'Davis skilfully blends social theory with a wealth of "insider" accounts from senior politicians and journalists to produce a classic text which sets a new benchmark for political communication scholarship.'-Bob Franklin, Professor of Journalism Studies, Cardiff School of Journalism, Media and Cultural Studies, UK'Davis brilliant new book is an engaging, lucid, and original tour d'horizon of political communication.'-Rodney Benson, Associate Professor of Media, Culture and Communication, New York University, USA'Davis's book could hardly be more timely [...] Invaluable not only to students and researchers, but to practitioners in the media and in the political system.'-Michael Moran, Professor of Government, University of Manchester, UKPolitical Communication and Social Theory presents and Advanced and challenging text for students and scholars of political communication and mass media in democracies. It draws together work from across political communication, media sociology and political sociology, and includes a mix of theoretical debate and current examples from several democratic media systems. Its wide-ranging discussions both introduce and contest the traditional scholarship on a number of contemporary topics. These include comparative political and media systems; theories of democracy, representation and the public sphere; political party communication, marketing and elections; the production of news media and public policy; media sociology and journalist-source relations; celebrity politics, popular culture and political leadership; new media and online democracy; national-global politics and international political communication; foreign policy-making, war and media; and the crisis of public communication in established democracies.At the same time, Political Communication and Social Theory offers a fascinating investigation of the causes of crisis in established political and media systems. In today's democracies, trust in politicians, state institutions and mainstream media sources has dropped to new lows. The traditional business model that sustained journalism is failing and nations are struggling to respond to the existing global recession and impending environmental and resource crises. Drawing on interviews with over 100 experienced politicians, journalists and civil servants, Aeron Davis explores how the varied political actors and communicative processes, at the centre of UK democracy, may or may not be contributing to such crises tendencies.