Books

Toff, Benjamin, Ruth Palmer, and Rasmus Kleis Nielsen. 2023. Avoiding the News: Reluctant Audiences for Journalism. New York: Columbia University Press. (Choice Outstanding Academic Title 2024, 2025 Hazel Gaudet-Erskine Best Book Award.)

This is urgent, necessary reading for anyone in the business of news, for anyone who cares about the news, and for anyone who wants to ensure a future of fair access to knowledge and information for all. We ignore this meticulously researched and empathetically reported book at our own peril. Melissa Bell, publisher of Vox Media

News avoiders are one of the most neglected topics in communications research, yet listening to and understanding them may be absolutely crucial for the health of democratic culture. This precisely grounded, sociologically rigorous, and searching three-country study sets completely new standards for pursuing this elusive topic. Nick Couldry, London School of Economics and Political Science

This is a beautifully written book that teaches us so much about the nature of our relationships to news by looking in closely at the lives and understandings of people who choose to avoid it. Katherine Cramer, University of Wisconsin-Madison

This book is a wide-ranging investigation of not only the quantitative data about news avoidance but also, most importantly, the sentiments of those who have opted out of quality journalism. If journalists want to regain these readers, then it is crucial that we understand them first. This book serves as an important first step. Clara Jiménez Cruz, CEO of Maldita.es and chair of the European Fact-Checking Standards Network

A deep dive into the complicated reasons that people distrust the news. A must-read for any journalist who wants to serve the people, meaning all the people—not just their friends and colleagues. Amanda Ripley, Washington Post columnist

 

Nielsen, Rasmus Kleis and Sarah Anne Ganter. 2022. The Power of Platforms: Shaping Media and Society. Oxford: Oxford University Press. (Runner-up for the 2024 ICA Journalism Studies Book Award.)

“Whatever your view of whether governments and societies should break up digital platforms, you’ll agree that platform power is real. Nielsen and Ganter’s book provides the most clear-sighted account yet of how platform power is reconfiguring news publishing. They offer a historically detailed, conceptually precise, and institutionally sensitive account of the deeply asymmetrical relations in which both platforms and publishers are today locked. Essential reading for those who still care about information’s role in politics.” – Nick Couldry, London School of Economics and Political Science

“Even for those of us who study media and tech for a living, it’s increasingly difficult to comprehend the last ten years of seismic disruption to the way the public discovers, consumes, and shares information. The Power of Platforms is an important book that brings welcome coherence and insight into the symbiotic and increasingly asymmetrical relationship between news publisher and platforms, how it has upended the media environment, and is transforming societies.” – Vivian Schiller, The Aspen Institute

“The power of corporate platforms on the distribution and consumption of news is unprecedented. Nielsen and Ganter’s book is an exceptional, thought-provoking analysis of the intricate relationships between platform mechanisms and news publishing. This is truly a must-read for any student of media who wants to understand the controlling role of digital intermediaries. No academic of journalism and media studies can afford to miss out on this valuable treatise of how the business of news production has transformed in recent years and what is at stake for the public sphere.” – José van Dijck, Utrecht University, and author of The Culture of Connectivity and The Platform Society

 

Nielsen, Rasmus Kleis. 2012. Ground Wars: Personalized Communication in Political Campaigns. Princeton: Princeton University Press. (Winner of the 2014 Doris Graber Award.)

“If the medium is the message, Nielsen shows that a key medium in campaigns is person-to-person communication. His sharp analysis and careful ethnographic storytelling reveal both the high level strategic role and the human experience of personalized political communication in contemporary elections.”—W. Lance Bennett, University of Washington

“Having embedded himself with the grunts in the political trenches of two ordinary congressional elections, Nielsen demonstrates how elections involve the selling of democracy to an often reluctant or uninterested public. Ground Wars is a sterling example of political ethnography.”—Herbert J. Gans, former president of the American Sociological Association

“Nielsen provides a trenchant and thought-provoking account of what campaigns look like at ground level. His ethnography offers a rare glimpse into what canvassing and phone banking mean to those who try to reach vast numbers of voters in the run-up to Election Day. This book is a welcome companion to more abstract, quantitative studies of campaigns and elections.”—Donald P. Green, Columbia University

“Nielsen presents a very compelling analysis of an often-neglected aspect of modern electoral campaigns. He challenges the idea that political communication must be tightly controlled and scripted, correctly arguing that personalized, labor-intensive communication prone to individual inflection and enthusiasm represents American democracy in action. Ground Wars is an important and timely book.”—Dennis W. Johnson, author of No Place for Amateurs: How Political Consultants Are Reshaping American Democracy

“This is an excellent book that offers unique analysis and insights into an emerging key dimension of electoral campaigning: personalized political communication—that is, communication to voters in person either at the door or on the phone. This book contributes to political science in novel and decisive ways. Ground Wars is a pleasure to read.”—Florence Faucher-King, Sciences Po, Paris

 

In addition to these scholarly books, I have written a short book in Danish asking “What can we do with the news?”

Nielsen, Rasmus Kleis. 2020. Hvad skal vi med nyhederne? Moderne ideer ; no 18. Copenhagen: Informations Forlag.