Soft News Goes to War: Public Opinion and American Foreign Policy in the New Media Age. By Matthew A. Baum. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2003. 344p. $39.95 cloth, $19.95 paper.

Most research aimed at understanding television's influence on citizens' knowledge and attention to current events has focused on network news. Yet hard news constitutes only a small fraction of TV programming. The television day is filled with shows that come under the rubric of “soft news”—running the gamut from celebrity gossip to late-night comedy, afternoon talk shows, and prime-time magazines. Matthew Baum's book fills an important gap in political communication research. Baum asks what people learn about hard news from soft news programs. He argues that watching soft news programs gets people who would otherwise have little interest in foreign affairs to pay attention to international crises.