Bat Sparrow
Wednesday, February 18, 2004
12 – 1:20 p.m.
Communications 321
Is the news media a governing institution?
Why does this matter?
How do we research an institutional media?
Although many scholars have argued for the institutional status of the U.S. media, research on the U.S. political system typically ignores the role of the news media in political processes and government operations. During “A Research Agenda for an Institutional News Media” Sparrow explains why the media need to be considered a political institution, and looks at the impact that this has on the investigation of news media that effectively amount to being a political institution.
Bartholomew Sparrow is the author of Uncertain Guardians: The News Media as a Political Institution (Johns Hopkins, 1999), From the Outside In: World War II and the American State (Princeton, 1996) and Our Shadow States: The Insular Cases and the Territories of the United States (Kansas, forthcoming). He is also the co-editor, with Roderick Hart, of Politics, Discourse, and American Society (Rowman and Littlefield, 2001). Professor Sparrow received the Pi Sigma Alpha award for the best paper presented at the APSA annual conference and the Franklin L. Burdette Award for the best dissertation in public administration. He has also been a fellow at the Shorenstein Center in Harvard University, and the Harry S. Truman Library Institute. He is currently an associate professor in Government at The University of Texas at Austin.