DOES IT MATTER WHAT PRESIDENTS SAY? THE INLFUENCE OF PRESIDENTIAL RHETORIC ON THE PUBLIC AGENDA, 1946-2003 by Adam B. Lawrence B.A., Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, 1995 M.A., The University of Akron, 1997 Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of Arts and Sciences in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy University of Pittsburgh 2004 UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH FACULTY OF ARTS AND SCIENCES This dissertation was presented by Adam B. Lawrence It was defended on March 5, 2004 and approved by Jeffrey E. Cohen, Department of Political Science, Fordham University Susan B. Hansen, Department of Political Science, University of Pittsburgh Jonathan M. Hurwitz, Department of Political Science, University of Pittsburgh Bert A. Rockman, School of Public Policy and Management, The Ohio State University Dissertation Advisor: David C. Barker, Department of Political Science, University of Pittsburgh ii Copyright by Adam B. Lawrence 2004 iii DOES IT MATTER WHAT PRESIDENTS SAY? THE INLFUENCE OF PRESIDENTIAL RHETORIC ON THE PUBLIC AGENDA, 1946-2003 Adam B. Lawrence, Ph.D. University of Pittsburgh, 2004 Although scholars have long recognized the president’s pre-eminent status as an agenda-setter, there is surprisingly little evidence available to suggest that presidents can and do influence the public agenda. While a modest literature reveals presidential speeches as important determinants of the public agenda, the assumption that rhetoric matters, commonly made by students of the presidency, has been largely unaccompanied by the support of empirical evidence. As a result, the question of whether presidential rhetoric constitutes an important ingredient of agenda setting success remains very much open to debate. Based on an extensive content analysis of State of the Union Addresses from 1946 to 2003, this dissertation considers in three separate studies the influence of presidential rhetoric as a tool for setting the public agenda. The first considers the influence of several presidential rhetoric variables resulting from the content analysis on aggregate-level evaluations of the salience of 1,113 issues discussed by 11 presidents from 1946 to 2003. The second study estimates the influence of several moderators of the relationship between presidential rhetoric on the public agenda, based on the individual-level assessments of issue salience expressed by respondents following State of the Union Addresses given by Presidents Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush. Finally, based on an experimental analysis in which 340 subjects were shown edited videos of a presidential speech, the third study examines iv the influence of the three specific forms of presidential rhetoric used by President George W. Bush in his discussion of the issue of the economy. The findings demonstrate that (1) presidents respond to environmental conditions fashioning their State of the Union rhetoric, (2) presidents use their rhetoric to move issues onto the public agenda and, by claiming credit, presidents also move issues off the public agenda, (3) presidential rhetoric not only influences the public agenda directly, among those who watch the speech, but also indirectly by affecting media coverage after the speech, and (4) the influence of presidential rhetoric is more pronounced among those who support the president, who share similar political predispositions as the president, and who are politically sophisticated. v TABLE OF CONTENTS PREFACE................................................................................................................................... xiv I. INTRODUCTION..................................................................................................................... 1 II. PRESIDENTIAL SPEECHES AND PUBLIC OPINION ................................................... 4 A. PRESIDENTIAL SPEECHES AND PRESIDENTIAL APPROVAL............................. 4 B. PRESIDENTIAL SPEECHES AND POLICY PREFERENCES .................................... 8 C. PRESIDENTIAL SPEECHES AND AGENDA SETTING........................................... 11 1. The Congressional Agenda ....................................................................................... 11 2. The Media Agenda .................................................................................................... 12 3. The Public Agenda .................................................................................................... 13 4. Presidents as Agenda Setters .................................................................................... 15 5. Evaluating the Research on Presidential Agenda Setting......................................... 17 III. CONTENT ANALYSIS OF STATE OF THE UNION ADDRESSES, 1946-2003........ 19 A. PRESIDENTIAL RHETORIC ....................................................................................... 19 1. Issue Attention........................................................................................................... 20 2. Issue Justification...................................................................................................... 20 3. Public Appeals........................................................................................................... 21 4. Congressional Appeals.............................................................................................. 21 5. Fear Appeals ............................................................................................................. 21 6. Compare and Contrast.............................................................................................. 22 7. Agenda Size ............................................................................................................... 22 8. Issue Order................................................................................................................ 23 9. American Values ....................................................................................................... 23 10. Foreign Policy......................................................................................................... 23 11. Post-Address Speeches............................................................................................ 24 12. Credit Claiming without Evidence .......................................................................... 24 13. Credit Claiming with Evidence ............................................................................... 25 B. RESULTS....................................................................................................................... 25 IV. AN ISSUE PRIMING PERSPECTIVE ON PRESIDENTIAL AGENDA SETTING..................................................................................................................................... 29 V. STUDY 1: PRESIDENTIAL RHETORIC AND AGGREGATE-LEVEL EVALUATIONS OF ISSUE SALIENCE, 1946-2003 ............................................................. 31 A. RESEARCH DESIGN.................................................................................................... 31 vi 1. Data and Sample ....................................................................................................... 31 2. The Public Agenda .................................................................................................... 31 3. Presidential Rhetoric................................................................................................. 32 a. Issue attention ................................................................................................. 33 b. Issue justification............................................................................................. 33 c. Public appeals ................................................................................................. 33 d. Congressional appeals .................................................................................... 33 e. Fear appeals.................................................................................................... 33 f. Compare and contrast...................................................................................... 33 g. Agenda size...................................................................................................... 33 h. Issue order....................................................................................................... 33 i. American values. .............................................................................................. 34 j. Foreign policy .................................................................................................. 34 k. Post-address speeches..................................................................................... 34 l. Credit claiming without evidence..................................................................... 34 m. Credit claiming with evidence........................................................................ 34 4. Media Coverage ........................................................................................................ 34 5. Contextual Factors.................................................................................................... 35 6. Presidential Resources.............................................................................................. 36 7. Control Variables...................................................................................................... 36 B. METHODOLOGY........................................................................................................