Praeger Series in Political Communication – serie

Rhetoric during wartime is about the creation of consensus, writes Justin Gustainis. In American Rhetoric and the Vietnam War, he discusses efforts to build or destroy public support of America's most controversial war of the century. Gustainis analyzes several important aspects of Vietnam era rhetoric: presidential rhetoric, protest rhetoric, and the war as portrayed in popular culture. Broadly defining rhetoric as the deliberate use of symbols to persuade, the author explores partisan use of speeches, marches, songs, military campaigns, gestures, destruction of property, comic strips, and films.Part One, Prowar Rhetoric, opens with a chapter devoted to the domino theory as a condensation symbol. Subsequent chapters discuss the hero myth in reference to Kennedy and the Green Berets, rhetoric and the Tet Offensive, and Nixon's Silent Majority. Part Two examines antiwar rhetoric, and includes studies of Daniel Berrigan, SDS and the Port Huron Statement, and the Weathermen. Gustainis argues that the antiwar movement did not stop the war, and may have prolonged it. In Part Three, he analyzes Doonesbury as antiwar rhetoric, then turns to an examination of how the war has been portrayed in popular film. Gustainis includes a political, military, and rhetorical chronology of the war as an appendix. Recommended for scholars and students of rhetoric and political communication.

Presidential debates are forums designed to present and select candidates for national office: Their purpose is to provide opportunities for candidates to win over undecided voters, to reinforce voters who have already made a decision about who to vote for, and to change the minds of those who are willing to reconsider their initial judgments concerning which candidate seems more fit to serve as president. Edward Hinck argues that debates are not primarily about presidential policy-making. Rather, they are opportunities to demonstrate a candidate's ability to lead by summarizing, in a specific test of presidential character, the larger conflict between the candidates. Hinck develops an in-depth rhetorical analysis of the presidential and vice presidential debates of 1960 to 1988.The analysis of each series of debates begins with an introduction that focuses discussion on the most important aspects of political image for each of the candidates, then develops a case for understanding the ways in which the debates revealed the rhetorical strengths and weaknesses of each candidate's performance. Hinck's neo-Aristotelian approach asserts that debates serve both deliberative and epideictic ends because they provide important information about the candidates that cannot be disclosed except in the dramatic confrontation of the debate, and because this dramatic confrontation enacts the democratic values of rational dialogue. Enacting The Presidency is recommended to scholars in communication and political science.

Most information about the role of political consultants in elections has been limited to analyses of the few major firms that manage presidential and major congressional contenders. Political Empiricism shifts the focus of research to state and regional races, examining the strategies and variables unique to the smaller political campaigns. Rita Kirk Whillock describes how severe budgetary constraints, inexperienced campaign staffs, and extremely limited voter research change the face of political campaigns on the state and local levels.Each chapter of this volume presents a mixture of the theoretical and the practical, providing a link between current scholarship and real campaign strategies. The volume's case study approach explores key issues and concerns of political communication, including incumbency, image, gender, fundraising, advertising, and message strategies. Political Empiricism stands as a significant scholarly account that balances the existing bias toward analyses of national campaign strategies, and helps close the gap between communications practice and theory. Highly recommended for scholars and students of political communication and political science.

Rhetoric, Lynn Boyd Hinds and Theodore Windt argue, is central to shaping both political consciousness and political culture. In this important new contribution to Praeger's Series in Political Communication, they examine how the rhetoric of the early Cold War years was used to create and develop a national and international reality. The pervasive political view of events, motives, actions, and policy was largely created in the years between 1945 and 1950 and grew from a pre-existing set of rhetorical beliefs as well as from the political speeches and pronouncements of the time.Hinds and Windt focus their study on American rhetoric applied to Soviet-American relations, centering essentially on Europe. They offer a brief outline of the theoretical principles used in their analysis, and follow with a look at certain images of the USSR selected for use by American politicians. In subsequent chapters, the authors trace developments from the end of World War II to Winston Churchill's Iron Curtain speech, thoroughly explore the British leader's address and its effect in dividing the world into two warring camps, analyze the writing and presentation of the 1947 Truman Doctrine and its suggestion of two ways of life, and detail the Truman Loyalty Program and the 1947 House Committee on Un-American Activities hearings in Hollywood. The remaining chapters discuss George Marshall's address originating the European Recovery Act, George Kennan's Sources of Soviet Conduct, contemporary critics, and such proofs as the Korean War, which showed the rhetoric to be correct. This work will be an important reference tool for courses in political communication, American history, political science, and presidential studies, and a useful addition to library collections.

This book examines international radio news coverage of the four superpower summit meetings between Soviets and Americans from 1987 to 1990. It concentrates on the symbolic constructs used by radio services to report about the summits, including their treatments of the two superpowers, their leaders, and their perspectives as recorded in interviews, press conferences and releases, joint communiques, and briefings. The study assesses the degree of success enjoyed by each of the superpowers in directing the nature of international news coverage, particularly the public relations battle between Mikhail Gorbachev and Ronald Reagan. It also weighs the viability of specific talking points written to direct U.S. summit statements by the National Security Council, and the degree to which news coverage was tainted by propaganda. Finally, it is able to suggest the nature of each service's contribution to diversity in international news flow, and to the ongoing debate about the equality of the international communication and information order.

In this study of many mainstream newspapers, Roy Edward Lotz investigates the ample space American papers devote to crime. He also examines the justifications and criticisms this phenomenon has generated. Lotz finds that 30 percent of the front-page stories contain tales of police, courts, and criminals. He concludes that crime reporting neither serves the functions nor has the negative effects that are often attributed to it.Lotz discusses the functions and dysfunctions of crime reporting, the ideological biases of crime news, and the balance between coverage of explosive events and the less dramatic news of courts and prisons. In the beginning, he analyzes the front pages of four mainstream newspapers: the Chicago Tribune, the Los Angeles Times, the Philadelphia Inquirer and the New Orleans Times-Picayune. Lotz finds that coverage of courts and prisons has been more thorough and unbiased than expected. This highly readable book is of interest to journalists and specialists in crime, politics, public opinion, and mass communication.

This volume examines how presidents from Truman to Bush rhetorically approached and managed political, military, judicial, legislative, and economic crises during their presidencies. Editor Amos Kiewe assembles new essays by communications scholars who look at rhetoric initiated during national crises, and account for various rhetorical developments affected by crises, changes in presidential rhetoric, and rhetorical and situational crisis constraints. Their studies suggest similarities in rhetoric in different types of crises, and yield resources for postulating patterns of crisis rhetoric.Each chapter's author presents a crisis rhetoric case study, analyzing initial strategies and tactics, shifts in rhetorical tactics, adjustments of discourse to particular phases in the crises, and unique rhetorical approaches designed to accommodate unexpected turns of events. The contributors discuss how presidents use rhetorical inventions, flip-flops, face-saving posturing, and even silence to diffuse crises. Specific topics include Eisenhower's response to the constitutional crisis in Little Rock, Kennedy and the Berlin Wall crisis, Johnson and the Kennedy assassination, Nixon and Watergate, and Bush and the Persian Gulf Crisis. Recommended for political scientists and communication theorists.

Many scholars call the Persian Gulf conflict the first prime-time war. Certainly, the technologies, strategies, and skills of the military in managing the public agenda were equal to those of the television networks and major print organizations. The Media and the Persian Gulf War focuses on the processes and effects of the media, both leading up to and during the mother of all battles in 1990 and 1991.Broad in scope and varied in methodologies, the chapters span the media of television, radio, print, and film. Chapters discuss such specific topics as the relationship between the press and the censoring military, CNN's and C-SPAN's coverage, how talk radio and television covered the war, the media's depiction of women in the military, the Gulf War as a referent in advertising, and how popular culture legitimized the war. This work will be an important resource for scholars in political and mass communication, popular culture, and political science.

This revised and updated edition remains the only book-length rhetorical analysis of national political debates from 1960 to the present. The contributors, all rhetorical critics, answer important questions about political debating in the United States, including: Why is the press involved in political debates? Why are debates likely to be an enduring part of our presidential campaigns? Why are some candidates successful as debaters while others are not? Chapter authors offer insight into the goals commonly shared by political debaters and the rhetorical strategies most frequently used by national political debaters. By providing an overall analysis of a variety of debate practices, this book demonstrates how debates have become more than just campaign spectacles, but rather complex, calculated political events with significant consequences. Predebate, debate, and postdebate strategies are considered in depth in these microanalyses. Scholars and students of speech communication, particularly those concerned with political communication, will find this volume noteworthy, as will those in the related disciplines of political science, history, and journalism.

Seib explores the many ways in which news coverage shapes the design and implementation of foreign policy. By influencing the political attitudes of opinion-shaping elites and the public at large, the news media can profoundly affect the conduct of foreign policy. Seib's text analyzes important examples of press influence on foreign affairs: the news media's definition of success and failure, as in reporting the 1968 Tet Offensive in Vietnam; how public impatience, fueled by news reports, can pressure presidents, as happened during the Iran hostage crisis of 1979-81; how presidents can anticipate and control news media coverage, as was done by the Bush administration during the 1991 Gulf War; how press revelation or suppression of secret information affects policy, as in the cases of the Bay of Pigs, the Cuban missile crisis, and various intelligence operations; how coverage of humanitarian crises affects public opinion; the challenges of live TV coverage; and the changing influence of news in the post-Cold War world. By covering a wide range of issues and examples, this important text will stimulate thoughtful appraisal of the relationships between the news media and those who make policy. It will be of interest to students and scholars in journalism, political communication, and international relations.

As Dan Nimmo notes in his introduction, Inside Political Campaigns endeavors to trace the sources of professional campaign wizardry by encapsulating the theories and concepts that practitioners and scholars alike claim to guide and rationalize consultants' magical weaving of strategies, tactics, and techniques into a 'winning tapestry of political communication.' This study presents the theoretical areas political communication consultants draw upon in making strategic and tactical decisions in political campaigns. And it provides an understanding of what motivates political consultants to choose a particular campaign strategy by explaining how various strategies work with the voting public. While the book is research-driven, its academic findings are tempered and expanded by the authors' personal political consulting experiences. The text will be of interest to scholars, students, and practitioners alike in political communication, advertising, public opinion, political science, political rhetoric, and campaigns and elections.

Denton and Woodward provide a newly updated revision of their classic in political communication. This pioneering text provides a systematic and comprehensive analysis of the role and function of communication in American politics.A synthesis of some of the best writing in political communication from the fields of communication, political science, journalism, and history, this edition features completely new chapters on the topics of campaign management, congressional campaigns, politics and popular culture, and unofficial Washington. This edition also reflects updated sources and recent examples. Students and scholars in the fields of communication, political science, political sociology, and contemporary American political history will find this text invaluable.

Though many studies of contemporary campaigns focus on brief political advertisements and the growing impact of technology on contemporary campaigns, the definitive statements of most candidates are still made in public addresses. Friedenberg examines the first public address made by an American presidential candidate on his own behalf. The circumstances giving rise to William Henry Harrison's 1840 address, and the themes that he developed in that address are strikingly contemporary, serving as an appropriate prelude to the examinations of contemporary political speaking that follow. Those examinations focus on notable campaign speeches by John F. Kennedy, Barry Goldwater, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, Bill and Hillary Clinton, and George W. Bush.Each study examines a key event that foreshadowed the speech studied. Each study presents a rhetorical biography of the speaker including a discussion of the speechwriting team and preparation techniques utilized by the speaker. Each study presents a thorough study of the campaign context in which the speeches were presented. Each also presents a close reading and rhetorical analysis of the speech itself and observations on the impact of the speech. Cumulatively, Friedenberg's studies help to illustrate how, even in today's high-tech political environment of 30-second ads and candidate Web sites, public speeches continue to play a crucial role in political campaigning. Of particular interest to scholars and students involved with political communication and political American campaigning.

Plasser examines the changing practices of election campaigning worldwide. Based on data of an indepth survey of campaign managers and political consultants from 43 countries, he provides insights into the professional role definitions and strategic orientations determining the future of electioneering in media-centered democracies.The first section gives a state-of-the-art overview of the international literature and modernization theories describing and analyzing the ongoing process of modernization and growing professionalization of electioneering around the world. The second section deals with the topic of an Americanization of campaign practices in countries fundamentally different from the United States from a diffusion point of view. A special focus is the role of U.S. overseas consultants in influencing and modifying campaign practices in foreign countries based on indepth interviews about the professional experiences of leading figures of the Americans overseas consultancy business. The third section deals with central features of campaign practices from a comparative perspective and provides information and data about the media infrastructure and political culture indicators for 50 countries as well as a detailed comparison of country-specific campaign regulations, party system features, and campaign styles. The fourth section focuses on the results of Plasser's Global Political Consultancy Survey among 592 campaign professionals from 43 countries. The results of this first worldwide survey offer insights into professional orientations, role definitions, and practices of campaign managers and political consultants throughout the world. The fifth section discusses different area- and country-specific campaign styles from a comparative perspective. The final chapters present a global typology of distinct campaign styles across the world, summarize the central findings, and link them to the ongoing debate about the future of electioneering in media-centered democracies. An essential research tool for scholars, students, and other researchers involved with comparative electioneering, political management, and political communication.

Mazzoleni, Stewart, Horsfield, and their contributors analyze the two-way relationship of the mass media and the contemporary phenomenon of extreme right wing neo-populist political parties which emerged in the closing years of the 20th century across the world. The success of Jean-Marie Le Pen, leader of the neo-populist Front National, in the first French presidential ballot in April 2002 shows that these extremist parties have strong, if varying, electoral support. Drawn into reporting on the policies and antigovernment critiques of the new parties, the mass communication institutions, especially those engaged in news production, have been challenged by a variety of unconventional but effective political campaign strategies that caused many media professionals considerable challenge.Taking an approach informed by mass communication theory, this book analyzes eight case studies of the interaction of news media dynamics and neo-populism in Austria, Australia, France, Canada, India, Italy, the United States, and the Latin American region against the background of widespread disenchantment with traditional parties and the complacency and cynicism of popularly elected governments. Insights into media responses reveal how dependent on media coverage the neo-populist parties were and how, in many cases, the media were initially unequal to the confronting ideologies of the new parties. Although the news media exploited the new parties, new parties exploited the news media as well in quite shrewd and original ways. This is an important resource for scholars, students, and other researchers involved with political mass communications and right-wing political organizations.

Kuypers charts the potential effects the printed presses and broadcast media have upon the messages of political and social leaders when they discuss controversial issues. Examining over 800 press reports on race and homosexuality from 116 different newspapers, Kuypers meticulously documents a liberal political bias in mainstream news. This book asserts that such a bias hurts the democratic process by ignoring non-mainstream left positions and vilifying many moderate and most right-leaning positions, leaving only a narrow brand of liberal thought supported by the mainstream press.This book argues that the mainstream press in America is an anti-democratic institution. By comparatively analyzing press reports, as well as the events that occasioned the coverage, Kuypers paints a detailed picture of the politics of the American press. He advances four distinct reportorial practices that inject bias into reporting, offering perspectives of particular interest to scholars, students, and others involved with mass communication, journalism, and politics in the United States.

Since 1952, when Eisenhower's media consultants decided they could warm up the General's personality and overcome selective exposure by using short spots on television, advertising has played a major role in American presidential campaigns. By the late 1990s, candidates and their political parties spend hundreds of millions on TV ads. Political spots have become the dominant form of communication between voters and candidates.Kaid and Johnston report the results of a systematic and thorough analysis of virtually all of the political commercials used in general election campaigns from 1952 through the 1996 presidential contest. Important to scholars, students, and other researchers involved with political communications, mass communications, and presidential elections.

In a comparison of communication in the U.S. presidential primaries of the twentieth century, Kendall examines the role of the candidates and the media during the period of primary elections. Drawing upon information from a broad array of sources, Kendall uncovers communication patterns that transcend time regarding political image, horse race coverage, and negative campaigning. She takes a strong communication perspective, arguing that the verbal context of the presidential primaries is an important factor overlooked in traditional studies.Topics covered include the effect of party rules on communication, the role of speeches and debates, the role of political advertising, and the media's construction of the primaries in the pre- television era and the age of television. Kendall examines the 1996 primaries in light of patterns discovered in earlier years, and she makes predictions and recommendations regarding the 2000 primaries. With its century-wide scope and the variety of research methods used, the book will be of considerable value to researchers, scholars, journalists and students involved with political communication and American presidential elections.

Benoit provides a comprehensive analysis of presidential television spots from every campaign that used this important message form, from the 1952 campaign through the last national campaign in 1996. More than 1,600 presidential spots are analyzed, from both primary and general campaigns. Republican, Democratic, and third party candidate advertisements are analyzed. He uses the Functional Theory of Political Campaign Discourse, analyzing themes in spots as acclaims (self-praise), attacks (criticism), and defenses (responses to attacks). Themes are classified according to topic. Each of these topics is broken down further (policy: past deeds, future plans, general goals; character: personal qualities, leadership ability, ideals). Contrasts are made between spots from Republicans and Democrats as well as third parties, incumbents and challengers, and winners and losers. The spots from candidates who led, trailed, or were in close races also are contrasted.Spots are becoming more negative over time, Benoit concludes, in both primary and general campaigns. General campaigns are more negative than primary campaigns, Democrats are more negative than Republicans, and challengers are more negative than incumbents. There are no differences between winners and losers. However, candidates who trailed throughout the campaign were most negative, while candidates in close races were most positive. An important analysis for scholars and researchers in political communication and American presidential politics.

Though many studies of contemporary campaigns focus on brief political advertisements and the growing impact of technology on contemporary campaigns, the definitive statements of most candidates are still made in public addresses. Friedenberg examines the first public address made by an American presidential candidate on his own behalf. The circumstances giving rise to William Henry Harrison's 1840 address, and the themes that he developed in that address are strikingly contemporary, serving as an appropriate prelude to the examinations of contemporary political speaking that follow. Those examinations focus on notable campaign speeches by John F. Kennedy, Barry Goldwater, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, Bill and Hillary Clinton, and George W. Bush.Each study examines a key event that foreshadowed the speech studied. Each study presents a rhetorical biography of the speaker including a discussion of the speechwriting team and preparation techniques utilized by the speaker. Each study presents a thorough study of the campaign context in which the speeches were presented. Each also presents a close reading and rhetorical analysis of the speech itself and observations on the impact of the speech. Cumulatively, Friedenberg's studies help to illustrate how, even in today's high-tech political environment of 30-second ads and candidate Web sites, public speeches continue to play a crucial role in political campaigning. Of particular interest to scholars and students involved with political communication and political American campaigning.

O'Shaughnessy, Henneberg, and their contributors examine how the theory and practice of marketing has been and can be applied to politics. Particular attention was paid to the theory of political marketing, with conceptual definitions developed to better facilitate communication between marketing professionals and political science researchers.Political marketing is about the making and unmaking of governments in a democracy. Despite its growing importance, the marketing academic profession has shown very little interest in the political ramificaitons of their discipline, while political scientists often come to political marketing with the view that it is cosmetic, if not trivial. O'Shaughnessy, Henneberg, and their contributors examine how the theory and practice of marketing has been and can be applied to politics.As they show, elections are a persuasion task writ large, most especially with the demise of inherited class loyalties. Following elections, governments can employ marketing techniques to build support for their actions, while opposition parties can press the government and its supporters through similar marketing approaches. Of particular interest to scholars, researchers, and policy makers involved with politics, political communication, and the making of public policy.

Kuypers charts the potential effects the printed presses and broadcast media have upon the messages of political and social leaders when they discuss controversial issues. Examining over 800 press reports on race and homosexuality from 116 different newspapers, Kuypers meticulously documents a liberal political bias in mainstream news. This book asserts that such a bias hurts the democratic process by ignoring non-mainstream left positions and vilifying many moderate and most right-leaning positions, leaving only a narrow brand of liberal thought supported by the mainstream press.This book argues that the mainstream press in America is an anti-democratic institution. By comparatively analyzing press reports, as well as the events that occasioned the coverage, Kuypers paints a detailed picture of the politics of the American press. He advances four distinct reportorial practices that inject bias into reporting, offering perspectives of particular interest to scholars, students, and others involved with mass communication, journalism, and politics in the United States.

Plasser examines the changing practices of election campaigning worldwide. Based on data of an indepth survey of campaign managers and political consultants from 43 countries, he provides insights into the professional role definitions and strategic orientations determining the future of electioneering in media-centered democracies.The first section gives a state-of-the-art overview of the international literature and modernization theories describing and analyzing the ongoing process of modernization and growing professionalization of electioneering around the world. The second section deals with the topic of an Americanization of campaign practices in countries fundamentally different from the United States from a diffusion point of view. A special focus is the role of U.S. overseas consultants in influencing and modifying campaign practices in foreign countries based on indepth interviews about the professional experiences of leading figures of the Americans overseas consultancy business. The third section deals with central features of campaign practices from a comparative perspective and provides information and data about the media infrastructure and political culture indicators for 50 countries as well as a detailed comparison of country-specific campaign regulations, party system features, and campaign styles. The fourth section focuses on the results of Plasser's Global Political Consultancy Survey among 592 campaign professionals from 43 countries. The results of this first worldwide survey offer insights into professional orientations, role definitions, and practices of campaign managers and political consultants throughout the world. The fifth section discusses different area- and country-specific campaign styles from a comparative perspective. The final chapters present a global typology of distinct campaign styles across the world, summarize the central findings, and link them to the ongoing debate about the future of electioneering in media-centered democracies. An essential research tool for scholars, students, and other researchers involved with comparative electioneering, political management, and political communication.

Wasburn compares U.S. commercial news reports on a wide variety of events with those produced by the news media of several other nations. The events include the Falklands War, the Iran-Iraq War, the Tiananmen Square Uprising, several political assassinations, major trade disputes between the U.S. and Japan, the Intifada, U.S. presidential nominating conventions and a presidential inauguration.Different patterns of coverage—amount of attention given an event, language used to describe an event, selection of particular occurrences to characterize an event, and descriptions of U.S. and international public opinion of the event—are shown to reflect different political, economic, and strategic interests of nations, historical contexts in which news was constructed, national differences in values that influence the production of news, and differences in historically specific relations between news media and the governments of their countries. Attention is given to contrasts between the national image of the United States constructed by U.S. commercial news media and the images of the United States produced by various foreign news media. This book will be of particular interest to scholars, students, and researchers involved with political communication, journalism, political science, and political sociology.

As a politician, what you say and how you say it is almost as important as what you do. Political careers are made based not only on substantive achievements, but also on style, presentation, speeches, and debates. Dole's is no exception. After a career in government service spanning six presidents, from Lyndon B. Johnson to George H. W. Bush, she became widely recognized as a leading Republican politician in her own right after her 1996 speech at the GOP convention. In 1999 she spent six months campaigning for president before dropping out of the race due to a lack of adequate funds, and in 2002 she was elected U.S. Senator from North Carolina. In this biography of Dole, the authors show how she has been able to advance the causes she cares about, as well as her political career, through her consummate skills as a public speaker.Dole's career included service in two cabinets, as Secretary of Transportation (Reagan) and Secretary of Labor (Bush), and she also served as president of the American Red Cross. The authors quote liberally from her speeches and interviews to illustrate the events of her political career and to place her choices—personal, career, and political—in the context of the times and places in which she grew up and came of age. Her trajectory—from Southern belle debutante to Harvard Law School student and from political wife to presidential candidate and U.S. senator—is fascinating, and the deftness with which she has been able to deflect the criticisms thrown her way is instructive for women of both political parties and for politicians of both genders.

This essay collection examines ethical concerns related to the traditional areas of political communication, including campaigns, media, discourse, and advertising, as well as new technologies, including the Internet. In total, the collection provides one of the few volumes to examine political ethics from an academic perspective rather than from a moralistic or rule orientation.Bruce Gronbeck provides an assessment of presidential campaigns, arguing that ethical judgments of citizens are based on candidates' actions and motives, character, and competence. Ronald Lee explores the ethics of campaign discourse, and he charts the relationship between presidential candidates' projection of civic virtue and the political arrangements that dictate the course of the campaign itself. Steven Goldzwig and Patricia Sullivan examine what happens to discourse when the divide between the haves and have-nots translates into a local community disconnected from virtual politics. The nature, types, and impact of the growing use of hate speech in contemporary politics is explored by Rita Whillock, while Robert Denton investigates television as an instrument of governing and its impact on the nature of democracy. Gary Woodward looks at the ethics of political journalism, and Lynda Lee Kaid analyzes the ethical issues raised by political advertising in all forms. Clifford Jones looks at the impact of campaign finance rules on campaign communication strategy; Gary Selnow explores the ethics of politics on the Internet; and Robert Denton concludes by examining the relationship between constitutional authority and public morality. An important text for students as well as scholars investigating contemporary American politics.

This work treats presidential leadership as persuasive communication. The major theories of presidential leadership found in the literature establish the central role of persuasion, and introduce the interpretive systems approach to political communication as a theoretical framework for the study of presidential leadership as persuasion. Case studies examine recent presidents' use of public persuasion to perform their leadership functions. Particular attention is devoted to coalitional constraints on presidential pardoning rhetoric, presidential leadership through the politics of division, the political significance of conflicting political narratives, the sermonic nature of much 20th-century presidential discourse, the difficulties inherent in persuading the public to make sacrifices, and the dangers of relying too heavily on public rhetoric. The concluding chapter considers the rhetoric that contributed to the demise of the Bush presidency, the election of Bill Clinton, and the challenges facing the Clinton presidency.

Kuypers combines rhetorical theory and framing analysis in an examination of the interaction of the press and the president during international crisis situations in the post-Cold War world. Three crises are examined: Bosnia, Haiti, and the North Korean nuclear capability issue. Kuypers effectively demonstrates the changed nature of presidential crisis rhetoric since the end of the Cold War.Kuypers employs a new historical/critical approach to analyze both the press and the Clinton administration's handling of three international crisis situations. Using case studies of Bosnia, Haiti, and the alleged North Korean nuclear buildup in 1993, he examines contemporary presidential crisis communication and the agenda-setting and agenda-extension functions of the press.The importance of this study lies in its timeliness; President Clinton is the first atomic-age president not to have the Cold War meta-narrative to use in legitimating international crises. Prior studies in presidential crisis rhetoric found that the president received broad and consistent support during times of crisis. Kuypers found that the press often advanced an oppositional frame to that used by the Clinton administration. The press frames were found to limit the options of the President, even when the press supported a particular presidential strategy. This is a major study that will be of interest to scholars and researchers of the press, the modern presidency, and American foreign policy.

Films have been a part of U.S. society for a century—a source of great enjoyment for the audience and of great profit to filmmakers. How does a mass entertainment medium deal with some of the great sources of dramatic real-life political and economic conflict—the Great Depression, the Cold War—in a way that attracts an audience without making it angry? How does an industry, which has from its beginnings been the subject of attacks from social, political and religious groups deal with political issues and conflicts? This book is an attempt to examine these questions; it is also an examination of some of the greatest and most interesting American films ever made—westerns, gangster films, comedies, war films, satires, and film biographies—to see what American films say about politics and politicians, and what these films, in turn, say about the audience for which they were produced.