Around the world, there are increasing concerns about the accuracy of media coverage. It is vital in representative democracies that citizens have access to reliable information about what is happening in government policy, so that they can form meaningful preferences and hold politicians accountable. Yet much research and conventional wisdom questions whether the necessary information is available, consumed, and understood. This study is the first large-scale empirical investigation into the frequency and reliability of media coverage in five policy domains, and it provides tools that can be exported to other areas, in the US and elsewhere. Examining decades of government spending, media coverage, and public opinion in the US, this book assesses the accuracy of media coverage, and measures its direct impact on citizens' preferences for policy. This innovative study has far-reaching implications for those studying and teaching politics as well as for reporters and citizens.

Stuart N. Soroka is Professor of Communication at the University of California, Los Angeles, and Adjunct Research Professor in the Center for Political Studies at the University of Michigan.

1. Media in Representative Democracy; 2. Public Responsiveness to Media; 3. Measuring the 'Media Signal'; 4. Alternative Measures of the Media Policy Signal; 5. The Accuracy of Media Coverage; 6. Policy, the Media, and the Public; 7. Diagnosing and Exploring Dynamics; 8: Policy and the Media: Past, Present and Future.