Citizens, Politics and Social Communication: Information and Influence in an Election Campaign

Huckfeldt, Robert, and John Sprague. 1995. Citizens, Politics and Social Communication: Information and Influence in an Election Campaign. New York: Cambridge University Press. Chs. 1-2.

Abstract
Mass political behavior rests on fundamental social interdependence among citizens. Transformation, from political quiescence to activation, is accomplished through environmentally specific channels of social and political communication. Social organization is all the factors that affect the transmission of communication. Nature and content of social influence/communication are fundamentally structured by the social context.

In politics, localities matter. We can't group everyone in the same group, that is effectively assuming groups do not exist or matter. Explicitly calls the independent citizen a myth. V.O. Key was among the first to wed rationality and social context as jointly required to understand political behavior.

 Claims that when researching contextual effects, we must go beyond the use of survey data. To analyze groups, one must first understand the people and their different modes of interaction and communication. A research must see a voter's surroundings. They used a community study to understand the choices of voters and the setting/context of those choices. Individualistic fallacy is just as bad as the ecological fallacy; both are the result of unspecified contextual effects.

Environmental v. contextual effects: Environmental effects originate from extra-individual factors while contextual effects rise from social interaction.

Downs, while against contextual effects, does make room for context. Because voters default to their less costly biases, socially obtained information is more efficient.

Place in Literature
Continues the argument, from Sprague, that citizens must be understood in context, instead of methodological reductionism. Written in 1995, this book is much stronger in language. It advances the case for contextual analysis by revealing how both the ecological and individualistic fallacy can be remedied by a proper contextual analysis.