Overview
- Analyzes data on White House communication strategies over 70 years from Truman to Obama through the lens of geographic speech locations
- Shows how presidents make choices about where to go, how those choices change across time and context, and the impact of those choices upon their presidency
- Shows how some presidents like Nixon spent about half his presidency at vacation locations while Obama barely spent any time at all
- Appeals to scholars and students of Political Science, Communication, History, and American Studies
Part of the book series: The Evolving American Presidency (EAP)
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Table of contents (8 chapters)
Keywords
About this book
This book explores speeches by American presidents. Domestic public presidential speechmaking helps us understand the pressures, priorities, and targeted audiences of different presidencies. Many administrations generally work to reinforce already existing support though some may try to reach out to new areas. Census areas help us better understand where presidents prioritize speeches in certain areas of the country. Designated Market Areas, or media markets, allow us to look at presidential speechmaking without geographical constraints and focus on areas of population concentrations. Electoral College results show that most administrations prefer to give speeches in places where they have the most electoral support to reinforce their bases. The chapter on vacation locations explores how some presidents use Camp David or their homes as places to actively speak, while some administrations just use them as retreats. Foreign speeches allow us to see that most presidents prefer to speak in openly free countries more than other places.
Reviews
“The information presented in this book will be a valuable resource for presidential scholars. O’Brien has gathered data that will ease the path of scholars continuing this research.” (Karen S. Hoffman, Congress & the Presidency, Vol. 46 (2), 2019)
Authors and Affiliations
About the author
Bibliographic Information
Book Title: Why Presidential Speech Locations Matter
Book Subtitle: Analyzing Speechmaking from Truman to Obama
Authors: Shannon Bow O'Brien
Series Title: The Evolving American Presidency
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-78136-5
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan Cham
eBook Packages: Political Science and International Studies, Political Science and International Studies (R0)
Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2018
Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-319-78135-8Published: 19 April 2018
Softcover ISBN: 978-3-030-08622-0Published: 01 February 2019
eBook ISBN: 978-3-319-78136-5Published: 10 April 2018
Series ISSN: 2945-6150
Series E-ISSN: 2945-6169
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: XI, 208
Topics: US Politics, Political Leadership, Legislative and Executive Politics, Political Communication, Cultural Policy and Politics, Governance and Government