This book examines how political communication and the mass media have played a central role in the consolidation of emerging democracies around the world. Covering a broad range of political and cultural contexts, including Eastern and Southern Europe, Latin America, Asia and Africa, this new volume investigates the problems and conflicts arising in the process of establishing an independent media and competitive politics in post-autocratic societies. Considering the changing dynamic in the relationship between political actors, the media and their audience, the authors of this volume address the following issues: changing journalistic role perceptions and journalistic quality the reasons and consequences of persisting instrumentalization of the media by political actors the role of the media in election campaigns the way in which the citizens interpret political messages and the extent to which the media influence political attitudes and electoral behaviour the role of the Internet in building a democratic public sphere This book will be of great interest to all those studying and researching democracy and democratization, comparative politics, political communication, journalism, media and the Internet.