Abstract
The basic, very sensible contention of this book is that if we wish to understand contemporary political communication, then we need to consider the relationships between traditional and new media and the hybrid forms that have been produced. This is a welcome attempt to synthesise two wings of political communication, bring new political communication scholars into the mainstream and encourage a dialogue of old and new media scholars. After making the case ontologically and theoretically for existence of hybrid media (including a historical chapter demonstrating that media have always been hybrid – an assemblage of co-existing forms – and a survey chapter on the current state of media play), Chadwick argues for the idea of a ‘political information cycle’, a new approach to political news making that considers multiple and diverse actors and media and how they interact to create our current news condition. Subsequently, there are a number of case studies to illustrate this broad argument: WikiLeaks that involved close, complex and often fraught relationships between new media organisations and traditional media; the Obama 2008 campaign which was a decisive moment for hybrid media forms not only because of the importance of new media for the campaign but also, Chadwick argues, for the integration of new and old media campaigning; the relationship between a new breed of political activists, political elites and journalists in the United Kingdom. Because of the diverse nature of the case studies, the argument of the book tends not to develop very much beyond the initial chapters and the contention of a new type of hybrid political information cycle. Still, Chadwick performs a service in signalling the interaction between new and old media that clearly characterises contemporary political communication and illustrates his point in a detailed and convincing manner.