Previous Winners
2020
No award given
2019
Academic
Matthew Hindman
The Internet Trap: How the Digital Economy Builds Monopolies and Undermines Democracy
Princeton University Press
Margaret E. Roberts
Censored: Distraction and Diversion Inside China’s Great Firewall
Princeton University Press
Trade
Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt
How Democracies Die
Crown Publishing
2018
No award given
2017
Academic
James T. Hamilton
Democracy’s Detectives: The Economics of Investigative Journalism
Harvard University Press
Trade
David Greenberg
Republic of Spin: An Inside History of the American Presidency
W.W. Norton
2016
Academic
Erik Albæk, Arjen van Dalen, Nael Jebril and Claes H. de Vreese
Political Journalism in Comparative Perspective
Cambridge University Press
Trade
Harold Holzer
Lincoln and the Power of the Press: The War for Public Opinion
Simon & Schuster
2015
Academic
Daniela Stockmann
Media Commercialization and Authoritarian Rule in China
Cambridge University Press
Trade
Andrew Pettegree
The Invention of News: How the World Came to Know about Itself
Yale University Press
2014
Academic
Kevin Arceneaux and Martin Johnson
Changing Minds or Changing Channels? Partisan News in an Age of Choice
The University of Chicago Press
Matthew Levendusky
How Partisan Media Polarize America
The University of Chicago Press
Trade
Jaron Lanier
Who Owns the Future?
Simon & Schuster
2013
Academic
Jonathan M. Ladd
Why Americans Hate the Media and How It Matters
Princeton University Press
Trade
Rebecca MacKinnon
Consent of the Networked: The Worldwide Struggle for Internet Freedom
Basic Books
2012
Academic
Jeffrey E. Cohen
Going Local: Presidential Leadership in the Post-Broadcast Age
Cambridge University Press
Trade
Evgeny Morozov
The Net Delusion: The Dark Side of Internet Freedom
PublicAffairs
2011
Academic
Tim Groeling
When Politicians Attack: Party Cohesion in the Media
and
Patrick J. Sellers
Cycles of Spin: Strategic Communication in the U.S. Congress
Trade
Jack Fuller
What Is Happening to the News: The Information Explosion and the Crisis in Journalism
2010
Academic
Matthew Hindman
The Myth of Digital Democracy
Trade
John Maxwell Hamilton
Journalism’s Roving Eye: A History of American Foreign Reporting
2009
Academic
Markus Prior
Post-Broadcast Democracy: How Media Choice Increases Inequality in Political Involvement and Polarizes Elections
Trade
Jane Mayer
The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How the War on Terror Turned into a War on American Ideals
2008
Academic
John G. Geer
In Defense of Negativity: Attack Ads in Presidential Campaigns
Trade
Ted Gup
Nation of Secrets: The Threat to Democracy and the American Way of Life
2007
Academic
Diana C. Mutz
Hearing the Other Side: Deliberative versus Participatory Democracy
Trade
Gene Roberts and Hank Klibanoff
The Race Beat: The Press, the Civil Rights Struggle and the Awakening of a Nation
2006
Academic
James A. Stimson
Tides of Consent: How Public Opinion Shapes American Politics
Trade
Geoffrey R. Stone
Perilous Times: Free Speech in Wartime from the Sedition Act of 1798 to the War on Terrorism
2005
Academic
Daniel C. Hallin and Paolo Mancini
Comparing Media Systems: Three Models of Media and Politics
Trade
Paul Starr
The Creation of the Media: Political Origins of Modern Communications
2004
Academic
Scott L. Althaus
Collective Preferences in Democratic Politics: Opinion Surveys and the Will of the People
Paul M. Kellstedt
The Mass Media and the Dynamics of American Racial Attitudes
Trade
Bill Katovsky and Timothy Carlson
Embedded: The Media at War in Iraq
2003
Academic
Doris Graber
Processing Politics: Learning from Television in the Internet Age
Trade
Leonard Downie Jr. and Robert G. Kaiser
The News About the News: American Journalism in Peril
2002
Academic
Robert M. Entman and Andrew Rojecki
The Black Image in the White Mind
Trade
Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel
The Elements of Journalism
2001
Lawrence R. Jacobs & Robert Y. Shapiro
Politicians Don’t Pander: Political Manipulation and the Loss of Democratic Responsiveness
2000
Robert McChesney
Rich Media, Poor Democracy
1999
James Hamilton
Channeling Violence: The Economic Market for Violent Television Programming
1998
Richard Norton Smith
The Colonel: The Life and Legend of Robert R. McCormick, 1880–1955
1997
No award given
1996
Stephen Ansolabehere and Shanto Iyengar
Going Negative: How Political Advertisements Shrink and Polarize the Electorate
1995
William Hoynes
Public Television for Sale: Media, the Market and the Public Sphere
1994
Cass R. Sunstein
Democracy and the Problem of Free Speech
1993
Greg Mitchell
Campaign of the Century: Upton Sinclair’s Race for Governor of California and the Birth of Media Politics
