The Digital Form of a Weekend Routine: A Research Note on the Weekly Presidential Address

Barack Obama broke a presidential tradition on January 24, 2009. After almost three decades on the radio, he delivered the Saturday presidential address visually on the White House website and YouTube page. The medium transition presents an opportunity to examine the address’s evolving form as a genre of presidential rhetoric. I expand upon my recent analysis of the weekly address by examining the structure, online layout, and presidential image in the digital medium and how the salient functions of the genre are highlighted compared to its predecessor addresses on radio. I find the address’s digital form highlights the temporality of each pronouncement while strengthening its essential generic functions

The Digital Form of a Weekend Routine: A Research Note on the Weekly Presidential Address

Barack Obama broke a presidential tradition on January 24, 2009. After almost three decades on the radio, he delivered the Saturday presidential address visually on the White House website and YouTube page. The medium transition presents an opportunity to examine the address’s evolving form as a genre of presidential rhetoric. I expand upon my recent analysis of the weekly address by examining the structure, online layout, and presidential image in the digital medium and how the salient functions of the genre are highlighted compared to its predecessor addresses on radio. I find the address’s digital form highlights the temporality of each pronouncement while strengthening its essential generic functions

A Weekend Routine: The Functions of the Weekly Presidential Address from Clinton to Obama

Ritualized presidential rhetoric including inaugurals, state of the unions, and farewell addresses has received a wealth of research attention. While vital to the rhetorical presidency, more routine communications that convey the “tick tock” of everyday presidential actions have gone largely unnoticed in the scholarly literature. This article focuses on the central area of routine presidential communication: the weekly address. Thirty speeches from the first year of President Clinton, Bush, and Obama’s administrations are analyzed to understand the functions of the address’s routine use. The findings reveal that ideologically disparate presidents approach the weekly routine with a temporal focus that sermonizes to the nation, projects the power of the presidency, and insulates the institution from legislative inaction

A Weekend Routine: The Functions of the Weekly Presidential Address from Clinton to Obama

Ritualized presidential rhetoric including inaugurals, state of the unions, and farewell addresses has received a wealth of research attention. While vital to the rhetorical presidency, more routine communications that convey the “tick tock” of everyday presidential actions have gone largely unnoticed in the scholarly literature. This article focuses on the central area of routine presidential communication: the weekly address. Thirty speeches from the first year of President Clinton, Bush, and Obama’s administrations are analyzed to understand the functions of the address’s routine use. The findings reveal that ideologically disparate presidents approach the weekly routine with a temporal focus that sermonizes to the nation, projects the power of the presidency, and insulates the institution from legislative inaction

Selling War, Selling Hope: Presidential Rhetoric, the News Media, and U.S. Foreign Policy since 9/11. By Anthony R.DiMaggio. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2015. 432 pp.

Book review of Selling War, Selling Hope: Presidential Rhetoric, the News Media, and U.S. Foreign Policy since 9/11 by Anthony R.DiMaggio. Selling War, Selling Hope: Presidential Rhetoric, the News Media, and U.S. Foreign Policy since 9/11. By Anthony R.DiMaggio

Shaping Economic Reality: A Critical Metaphor Analysis of President Barack Obama’s Economic Language During His First 100 Days

This paper analyzes President Barack Obama’s economic language during the first 100 days of his administration. Having assumed office during the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, Mr. Obama moved quickly to articulate the nature of the recession to the American people. The research illustrates how President Obama metaphorically reframes the role of government to ‘perfect’ inadequacies in the health, stability, and direction of the economy. Within Charteris-Black’s Critical Metaphor Analytic approach, eight major presidential addresses from Barack Obama’s “honeymoon period” were analyzed. This critical approach seeks to reveal covert (and unconscious) intentions through identification of metaphors, interpretation of the conceptual metaphors, and explanation of possible intentions through the interrelation of rival metaphors. Three dominant metaphoric constructions were identified in the data: embodiment/health, foundation/building, and journey/traveling metaphors. These reveal three basic conceptual metaphors Obama applies to the economy: a sick person, an unstable building, and a difficult journey. By mapping these source domains onto his linguistic target – the economy – the president characterizes the crisis, describes his policy initiatives, and details the recession’s duration

\u3ci\u3eThe Presidential Expectations Gap: Public Attitudes Concerning the Presidency\u3c/i\u3e, by Richard Waterman, Carol L. Silva, and Hank Jenkins-Smith

Book review of The Presidential Expectations Gap: Public Attitudes Concerning the Presidency by Richard Waterman, Carol L. Silva, and Hank Jenkins-Smith

The Ubiquitous Presidency: Toward a New Paradigm for Studying Presidential Communication

The rhetorical presidency—a deeply influential paradigm for understanding presidential communicative governance—has been disrupted by dramatic changes in the U.S. electorate, the media environment, the goals of public appeals, and the nature of political content. To address the rhetorical presidency\u27s limitations with regard to current presidential communication practices, we conceptualize and offer a preliminary test of a new paradigm: the ubiquitous presidency. This paradigm argues that modern presidents cultivate a highly visible and nearly constant presence in political and nonpolitical arenas of American life by being accessible, personal, and pluralistic