Seducing America

the long version

Seducing America is a psychological investigation of how television has changed American politics. The author's central claim - that television makes us feel good about feeling bad about politics - is buttressed by a wide-ranging analysis of political television. Roderick P. Hart argues that television has traded political wisdom for five lesser emotions - feelings of intimacy, discernment, cleverness, activity, and importance. These feelings have become television's distinctive currency, postmodern tokens for a manifestly uncertain world. Hart explores the considerable costs of this legacy for governance and urges that it be supplanted by a New Puritanism, a set of community-based attitudes badly needed in the nation at present. New pedagogy combined with Hart's rigorous blend of rhetorical and social scientific research and eloquent and passionate writing make this book a superb supplementary text for political communication and media studies courses.