Institutions of Democracy

The proportion of U.S. adults identifying themselves as Independent has grown significantly over the last four presidential elections, rivaling both major parties, according to a national study by the Annenberg Public Policy Center that is being published in Presidential Studies Quarterly.

In January, the Annenberg Public Policy Center brought together scholars in the fields of communication and debate and speech at a conference in Honolulu to review and make recommendations on current projects at the policy center, ranging from FlackCheck.org's Patterns of Deception videos to Tobacco Watch to an examination of presidential debates.

It's that time of year again: Time to look back at some of the year's biggest deceptions. The award-winning site FactCheck.org and its companion site, FlackCheck.org, offer a rundown and video looking at some of the year's biggest whoppers. No surprise: Some of them centered on the Affordable Care Act. But FactCheck.org also found noteworthy nonsense about immigration, gun control, Benghazi and the IRS.

Annenberg Classroom’s documentaries “The Right to Remain Silent: Miranda v. Arizona” and “Search and Seizure: Mapp v. Ohio” have received the CINE Golden Eagle Award. The 25-minute film “The Right to Remain Silent” details the U.S. Supreme Court case of Miranda v. Arizona, the landmark decision that ensured the right to consult an attorney and

Could Lincoln be reelected today? What sort of attack ads might he encounter? What deceptive ads, false claims, and out-of-context quotations might the Illinois Republican face from the likes of Democratic nominee Gen. George B. McClellan and third-party Super PACs? Using a variety of political-campaign techniques, along with parody and humor, FlackCheck.org has reconceived the bruising 1864 campaign in a video timeline.

“Electing the President 2012,” published by the University of Pennsylvania Press, offers a behind-the-scenes look at campaign strategy and analysis from the insiders who ran the campaigns of President Barack Obama and his Republican challenger, Mitt Romney. The book captures a daylong closed-door campaign debriefing at the Annenberg Public Policy Center on Dec. 6, 2012, a month after the election, with top campaign strategists who spoke freely and questioned each other about their decisions.

In "Messages, Micro-targeting, and New Media Technologies," published in The Forum in October, Kathleen Hall Jamieson writes that the trend in politics of micro-targeting ads toward individual voters makes it more difficult for reporters and scholars to know "who is saying what to whom, where and with what effect."