Populism and security in political speechmaking : the 2008 US Presidential Campaign

The issue of security has been a prominent feature of the US political landscape since the attacks of 9/11. Not surprisingly, then, issues of security, trust and credibility were raised throughout the 2008 US election presidential campaign. In the latter stages of his presidency, George W. Bush had been engaged in portraying his two terms as a successful period as national protector, keeping the US safe from further terrorist attack.Both the policy and the rhetorical strategies of the Bush administration coalesced around an emphasis on 'homeland security'. As well as producing a dominant way of asserting political legitimacy, this put in place an administrative framework within which elected legislators had to situate themselves, including the candidates for the 2008 presidential election

The 'public inquisitor' as media celebrity

This article looks at the development and utility of celebrity among high-profile political interviewers. Offering the revised description 'public inquisitor', the article presents an overview of the rise of the political interviewer as a celebrity form of the 'tribune of the people' (Clayman 2002). It focuses on the UK-based journalists and broadcasters Jeremy Paxman and John Humphrys, and looks at the expansion of their professional activities and their attendant construction as media personalities. It argues that the forms of celebrity presented by Paxman and Humphrys draw upon discourses of integrity and authenticity associated with practices of advocacy, and suggests that their extension beyond the formal political realm into media genres traditionally excluded from the established political domain might work to consolidate the public inquisitor as a discursive figure. Therefore, while acknowledging that this depends on the effective management of individual media profiles, the article proposes a critical reappraisal of the place of the celebrity personae in political communication in order to account for the possibility of constructive modes of media performance

Imagining and addressing the nation on Irish talk radio

"Irelands of the Mind: Memory and Identity in Modern Irish Culture" offers a compelling series of essays on changing images of Ireland from the mid-nineteenth century to the present. It seeks to understand the various ways in which Ireland has been thought about, not only in fiction, poetry and drama, but in travel writing and tourist brochures, nineteenth-century newspapers, radio talk shows, film adaptations of fictional works, and the music and songs of Van Morrison and Sinead O'Connor. The prevailing theme throughout the twelve essays that constitute the book is the complicated sense of belonging that continues to characterise so much of modern Irish culture. Questions of nationhood and national identity are given a new and invigorated treatment in the context of a rapidly changing Ireland and a changing set of intellectual methods and approaches

Book Review: The British Press

Book Review of The British Press by Mick Temple. Setting out with a conventional rehearsal of how the press has come to be the way it is, Temple discusses the popularisation of news and information from Gutenberg onwards. Most usefully, Temple highlights the nuances to emerge from the nineteen‐forties, when the press became newly radicalised, saw retreats in sales and a loss of discursive control to broadcasting, and became instrumental in a broader "decline of deference". Other chapters offer clear and accessible accounts of the various approaches to analysing news, the production environment of post‐Wapping, strategies of censorship both formal and informal, and the rise of public relations

Political action committees

The Political Action Committee (known by the conventional acronym of PAC) is a privately-organised group dedicated to shaping and influencing political policy and law making. PACs operate to generate, distribute and spend campaign funding. While they are required to register with state regulators, PACs are normally conceived as a way of pursuing particular issues outside of or parallel with the formal political framework. In the way they set about this, PACs are permitted to advocate the election of a candidate to a federal election, or to subject opposition candidates to attack. It all means that the sets of alliances and monetary arrangements that develop between PACs and the political establishment are important factors to consider when reporting on and critically assessing the US democratic arrangement: a political system that aspires to the fair distribution of political arguments. More broadly, an informed understanding of the role of PACs and the restrictions they face provides the journalist and the academic alike with an insight into the links between finance and political power

I'm a celebrity, get me into politics: the political celebrity and the celebrity politician

This chapter discusses the political celebrity and the celebrity politician