Wayne State University Wayne State University Dissertations 1-1-2011 Approval of George W. Bush: Economic and media impacts Gino Tozzi Jr. Wayne State University, Follow this and additional works at: http://digitalcommons.wayne.edu/oa_dissertations Part of the Mass Communication Commons, and the Political Science Commons Recommended Citation Tozzi Jr., Gino, "Approval of George W. Bush: Economic and media impacts" (2011). Wayne State University Dissertations. Paper 260. This Open Access Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by DigitalCommons@WayneState. It has been accepted for inclusion in Wayne State University Dissertations by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@WayneState. APPROVAL OF GEORGE W. BUSH: ECONOMIC AND MEDIA IMPACTS by GINO J. TOZZI JR. DISSERTATION Submitted to the Graduate School of Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 2011 MAJOR: POLITICAL SCIENCE Approved by: _________________________________ Chair Date _________________________________ _________________________________ _________________________________ © COPYRIGHT BY GINO J. TOZZI JR. 2011 All Rights Reserved DEDICATION To my Father ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I want to thank my committee chair Professor Ewa Golebiowska for the encouragement and persistence on only accepting the best from me in this process. I also owe my committee of Professor Ronald Brown, Professor Jodi Nachtwey, and Professor David Martin a debt of gratitude for their help and advisement in this endeavor. All of them were instrumental in keeping my focus narrowed to produce the best research possible. I also owe appreciation to the commentary, suggestions, and research help from my wonderful wife Courtney Tozzi. This project was definitely more enjoyable with her encouragement and help. Mr. Michael Kleingartner from Oakland University proved invaluable with his help in auditing my content analysis of media coverage and assisting me in my first venture into the R Statistical Computing Environment. His crosschecking of my coding scheme and advisement on how to improve it significantly improved that portion of my study. I want to thank the Political Science Department and the Wayne State University Graduate School for the financial and research support they provided along the way which made this scholarly work far easier to achieve. I also appreciate the efforts that Ms. Cindy Krolikowski, our Political Science Department Librarian, made to help me with the campus databases to find my media transcripts. I thank the Administrative staff within the Department of Political Science, Ms. Patricia Robinson, Ms. Delinda Neal, and Ms. She’re Davis, who expedited this process saving me time and worry. I also owe my appreciation to my family for their support, encouragement, and assistance. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS Dedication…………..........……………………………………………….………………….…ii Acknowledgements……………………………………………………….…………..........….iii List of Graphs.................................................................................................................viii List of Tables....................................................................................................................ix List of Figures...................................................................................................................x CHAPTER 1 “Introduction”……………………………………………..………….............….1 Variables Influencing Presidential Approval…………………………………………..3 My Model for Approval and Its Relationships…………………………...……………9 Reasons to Study George W. Bush’s Approval Rate………………………………..9 Why This Is Different…………………………………………………………………..11 Looking Ahead………………………………………………………………………….13 CHAPTER 2 “Literature Review: What Effects Opinion Change of the Presidency”......14 Changes in News Media Coverage of Presidencies and Presidential Campaigns.. …………………………………………………………………………………………...14 Technological Changes in the News Media…………………………………………16 Trends in Media Influence on Public Opinion……………………………………….18 Media Effects on Presidential Approval……………………………………………...22 The Media’s Coverage of the Economy……………………………………………..23 The Economy and Presidential Popularity…………………………………………..24 Presidential Power over the Economy………………………………………………25 Theories on the Relationship Between the Economy and Presidential Approval…………………………………………………………………………………26 iv Sociotropic Economic Evaluations of the President: Past, Present, and Future..27 Influence on Approval: Inflation, Unemployment, and Personal Income………...29 Control Variables……………………………………………………………………….30 The Rally Effect………………………………………………………………………...30 The Honeymoon Effect…………………………………………..……………………33 Second Terms and Divided Government……………………………………………35 Moving Forward………………………………………………………………………..36 CHAPTER 3 “Initial Observations of Bush's Approval Rate”……...................................38 Bush’s Approval Rate………………………………………………………………….38 War and Bush’s Approval……………………………………………………………..44 The Economy’s Impact on Bush’s Approval………………………………………...46 Hypotheses on Bush’s Approval Rate……………………………………………….51 The Analysis of Bush’s Media Coverage……………………………………………54 Statistical Concerns for Bush’s Media Coverage Rating Variable………………..61 Criteria for the Coding of the Presidency in the Media…………………………….64 Bush’s Media Coverage: The Results from the Content Analysis………………..68 Approval Moving Forward…………………………………………………………….70 CHAPTER 4 “Methodology”…………………..................................................................72 Potential Problems with my Public Opinion Research…………………………….72 The Data………………………………………………………………………………..73 The Tests………………………………………………………………………………..80 Looking Forward……………………………………………………………………….82 CHAPTER 5 “Results”………………………………………..............................................84 v Macroeconomic Indicators During the Occurrence of Control Variables………...84 Bush’s Media Coverage During the Occurrence of Control Variables……………88 Test Results………………………………………………………………………...…..89 Granger Causality Test Results………………………………………………………………94 Success of Predictions………………………………………………………………………..97 Final Model Graph and Implications…………………………………………………………99 CHAPTER 6 “Conclusion”…………………………………..............................................102 Appendix A “Bush's Approval Rate Correlated with Time”............................................119 Appendix B “Media Coding Guidelines for Bush”.........................................................120 Appendix C “Media Coding Chart”................................................................................127 Appendix D “Sample Coding Form”..............................................................................623 Appendix E “Difference of Means Test”........................................................................624 Appendix F “Augmented Dickey-Fuller Test Results”...................................................625 Appendix G “Basic Descriptive Statistics”.....................................................................627 Appendix H “Correlation Table”.....................................................................................628 Appendix I “Variance Inflation Factors”.........................................................................629 Appendix J “Breusch-Godfrey Test”......…....................................................................630 Appendix K “Residuals”................................................................................................631 Appendix L “Multivariate OLS Regression”...................................................................632 Appendix M “Granger Test Results”..............................................................................633 Appendix N “Robust Regression of Quarterly Data”……………………………………..638 Appendix O “Granger Causality Test for Quarterly RDI change and Approval”……….639 Bibliography………………………………………………………………..............………...640 vi Abstract………………………………………………………………….............……………675 Autobiographical Statement…………………………………………................................676 vii LIST OF GRAPHS Graph 1: Bush's Approval Rate.......................................................................................40 Graph 2: Real Disposable Income, 2001-2009…………….. ..........................................47 Graph 3: Consumer Price Index, 2001-2009..................................................................48 Graph 4: Unemployment Rate, 2001-2009.....................................................................48 Graph 5: Monthly Percent Change in Real Disposable Income, 2001- 2009.................49 Graph 6: Monthly Percent Change in Consumer Price Index, 2001-2009......................50 Graph 7: Monthly Percent Change in Unemployment Rate, 2001-2009........................50 Graph 8: Bush’s Media Coverage from AP and CNN…..................................................62 Graph 9: Bush’s Media Coverage Rating Moving Average.............................................69 Graph 10: Bush's Approval Rate and His Media Coverage Rating.................................70 Graph 11: Bush's Predicted and Actual Approval with Control Periods........................100 viii LIST OF TABLES Table 1: General Linear Model, Bush’s Approval Regressed on Predictor Variables…..90 Table 2: Robust Model, Bush’s Approval Regressed on Predictor Variables……………92 ix LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1: Model of Bush's Approval Change..................................................................10 Figure 2: Agenda-Setting Diagram.................................................................................20