Soft News Goes to War: Public Opinion and American Foreign Policy
in the New Media Age. By Matthew A. Baum. Princeton, NJ: Princeton
University Press, 2003. 344p. $39.95 cloth, $19.95 paper.
Most research aimed at understanding television's influence on
citizens' knowledge and attention to current events has focused on
network news. Yet hard news constitutes only a small fraction of TV
programming. The television day is filled with shows that come under the
rubric of “soft news”—running the gamut from celebrity
gossip to late-night comedy, afternoon talk shows, and prime-time
magazines. Matthew Baum's book fills an important gap in political
communication research. Baum asks what people learn about hard news from
soft news programs. He argues that watching soft news programs gets people
who would otherwise have little interest in foreign affairs to pay
attention to international crises.