LibGuides: Civic Engagement and Voting: Navigating Political Influence

Resources / books / videos

Democracy for Sale- Money in Politics and Voting Rights
North Carolina -- perhaps more than any other state in the Union -- has been transformed by the new and growing tidal wave of political spending. Zach Galifianakis, the comic star of "The Hangover" movies, travels back to his home state to investigate how North Carolina has become a bellwether for how the money of a few has come to dominate our democracy. Galifianakis investigates allegations that the current state government was put in power by moneyed interests and has thus carried out a program that only benefits its backers: cuts to education, healthcare spending and environmental protection; lowering of taxes for the wealthy and corporations; and the passage of laws designed to roll back access to the ballot.
Digital Disconnect- Fake News, Privacy, and Democracy
In this era of Facebook privacy breaches, "fake news" and filter bubbles, the essential film DIGITAL DISCONNECT trains its sights on the relationship between the internet and democracy. Tracing the internet's history as a publicly funded government project in the 1960s to its full-scale commercialization today, the film traces how the revolutionary, democratizing potential of the internet has been radically compromised by the growing and unaccountable power of a handful of telecom and tech monopolies.

Related Guides

Publication and Research Databases

CQ Researcher This link opens in a new window
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1923-
In depth research on controversial topics ranging from social issues to environment, health, education, science, and technology issues.
Balanced information on all sides of an issue, including comments from experts in the field, numerous charts and graphs, a pro-con feature, a chronology, a lengthy bibliography for additional research, and a list of contacts are included in each report.
MyResearcher.com This link opens in a new window
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First time users must register with their UNLV email address. The account will need to be renewed each June.
MyResearcher is a data-tracking and information reporting tool created by Applied Analysis with Las Vegas and Clark County area statistics as well as detailed gaming statistics from across the United States..
MyResearcher allows users to search millions of economic, fiscal, social and environmental metrics, tracking and trending the ones that matter most to them. MyResearcher has Las Vegas and Clark County area statistics as well as detailed gaming statistics from across the United States.
Politics and International Relations This link opens in a new window
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Political science journals published by Sage and participating societies.
It covers such subjects as General Political Science, American Government & Politics, Political Sociology, Comparative Politics, Policy Studies, Political Communication, Peace / Conflict Studies, Presidential Studies, Political Theory / Philosophy, International Relations, and Area Studies.
RAND Reports This link opens in a new window
Think tank reports and documents on social and political issues.
Searches the RAND archive of over 17,000 titles dating back to 1948. RAND publications deal with such issues as national defense, education and training, health care, criminal and civil justice, labor and population, science and technology, community development, international relations, and regional studies.

Political Publications

Congressional Publications (ProQuest Congressional) This link opens in a new window
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1789-
U.S. legislative information, including access to many full-text Congressional publications, bills, laws, regulations, committee information, and more. Includes the U.S. Serial Set.
Comprehensive access to U.S. legislative information, including access to many full-text Congressional publications, bills, laws, regulations, committee information, and more. Additionally, searchers can retrieve CIS Legislative Histories for public laws. Contains an index of congressional publications from 1789 to the present and locate information about members and committees. Statutes at Large and Congressional Indexes from 1789-1969 are included.
CQ Magazine This link opens in a new window
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1983-
Comprehensive roundup of virtually all Capitol Hill activity from the previous week.
Excellent source of current information on hot legislative topics in the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate.

Newspaper Databases

Access Nevada This link opens in a new window
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50 Nevada newspapers searchable in one database. Find information on Nevada's economy, business & industry, legislation, opinions and viewpoints, local history and much more.
Access Nevada is a searchable subset of Access World News.
Las Vegas Review Journal (NewsBank) This link opens in a new window
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1996-
Full text of articles, not including images.
PressReader This link opens in a new window
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Provides access to current newspapers from around the world in full-color, full-page format. Includes over 5,000 titles from the U.S. and 100 countries in 60 languages. Registering as a user with the site is optional and allows for personalized, saved settings.
Users may access the database on desktop computer, tablet and smartphone. An archive is also available to browse by country, language, and newspaper title, and to search full text of articles, photograph captions, and headlines.

Media Bias

Media, in its various forms, is a major way that people obtain information about things relating to civic engagement. Media Bias refers to, "the media exhibiting an unjustifiable favoritism as they cover the news. When the media transmit biased news reports, those reports present viewers with an inaccurate, unbalanced, and/or unfair view of the world around them." The resources below examine media bias, what it is, and how it effects reporting.

Levasseur, David G. "Media Bias." In Encyclopedia of Political Communication, edited by Lynda L. Kaid and Christina Holtz-Bacha, 434-440. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, Inc., 2008.

It isn't always easy to tell if the media you are viewing is presenting information in a truthful or unbiased way. Use the resources below to fact check news sources.

Mediabiasfactcheck- This website allows you to check the bias of media sources.
AllSides.com- This website displays the day's top news stories from the Left, Center, and Right of the political spectrum side by side.

You can also learn more about media bias and how to detect it by reading more about them from these resources!

How to detect media bias in the news - is a resource that can improve your awareness regarding media bias.-
The different types of media bias - is a source that reviews the various kinds of media bias and what to look out for.
Media bias in relation to political communication - is a portion of the Encyclopedia of Political Communication and has tons of great information surrounding media bias.
The theories of media bias - goes into detail about media objectivity and media bias.

Public Policy Advocacy Organizations

Public Advocacy organizations offer their own research and policy analysis to advocate for positions held by their creators and supporters. The organizations below are focused on groups that advocate for issues that relate to Nevada.

Brookings Mountain West- Brookings Mountain West, in collaboration with UNLV faculty, research consultations, and Brookings Institution fellows, issues a variety of print and electronic publications that track and evaluate economic indicators in the Intermountain West.

Pew Charitable Trusts- The Pew Charitable Trust is an independent nonprofit organization dedicated to innovation. Pew is a global research and public policy organization dedicated to serving the public.

Astroturfing- Discussion of advocacy organizations created by corporate or other interests groups to mislead voters.

Votesmart- List of Nevada special interests groups.

Followthemoney.org: Nevada, 2020- The nonpartisan, nonprofit National Institute on Money in Politics (NIMP) promotes an accountable democracy by compiling comprehensive campaign-donor, lobbyist, and other information from government disclosure agencies nationwide and making it freely available at FollowTheMoney.org.

Opensecrets.org: Nevada, Top Contributors, 2020 Cycle- Nonpartisan, independent and nonprofit, the Center for Responsive Politics is the nation's premier research group tracking money in U.S. politics and its effect on elections and public policy.

Lobbying

Lobbying is an attempt to influence the actions, policies, or decisions of officials, most often these officials will be legislators or members of regulatory agencies. Browse the resources below to learn more about lobbying.

Lobbying in Nevada- This website, from the Nevada Legislature, provides information about lobbying in Nevada, lists of current and past lobbyists, and reports on lobbying activities.

Ballotpedia Nevada Lobbying guidelines- Ballotpedia outlines Nevada's lobbying laws.

Influence and Lobbying- this webpage gives information on various types of lobbying and interests groups.

Day in the Life of a Lobbyist- This article gives an overview of what lobbyists do.

Civic Engagement and Voting: Navigating Political Influence

Navigating Political Influence