@book{7a0a7a0fa5ae42669a96964ab928530e,
title = "Amplifying Extremism: Small Town Politicians, Media Storms, and American Journalism",
abstract = "Within a week, a no-name Republican state representative from a town of 384 people in Illinois catapulted from obscurity to a prime-time appearance on Fox News' Ingraham Angle. This newly empowered politician, Darren Bailey, would go on to steer the pro-business Republican party in Illinois toward extremism. Democratic backsliding emerges across all levels of politics, but the threats posed by small-town politicians have been overshadowed by national-level politicians. This microstudy of a single politician's debut in the public eye showcases a novel approach to media corpus construction that combines proprietary and open databases, aggregated search tools, and targeted searching, and includes local, regional, and national news across digital-first, radio, news publishers, broadcast and cable television, and social media. The Element provides unique insights into how American journalism creates space for small-town extremists to gain power, especially given declines in local news.",
keywords = "extremism, COVID, partisan media, local news, journalism",
author = "Nik Usher and Hagman, \{Jessica C\}",
year = "2025",
month = jun,
day = "12",
doi = "10.1017/9781009668798",
language = "English (US)",
isbn = "9781009668781",
series = "Elements in Politics and Communication",
publisher = "Cambridge University Press",
address = "United States",
}