Departmental Papers (ASC)
Document Type
Journal Article
Date of this Version
6-2004
Publication Source
Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies
Volume
1
Issue
2
Start Page
127
Last Page
150
DOI
10.1080/14791420410001685359
Abstract
The congregational crowd was a powerful mode of political communication in the nineteenth-century US until banished by the imposition of literate modes on popular electoral politics by Progressive reformers. We examine its major channels of expression, bodily mass communication and public sensationalism, within a framework of class-based struggle, observing that the practice of live bodily assembly created broad points of entry into political life, socialized the young, and successfully conveyed the importance of voting. A text-based normative model of the informed deliberative voter, we argue, offers too narrow a conception of participation compared to a more spaciously conceived democratic community.
Copyright/Permission Statement
This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies on June 2004, available online: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14791420410001685359
Keywords
democracy, civic participation, bodily communication, class struggle, public assembly, voting
Recommended Citation
Marvin, C., & Simonson, P. (2004). Voting Alone: The Decline of Bodily Mass Communication and Public Sensationalism in Presidential Elections. Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies, 1 (2), 127-150. https://doi.org/10.1080/14791420410001685359
Date Posted: 15 April 2019