ABSTRACT
In Public Opinion and American Democracy, V. O. Key (1961) described popular government as a “two-way flow of communications.” In one direction, information flows from citizens to elites, as individuals convey their preferences to public officials. In the other, communication travels from political parties, interest groups, and the mass media to ordinary people. The most obvious example is electoral campaigns, when candidates compete for the support of voters through political advertisements, news coverage, speeches, online communications, and a host of other information modalities. But communication also occurs between elections as partisan elites turn to issues of governance and policy making. Indeed, it is difficult to conceive of election campaigns or policy debates as anything other than a sequence of unfolding and interrelated messages.
