Happy Presidents An Analysis of How American Presidents have Communicated to the People Making Use of the Available Media Channels of Their Era – Franklin D. Roosevelt, Ronald Reagan, and Barack Obama as Successful Communicators By Cecilie W. Fjeldvik A Thesis Presented to the Department of Literature, Area Studies, and European Languages - North America Area Studies – Faculty of Humanities Supervisor: Mark Luccarelli UNIVERSITY OF OSLO Fall 2009 Acknowledgments A special thanks to Clark S. Judge and Erik Møller Solheim for positive cooperation and participation in interviews. Table of Content Introduction ........................................................................................................... 1 Method ....................................................................................................................................... 3 Structure ..................................................................................................................................... 4 1.0 The Mass Media and the Presidency .......................................................... 7 1.1 The Mass Media ............................................................................................................. 8 1.1.1 Newspapers ........................................................................................................................................ 13 1.1.2 The Radio ........................................................................................................................................... 15 1.1.3 The Television Era ............................................................................................................................. 16 1.1.4 The Internet Age ................................................................................................................................ 22 1.2 The Character of the Presidency .................................................................................. 27 Summary ...................................................................................................................... 32 2.0 Franklin Delano Roosevelt ....................................................................... 34 2.1 The Road to a Twelve Years Presidency ..................................................................... 35 2.2 Facing Opposition ........................................................................................................ 36 2.3 Roosevelt and Political Communication ...................................................................... 39 2.4 Fireside Chats ............................................................................................................... 45 Summary ...................................................................................................................... 48 3.0 A New Morning – Ronald Reagan........................................................... 50 3.1 The Reagan Era ............................................................................................................ 50 3.2 The Great Communicator ............................................................................................. 56 Summary ...................................................................................................................... 63 4.0 Yes We Can – Barack Obama .................................................................. 65 4.1 Obama – the Candidate ................................................................................................ 65 4.1.1 Barack Obama .................................................................................................................................... 65 4.1.2 The Rock Star Politician .................................................................................................................... 69 4.1.3 The Self-made Man ............................................................................................................................ 72 4.2 Inside the Obama Campaign – from a Norwegian Perspective ................................... 74 4.2.1 Interview Results ............................................................................................................................... 80 4.3 Obama – the President .................................................................................................. 80 4.3.1 Political Challenges............................................................................................................................ 81 4.3.2 Media Strategies in Office ................................................................................................................. 83 Summary ...................................................................................................................... 87 5.0 Happy Presidents ....................................................................................... 88 5.1 Communication and the Politics of the Age ................................................................. 88 5.2 New Media Communications ....................................................................................... 90 5.3 Communication or Manipulation? ............................................................................... 93 5.4 Some Similarities and Differences ............................................................................... 94 5.5 Concluding Remarks .................................................................................................... 96 APPENDIX A ...................................................................................................... 98 Interview with Clark S. Judge .................................................................................................. 98 APPENDIX B .................................................................................................... 104 Interview guide – Erik Møller Solheim .................................................................................. 104 BIBLIOGRAPHY ............................................................................................. 106 Introduction I [name] solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.1 Individualism is one of the core values in the American culture, in addition to freedom and equality, and in the contemporary United States the dominant political culture is individualistic. In an individualistic political culture the role of government is viewed as a mean of achieving marketplace efficiency and the government should primarily only interfere in areas promoting economic development. The appropriate participants in the role of politics are viewed to be professional politicians.2 As a leader, the president of the US is both ceremonial head and prime decision-maker. The president is both an institution and a person, and has become very much a symbolic figure. The American public tends to vote for the person rather than the political issues. The media is personalizing the role of the president, and media strategies and communication skills are therefore very important for a president to achieve political success in the United States. In 1933 Franklin D. Roosevelt said “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself”. Ronald Reagan promised “A New Morning in America”, and Barack Obama’s “yes we can” proved to have resonance in the American public. Restoring confidence in the people is important as well as it is important for a president to get his message to the people. But how does a president do this? Roosevelt, Reagan, and Obama had positive experience as communicators. John F. Kennedy is another president that comes to mind as a charismatic president and good communicator, but the focus will be on these three presidents, Roosevelt, Reagan and Obama, because they represent the media of their time and are generally viewed as charismatic presidents. Kennedy will be mentioned as a contrast to Richard Nixon in an example of television as a medium of communication in chapter 1. The president and the press are dependent on each other, and the developments of the media have had its effects on the image-making for presidents. Communication is related to the self-presentation of a president. The image-making is important as a mean of effective communication, and successful communication can ultimately lead to political success. The challenge with 1 The Constitution of the United States, Article II, section 1 in Milton C. Cummings and David Wise, Democracy Under Pressure, an Introduction to the American Political System, (USA: Harcourt Brace College Publishers, 1971, 7th ed) 675. 2 Fred M. Shelley et. al., Political Geography of the United States, (New York: The Guilford Press, 1996) 56, 60. 1 communication through the media is the contest between communication that clarifies and leads by argument versus the communication through affect and manipulation. According to McCroskey (2001) the importance of rhetorical communication has been recognized for thousands of years. The first essay about how to speak effectively dates back to about 3000 B.C.3 The actual contribution of this essay to the theory of rhetorical communication is minimal, but it shows that an interest in rhetoric is about five thousand years old. During the Greek Period the “art of rhetoric” was further developed. Aristotle was one of the greatest theorists on rhetorical communication. According