c ross-sectional surveys. An appendix provides help to readers who need definitions of the study's research terminology and central concepts. Also included in the book is a CD-ROM of the NAES codebooks and data, featuring more than 200,000 interviews with adults living in the United States. The data in the CD-ROM are in both SPSS and tab-delimited formats for use with other statistical software. One of the most interesting aspects of the NAES is its provision of a Web-based discussion forum that invites anyone with an interest in the project or political campaigns and elections more generally to participate.

A second Jamieson book published in 2006 consists of an edited series of chapters featuring the thoughts of key consultants from each side of the political divide in the 2004 election. Jamieson pulled Electing the President 2004: The Insiders' View together after the Annenberg School for Communication's usual post-presidential-election debriefing program. Held by the school since 1992, Annenberg's goal in the debriefings is to capture the insights of campaign consultants for examination by scholars and students. Following a timeline of election year events and charts drawn from the data of the National Annenberg Election Survey, the book presents seven chapters focused on the themes of campaign organization and strategy, advertising, polling, debate strategies and effects, and press/campaign relationship and Republican and Democratic campaign spenders.

The contents of this book will be of interest to anyone, including political campaign managers and political science and communication students at the university level, looking for an "insider's view" of politics. Contributors representing the Republican camp include Matthew Dows, Mark McKinnon, Alex Castellanos, Elizabeth Cheney, Nicolle Devinish, Tucker Eskew, Brian McCabe, Chris LaCivia, and Stephen Moore. Those on the Democratic side include Mary Beth Cahill, Bill Knapp, Michael Donilon, Bob Shrum, Mark Mellmon, Joe Lockhart, Eric Smith, David Jones, and Bill Zimmerman.

The book is accessible to readers from diverse levels, and illuminates the campaign in ways that are hard to find elsewhere in print. Matthew Dowd argues, for instance, that the Bush campaign's ability to increase his poll figures came largely due to support from women. Mark Donilon analyzes the difficulties experienced by Kerry in March and August, especially as they pertain to funding issues. And Joe Lockhart contends that September 11 affected the manner in which the media covered the 2004 campaign.

The presidential campaigns of 2000 and 2004 were so divisive and tumultuous that they have attracted a great amount of attention from journalists, scholars, political pundits, and other writers. But Jamieson and party's contribution to this healthy dialogue offers perhaps the most comprehensive research and commentary on these pivotal events in American political history. In doing so, they help us avoid what Bertrand Russell warned us not to do: Forming our beliefs--in this case political beliefs--without really "finding out."

Patricia L. Dooley (Ph.D., University of Minnesota) is an Associate Professor and Director of Graduate Studies in the Elliott School of Communication at Wichita State University. Her research interests include journalism history, journalism as an occupation, gender and media, and new communication technologies.

[c] 2007 Broadcast Education Association