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The article is a farewell message from the editor of the Forum, a journal on political communication. The editor reflects on their eight-year tenure and expresses gratitude to the scholars and journalists who have contributed to the journal. They highlight the success of the Forum in publishing influential articles on topics such as the hybrid media environment, misinformation, and race in political communication. The editor also acknowledges the need for diversity in scholarship and expresses hope for the future of the journal and the field of political communication. [Extracted from the article]

That Democrats are widely perceived as a pro-choice party while Republicans are generally perceived as a pro-life party seems apparent to even the most casual observer of American politics. Yet, this perception was not always as clear as it is today. Our understanding of the partisan evolution of the abortion issue in the United States is informed by previous research demonstrating that changes in the abortion issue at both the elite and mass level conform to Carmines and Stimson's issue evolution model of partisan dynamics. However, an important piece of this puzzle remains unresolved--how does the issue differentiation between the parties get communicated from elite party actors to the mass public? Analyzing over 30 years of several sources of news coverage on abortion, we show that over time, news stories revealed a closer link between particular interest groups and political parties, with the Republican Party becoming aligned with pro-life interest groups while the Democrats were identified with pro-choice groups. We posit that media coverage of the interaction between interest groups and political parties on abortion highlighted the issue's increasing political relevance in the minds of the American public and helped to communicate the parties' evolving issue positions to the wider electorate. Keywords: U.S. Political Parties, Interest Groups, Abortion Policy, Framing, Issue Evolution. Que el partido democrata esta a favor del aborto mientras que el partido republicano esta en contra parece obvio aun para cualquier observador de la politica estadounidense. A pesar de esto, esta division no siempre fue tan clara como lo es ahora. Nuestra comprension de la evolucion del topico del aborto en los partidos de los Estados Unidos esta fundada en investigaciones previas que demuestran que los cambios en el tema del aborto, tanto en la elite como el publico, se ajustan al modelo de evolucion de las dinamicas partidistas de Carmines and Stimson. Sin embargo, una pieza importante de este rompecabezas queda sin resolver--[??]como se comunican las diferencias entre las posturas partidistas sobre diversos asuntos, desde las elites partidistas al publico en general? Analizando varias fuentes sobre la cobertura de noticias del aborto por cerca de 30 anos, demostramos que a traves del tiempo las noticias revelan un vinculo mas cercano entre grupos de intereses particulares y los partidos politicos, con el partido republicano favoreciendo a los grupos de interes pro-vida y los democratas a los grupos pro-aborto. Proponemos que la cobertura de los medios sobre la interaccion entre los grupos de interes y los partidos politicos sobre el aborto puso de manifiesto la creciente relevancia del topico en las mentes del publico estadounidense y ayudo a comunicar al electorado como evolucionaron las posiciones de los partidos., Over the past several decades, the Republican and Democratic parties have become increasingly divided along the lines of a religious and social cleavage (Claggett and Shafer 2010; Layman 2001). Foremost [...]

This article introduces the Forum section of the journal "Political Communication," which focuses on three areas of political communication research: artificial intelligence, digital political advertisement libraries, and the politics of transgender health misinformation. The authors of the articles in this issue provide concise and thought-provoking arguments about these topics, offering new frameworks for analysis and future research. The article also mentions the incoming Forum editor and promises more curated pieces in the future. [Extracted from the article]

Although a great deal of work shows that House members generally effectively represent the policy preferences of the majority of voters in their district, we know less about a more general level of representation enjoyed by those who do not support the incumbent. This problem is conceptualized by examining whether citizens, especially those in the opposing constituency, view casework as a partisan enterprise. Using data from the American National Election Study (ANES) cumulative file, this alternate way to consider representation illustrates that members of the opposing constituency are less satisfied with casework and less likely to think their representative would be helpful if contacted. Additionally, negative attitudes about casework generally increase in size for all citizens as the parties become increasingly polarized at the elite level and as one's individual representative becomes more extreme. Implications regarding the importance of political parties in the representation process are discussed. Keywords: representation; casework; U.S. House of Representatives; partisanship; polarization; political participation

Concerns over misinformation have inspired research on how people are influenced by, and form perceptions of, media messages that aim to correct false claims. We juxtapose two seemingly incongruent expectations from the theories of motivated reasoning and hostile media perceptions, uncovering the unique effects of presenting a political news story with corrective information as a "fact-check." We test our theoretical expectations through two online survey experiments. We find that compared to a conventional style of news reporting, a news story presented in a fact-checking genre significantly increases how accurately people are able to evaluate factual information, but it also comes with an important counterproductive effect: people will be more likely to perceive the journalist and the story as biased. We discuss the implications of our findings in theorizing the persuasion effects of corrective information in the contemporary media environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the relationship between partisan media consumption and changes in democratic values during the 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. By integrating self-reported news consumption data with the partisan slant of news outlets, we explore how different media environments shape voters’ attitudes about democracy. Our analysis of a two-wave panel survey conducted before and after the election reveals significant changes in democratic values among general voters, including both Biden and Trump supporters. The findings also highlight the complex effects of a polarized media ecosystem on political beliefs, demonstrating that partisan media flow influences democratic values beyond the traditional winner-loser dichotomy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Battleground state polls are a prominent part of U.S. election news coverage. In this experimental study (N = 863), we tested how polling results impact how partisans evaluate the news stories through which the polls are reported. Consistent with the hostile media perception, partisans tended to see articles as biased against their candidate, and perceived bias was amplified when their candidate trailed in the poll. Additionally, we found that a majority of news consumers believed the article would encourage their political copartisans in battleground states to vote, but would not impact the voting behavior of their political opponents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Does the news media cover ideological extremists more than moderates? We combine a measure of members of Congress' ideological extremity with a content analysis of how often lawmakers appear in the New York Times from the 103rd to the 112th Congresses and on CBS and NBC's evening newscasts in the 112th Congress. We show that ideological extremity is positively related to political news coverage for members of the House of Representatives. Generally, ideological extremity is not related to the likelihood of coverage for senators. Finally, we show that extreme Republicans are more likely to earn media attention than extreme Democrats. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]