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   Bibliography

Paul Starr
on Communications and Tech

Articles

  • Capture the Media, Control the Culture?"The American Prospect, September 22, 2025
  • "The Relational Public," Sociological Theory (June 2021), 1-24.
  • "The Flooded Zone: How We Became More Vulnerable to Disinformation in the Digital Era," in W. Lance Bennett and Steven Livingston, eds., The Age of Disinformation (Cambridge University Press [Social Science Research Council], 2020).
  • " An Unexpected Crisis: The News Media in Post-Industrial Democracies" in John Lloyd and Janice Winter (eds.), Media, Politics and the Public (Stockholm: Axel and Margaret Ax:son Johnson Foundation, 2011), 21-29; reprinted in International Journal of Press/Politics (2012)17: 234-242. See also Michael Schudson and Katherine Fink, "Guiding Starr: Freedom of expression is not freedom of the press" Columbia Journalism Review (May-June 2012).
  • "Die Unerwartete Krise der Vierten Gewalt," Transit [Vienna] (Fall 2011), 170-173.
  • "Governing in the Age of Fox News," The Atlantic (January-February 2010).
  • "The Liberal State in a Digital World," Governance 23 (January 2010), 1-6.
  • "Goodbye to the Age of Newspapers (Hello to a New Era of Corruption)" The New Republic, March 4, 2009, 28-35.
  • "Democratic Theory and the History of Communications," in Barbie Zelizer, ed., Explorations in Communications and History (Routledge, 2008), 34-44.
  • "The Great Telecom Implosion" The American Prospect (September 9, 2002), 20-24.
  • "The Electronic Commons," The American Prospect (March 27-April 10, 2000), 30-34.
  • "Cyberpower and Freedom," The American Prospect no. 33 (July-August 1997): 6-9.
  • "Smart Technology, Stunted Policy: Developing Health Information Networks," Health Affairs 15 (May-Jun 1997), 91-105.
  • "Computing Our Way to Educational Reform, " The American Prospect no. 27 (July-August 1996): 50-59.
  • "Seductions of Sim: Policy as a Simulation Game," The American Prospect, no. 17 (Spring 1994), 19-29.
  • "Social Categories and Claims in the Liberal State," Social Research 59 (Summer 1992): 263-95; different version published in Mary Douglas and David Hull, eds., How Classification Works: Nelson Goodman Among the Social Sciences (Edinburgh University Press, 1992), 154-79.
  • "The Sociology of Official Statistics," in Alonso and Starr, eds., The Politics of Numbers.
  • "Who Will Have the Numbers? The Rise of the Statistical Services Industry and the Politics of Public Data," with Ross Corson, in Alonso and Starr, eds., The Politics of Numbers.
  • "The Electronic Reader," Daedalus (Winter 1983).
  • "Transforming the Libraries," Change, November 1974.

    Short Articles and Reviews

  • "Fall From Grace,"New York Review of Books March 21, 2019. [Review of Jill Abramson, Merchants of Truth: The Business of News and the Fight For Facts and Yochai Benkler et al., Network Propaganda: Manipulation, Disinformation, and Radicalization in American Politics.
  • "The Manichean World of Timothy Wu," American Prospect (July-August 2011), 63-66.[Review of The Master Switch.]
  • Journalism Without Its Public," Columbia Journalism Review (November-December 2009), 53 [posted online under the title, "Journalism Minus Its Old Public," Oct. 19].
  • "The Public May Need to Subsidize Itself," Cato Unbound, July 17, 2009.
  • "Are We on Track for a Golden Age of Serious Journalism?" A debate with Steven Johnson. Prospect Magazine [U.K.], May 2009.
  • "Revolution Amid Recession" The American Prospect (May 2009), 3.
  • "Freedom's Future Online," The American Prospect (July-August, 2008), 38-41. Review of The Future of the Internet and How to Stop It by Jonathan Zittrain.
  • "Political Networking," Technology Review, April 2005.
  • "Check and Balance" The American Prospect (July 2004).
  • "Reclaiming the Air,"The American Prospect 15 (March 2004), 57-60.
  • "A License for Power," The American Prospect (May 2003).
  • "Parodies Lost," The American Prospect (June 4, 2001).
  • "A Nation of Numbers Watchers," Wilson Quarterly, Summer 1985, with William Alonso.
  • Review of Patricia Cline Cohen, A Calculating People: The Rise of Numeracy in Early America, in The New Republic, February 13, 1984.
  • "The Political Economy of National Statistics," Items, Bulletin of the Social Science Research Council (September 1982), with William Alonso.

    Reports and Testimony

  • Testimony before the New Jersey Legislative Task Force on Public Broadcasting," September 14, 2010.
  • "A Future for Public Media in New Jersey: How to Create a New Basis for Public Radio, TV, and Online Media in One of American Journalism's Worst Covered States" (with Scott Weingart and Micah Joselow), New Jersey Policy Perspective, August 2010.
  • Statement to the Federal Communications Commission Workshop on the Future of Media and Information Needs of Communities, March 4, 2010.
  • Testimony, Hearing on the Future of Newspapers, Joint Economic Committee, U.S. Congress, September 24, 2009.
    Last modified, October 27, 2025 
    starr@princeton.edu
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