The Ammenberg 100 Collaborative - Kathleen Hall Jamieson - Democracy amid Crises: Polarization, Pandemic, Protests, and Persuasion

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Annenberg IOD Collaborative, author

Title: Democracy amid crises : polarization, pandemic, protests, and

persuasion / the Annenberg IOD Collaborative.

Description: New York, NY : Oxford University Press, [2023] |

The Annenberg IOD Collaborative members are: Matthew Levendusky, Josh Pasek,

R. Lance Holbert, Bruce Hardy, Kate Kenski, Yotam Ophir, Andrew Renninger,

Dan Romer, Dror Walter, Ken Winneg, and Kathleen Hall Jamieson. |

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2022042308 (print) | LCCN 2022042309 (ebook) |

ISBN 9780197644690 (hardback) | ISBN 9780197644706 (paperback) |

ISBN 9780197644720 (epub) | ISBN 9780197644737

Subjects: LCSH: PresidentsUnited StatesElection2020. |

United StatesPolitics and government2017-2021. |

ElectionsUnited StatesPublic opinion. | AmericansAttitudes

Classification: LCC E915 .A56 2023 (print) | LCC E915 (ebook) |

DDC 324.973/0933dc23/eng/20221025

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022042308

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022042309

DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780197644690.001.0001

The Annenberg IOD Collaborative

Matthew Levendusky, Kathleen Hall Jamieson, R. Lance Holbert, and Josh Pasek

Josh Pasek and Matthew Levendusky

R. Lance Holbert, Yotam Ophir, Dror Walter, Josh Pasek, and Kathleen Hall Jamieson

Kathleen Hall Jamieson, Matthew Levendusky, Josh Pasek, and Andrew Renninger

Matthew Levendusky, Josh Pasek, Andrew Renninger, and Kathleen Hall Jamieson

Kathleen Hall Jamieson, Matthew Levendusky, Josh Pasek, and Andrew Renninger

Matthew Levendusky, Josh Pasek, Andrew Renninger, and Kathleen Hall Jamieson

Josh Pasek and Kathleen Hall Jamieson

Josh Pasek and Kathleen Hall Jamieson

Josh Pasek, Matthew Levendusky, and Kathleen Hall Jamieson

Kathleen Hall Jamieson, Matthew Levendusky, and Josh Pasek

Matthew Levendusky, Josh Pasek, and Kathleen Hall Jamieson

The Annenberg IOD Collaborative

Josh Pasek, Ken Winneg, and Matthew Levendusky

On January 6, 2021, we were on a Zoom call vetting questions for the last wave of the panel data underlying Democracy amid Crises. We expected that day to complete the questionnaire for the studys final wave and to do so (symbolically) on a day certifying the results of the 2020 election we had set out to study two years before. Partway through the call, however, we began to receive news alerts on our phones that a mob of Trump supporters had stormed the US Capitol. The expressions we saw on each others faces suggested that even the most jaded among us had not anticipated that a riot would follow the speech the incumbent president gave at the Ellipse that day. Or that any of us would ever witness a mob marching though the Capitol chanting Hang Mike Pence, or see a Confederate battle flag paraded through its corridors. Collaboratives collaboratebut not dumbstruck, horrified ones. So we suspended the Zoom session to immerse ourselves in the media that we both study and consume. Given the centrality of January 6 to the story we tell in the pages that follow, there is a dark irony to our having met on that day.

The Annenberg Institutions of Democracy (IOD) Collaborative draws on the expertise of scholars from five disciplines to help us make sense of the 2020 election and its aftermath. Its members included a political scientist (Matt Levendusky), four communication scholars (Lance Holbert, Bruce Hardy, Kate Kenski, and Josh Pasek), a rhetorical critic turned sometime social scientist (Kathleen Hall Jamieson), a psychologist (Dan Romer), a survey researcher (Ken Winneg), and a geographic data expert (Andrew Renninger). Off-screen but working away on social media data and so also enmeshed in the moment were two other members of the team, both communication scholars (Yotam Ophir and Dror Walter). Since the IOD Collaborative is a project of the Annenberg Public Policy Center (APPC) of the University of Pennsylvania, it will come as no surprise that five members of the team are graduates of the universitys Annenberg School for Communication or that two of us are on the faculty there.

This book, and the survey on which it is based, was truly a collaborative effort. Every team member contributed questions. Ken managed the survey. Andrew prepared and integrated the geographic data that we use throughout the book. Josh focused on data analysis and racial attitude measures, and produced the striking visuals that readers will encounter in all of our empirical chapters. Lance developed media measures. Matt was in charge of fundamentals and legitimacy. Kathleen tracked the messaging. Bruce focused on campaign events, Kate on early voting. Dan concentrated on conspiracy theories. Yotam and Dror sleuthed through social media messaging. A bit more biographical detail on the individuals in the Zoom squares on the screen that day can be found in the contributor list that follows the preface.

Dictionaries define a collaborative, a word that until recently was thought to serve only as an adjective, as an organized group effort. Although sometimes more effortful than organized, ours was both. For us, the word collaborative is also a solution to a problem. Crediting Democracy amid Crises to the Annenberg IOD Collaborative not only recognizes the Annenberg Public Policy Center endowment from which its funding came but also is a way of avoiding crowding the cover of a book with ten names. It also resolves the question and vaudeville gag line, Whos on first? Although individual chapters credit those who put fingers to computer keyboards, the book as a whole would not exist were it not for the work of every individual who was part of the collaborative. Accordingly, we consider the group as a whole the author of the book. This is particularly important since, as we pruned the manuscript to ensure that its length did not rival War and Peace, entire blocks of pristine prose by many of its members were sidetracked into other forms of publication.

Still, someone needs to be on first. So we have listed Matt, Josh, and Lance as the first three authors in the collaborative list to recognize that Matt did a disproportionate amount of the writing; Josh the cleaning, organizing, and analysis of the data, and virtually all of the work reflected in the figures; and Lance the heavy lifting of theorizing, instrumenting, analyzing, and writing up the media findings. Kathleen is listed at the end because she initiated the project and, as the firstborn in her family, thought that she should be last for a change. The order in which authors are listed atop each individual chapter credits as first author the person who assumed primary responsibility for conceptualizing its arguments and organizing its evidence.