SEAN SPICER IS THE NEWS THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN SEAN SPICER AND THE WHITE HOUSE PRESS CORPS BY DANIELLE SELMAN JULIAN A THESIS SUBMITTED TO THE AUCKLAND UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENT FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF COMMUNICATION STUDIES (MCS) JULY 3, 2018 SCHOOL OF COMMUNICATION STUDIES Abstract This research concerns the relationship between former White House press secretary Sean Spicer and the White House press corps, analysed through the reportage of the daily White House press briefing. This relationship can be seen as a continuation of Trump’s relationship with the news media during his candidacy. This thesis quantitatively measures the reportage by the White House press corps using content analysis (Krippendorff, 2002), and qualitative analysis of the reportage using journalism discourse analysis (Wodak & Meyers, 2001; Fairclough, 2010). These analyses are achieved by analysing three cases that became headlines due to the moment of contention between Spicer and the press corps. These case studies are: 1) The initial press briefing, when Spicer lectured the press corps for falsely reporting the size of Trump’s inauguration’s crowd. 2) Press Briefing #30, when Spicer forcefully instructed reporter April D. Ryan to ‘stop shaking her head.' 3) Press Briefing #36, when Spicer controversially compared Syrian President Bashar al- Assad to Nazi Party Leader Adolf Hitler and incorrectly claimed that Hitler did not use chemical weapons. Online news articles about these case studies from 30 media outlets that have journalists in the White House press corps have been selected. The thesis then compares and contrasts the case studies’ press briefing transcripts to the online news articles. The theories that are used to perform this thesis’ analyses are, disciplined bodies (Craig, 2016), habitus (Bourdieu, 2002; Craig, 2016), spin (Downes, 1998; McNair, 2000, Craig, 2013), political source relations (Downes, 1998, McNair, 2000, Davis, 2003, Sanders, 2009), news values (Galtung & Ruge, 1965; Harcup & O’Neill, 2016), the mediated public sphere (McNair, 2000; Herman & Chomsky, 2002, Jackson & Valentine, 2014). This thesis finds that in political journalism there is a proliferation of articles that are more concerned about the political process as opposed to political policy. This finding is in line with the findings from The Pew Research Centre (2017), which found in the first 100 days of 2 the Trump administration that news stories focused on Trump's and his staff's character and leadership as opposed to the administration's policies. This thesis asserts that this pattern is damaging to the American mediated public sphere, as it stifles the citizen's ability to learn about important policy matters that are affecting their everyday lives. Keywords: The White House, press secretary, The White House press corps, news values, spin, political journalism, political source relations, mediated public sphere, Sean Spicer, Donald Trump, political performance, public relations, media relations. 3 Attestation of Authorship I hereby declare that this submission is my own work and that, to the best of my knowledge and my belief, it contains no material previously published or written by another person (except where explicitly defined in the acknowledgements), nor material which to a substantial extent has been submitted for the award of any other degree or diploma of a university or other institutions of higher learning. Signed: Danielle Selman Julian Dated: 3 July 2018 4 Acknowledgements Firstly, I would like to acknowledge my supervisor, Geoffrey Craig without whom this thesis would be nothing but a collection of blank pages, your wisdom, your research and your class Mediated Political Talk has been a strong foundation to build upon. Secondly, to Vijay, Wayne, Petra, Wan, Helen and especially Averill, thank you for teaching me over the course of my Master’s degree and encouraging me to reach my highest potential. To Robert Bartholomew, thank you for providing me with an American’s perspective, and introducing me to what it means to be a global citizen as my Year 10 Social Studies teacher. Also to all my teachers at Botany Downs Secondary College, Somerville Intermediate School, and Cockle Bay School but especially Marie-Laure Killip, Jane Williams-Hill, Carl Greenstreet, Jasmine and Mark Johnson, you might not read these words but I would not be the student I am today without your belief in me, if you did not believe in me you did a good job of hiding it. To Troy, Emily, Michael, Amelia, Lizzie and all my classmates, thanks for your friendship and making the best educational experience of my life so far. A special thanks to Patrick for always being there (with PayWave). To my parents for everything, for allowing me to prioritise my studies and letting me sponge a trip to Thailand off you. Thanks to Adam and Kele for getting married in Thailand. To Nicola, for being my number one role model. To Jonny, for the playlist that kept me sane while writing. To Lawrence, sorry for crying about Sean Spicer resigning in front of you. Finally, to my best friend Erin, thank you for always reading over my work, finding a boyfriend who loves my guacamole and driving me around a lot. 5 Table of Contents Abstract ............................................................................................................................ 2 AttestatIon of AuthorshIp .................................................................................................. 4 Acknowledgements ........................................................................................................... 5 List of Tables ..................................................................................................................... 7 1. Thesis background ..................................................................................................... 8 1.2 Research approach ............................................................................................................... 9 1.3 ThesIs Structure .................................................................................................................. 10 2. LIterature RevIew .................................................................................................... 13 2.1 The Candidate Donald Trump’s RelatIonship wIth the Media ....................................... 14 ................................................................................................................................................ 14 2.2 The White House Press BrIefIngs ......................................................................................... 14 2.3 The Role of the United States Press Secretary ..................................................................... 16 2.4 What Is the WhIte House Press Corps ................................................................................. 19 2.5 PolItIcal/JournalIst Source RelatIons ................................................................................... 21 2.6 The NotIon of Spin .............................................................................................................. 23 2.7 News Values ....................................................................................................................... 24 2.8 The Mediated PolItIcal PublIc Sphere .................................................................................. 29 2.9 PolItIcal Performance ......................................................................................................... 32 2.10 ConclusIon ........................................................................................................................ 35 3. Methodology ........................................................................................................... 36 3.1 Content AnalysIs .......................................................................................................... 36 3.2 DIscourse AnalysIs .............................................................................................................. 38 3.3 Research DesIgn ................................................................................................................. 41 3.4 ConclusIon .......................................................................................................................... 45 4. Tables of content analysis results ............................................................................. 47 4.1 Inferences from results. ...................................................................................................... 48 5. Sean Spicer’s political performance ......................................................................... 50 5.1 TheorIes of PolItIcal Performance ....................................................................................... 51 5.1.1 (Un)Disciplined Bodies ........................................................................................................ 51 5.1.2 Habitus ................................................................................................................................ 54 5.2 There Is Spin, and then there Is Spicer ................................................................................ 57 5.3 How SpIcer’s polItIcal performance Informs on the reportage ...................................... 59 5.4 ConclusIon .........................................................................................................................