Document Type

Article

Publication Date

8-2011

Keywords

George W. Bush, Barack Obama, Political Engagement, presidential address, new media

Abstract

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.

Comments

View sample presidential addresses with the originally published article: http://www.emandp.com/research/2015/8/27/a-weekend-routine-the-functions-of-the-weekly-presidential-address-from-clinton-to-obama.

Rights Information

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 License.

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Citation / Publisher Attribution

Electronic Media & Politics, v. 1, issue 4, p. 66-88.

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