Books by William L. Benoit

Advancing a new media balkanization theory, Benoit and Billings neither lament nor embrace the new media landscape, opting instead to pinpoint how we must consider mass communication theories and applications in an era of ubiquitous choice.

This book offers content analyses of the 2016 presidential candidate campaign messages from the primary and the general election. The chapters examine both new (Twitter, Facebook) and traditional (TV spots, debates, speeches) media employed in this contest.

A Functional Analysis of Political Television Advertisements examines theory and research on election advertisements. William Benoit employs the Functional Theory of Political Campaign Discourse to understand the nature or content of television spots in election campaigns. Beginning with a look at American presidential spots from 19522012, Benoit investigates the three functionsacclaims, attacks, and defensesand the topics of policy and character for these groups of political commercials. The following chapters are devoted to reporting similar data on presidential primary advertisements, presidential third party spots, other theories including Issue Ownership Theory and Functional Federalism Theory, as well as nonpresidential and non-U.S. election advertising. Benoit considers the data, discusses the development of political advertising over time, and finally, presents areas for further research. This book is a uniquely comprehensive examination of the value and use of television spots in political election rhetoric.

Benoit provides a comprehensive analysis of presidential television spots from every campaign that used this important message form, from the 1952 campaign through the last national campaign in 1996.

Benoit, Blaney, and Pier apply the functional theory of political campaign discourse to the 1996 presidential campaign.

Benoit and his colleagues apply the functional theory of political campaign discourse to 25 presidential primary debates beginning with the 1948 American presidential primary campaign.