Includes bibliographical references (p. 217-241) and index.

Introduction -- An ontology of hybridity -- All media systems have been hybrid -- The contemporary contexts of hybridity -- The political information cycle -- Power, interdependence, and hybridity in the construction of political news : understanding WikiLeaks -- Symphonic consonance in campaign communication : reinterpreting Obama for America -- Systemic hybridity in the mediation of the American presidential campaign -- Hybrid norms in news and journalism -- Hybrid norms in activism, parties, and government -- Conclusion: Politics and power in the hybrid media system.

"The diffusion and rapid evolution of new communication technologies has created a pressing need to understand the complex forces reshaping media and politics. Who is emerging as powerful in this new context? Written by a leading scholar in the field, this book provides a new, holistic interpretation of how political communication now works. In The Hybrid Media System Andrew Chadwick reveals how political communication is increasingly shaped by interactions among older and newer media logics. Organizations, groups, and individuals in this system are linked by complex and ever-evolving relationships based on adaptation and interdependence. Chadwick shows how power is exercised by those who create, tap, and steer information flows to suit their goals, and in ways that modify, enable, and disable the agency of others across and between a range of older and newer media settings. The book examines a range of examples of this systemic hybridity in flow in concrete political communication contexts ranging from news making in all of its contemporary "professional" and "amateur" forms, to parties and election campaigns, to activist movements, and government communication. Compelling stories bring the theory to life. From American presidential campaigns to WikiLeaks, from live prime ministerial debates to hotly-contested political scandals that evolve in real time, from historical precedents stretching back five hundred years to the author's unique ethnographic data gathered from recent insider fieldwork among journalists, campaign workers, bloggers, and activist organizations, this wide-ranging book maps the emerging balance of power between older and newer media technologies, genres, norms, behaviors, and organizational forms".