Virtuous Circle, A.

The title and subtitle of this book, A Virtuous Circle: Political Communications in Postindustrial Societies, attest to an ambitious program. The book promises an overall picture of political communication, not an extract, a case study, or a snapshot. In using the term virtuous circle—a control loop of mutual strengthening processes—Pippa Norris, McGuire Lecturer in Comparative Politics at Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government and presently director of the Democratic Governance Group at the United Nations Development Program in New York City, has chosen a metaphor which is perhaps destined to become a token with a similar sustained yield as it was granted to twostep flow, agenda setting, or videomalaise.

The many facets of videomalaise theory—from Langs via Robinson to Patterson and Putnam—have been applied in ...