The Modern Presidency and Crisis Rhetoric
The Modern Presidency and Crisis Rhetoric

Author: Amos Kiewe

Publisher: Praeger

Published: 1994

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 0275941760

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This volume examines how presidents from Truman to Bush rhetorically approached and managed political, military, judicial, legislative, and economic crises during their presidencies. Editor Amos Kiewe assembles new essays by communications scholars who look at rhetoric initiated during national crises, and account for various rhetorical developments affected by crises, changes in presidential rhetoric, and rhetorical and situational crisis constraints. Their studies suggest similarities in rhetoric in different types of crises, and yield resources for postulating patterns of crisis rhetoric. Each chapter's author presents a crisis rhetoric case study, analyzing initial strategies and tactics, shifts in rhetorical tactics, adjustments of discourse to particular phases in the crises, and unique rhetorical approaches designed to accommodate unexpected turns of events. The contributors discuss how presidents use rhetorical inventions, flip-flops, face-saving posturing, and even silence to diffuse crises. Specific topics include Eisenhower's response to the constitutional crisis in Little Rock, Kennedy and the Berlin Wall crisis, Johnson and the Kennedy assassination, Nixon and Watergate, and Bush and the Persian Gulf Crisis. Recommended for political scientists and communication theorists.

The Modern Presidency and Crisis Rhetoric
The Modern Presidency and Crisis Rhetoric

Author: Amos Kiewe

Publisher: Praeger

Published: 1994

Total Pages: 300

ISBN-13:

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This volume examines how presidents from Truman to Bush rhetorically approached and managed political, military, judicial, legislative, and economic crises during their presidencies. Editor Amos Kiewe assembles new essays by communications scholars who look at rhetoric initiated during national crises, and account for various rhetorical developments affected by crises, changes in presidential rhetoric, and rhetorical and situational crisis constraints. Their studies suggest similarities in rhetoric in different types of crises, and yield resources for postulating patterns of crisis rhetoric. Each chapter's author presents a crisis rhetoric case study, analyzing initial strategies and tactics, shifts in rhetorical tactics, adjustments of discourse to particular phases in the crises, and unique rhetorical approaches designed to accommodate unexpected turns of events. The contributors discuss how presidents use rhetorical inventions, flip-flops, face-saving posturing, and even silence to diffuse crises. Specific topics include Eisenhower's response to the constitutional crisis in Little Rock, Kennedy and the Berlin Wall crisis, Johnson and the Kennedy assassination, Nixon and Watergate, and Bush and the Persian Gulf Crisis. Recommended for political scientists and communication theorists.

Words of Crisis as Words of Power
Words of Crisis as Words of Power

Author: Marta Neüff

Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing Company

Published: 2018-05-15

Total Pages: 415

ISBN-13: 9027264260

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The volume explores crisis rhetoric in contemporary U.S. American presidential speechmaking. Rhetorical leadership constitutes an inherent feature of the modern presidency. Particularly during times of critical events, the president is expected to react and address the nation. However, the power of the office also allows him or her to direct attention to particular topics and thus rhetorically create or exploit the notion of crisis. This monograph examines the verbal responses of George W. Bush and Barack Obama to pressing issues during their terms in office. Assuming an interdisciplinary approach, it illuminates the characteristics of modern crisis rhetoric. The aim of the book is to show that elements of Puritan rhetoric, and specifically the tradition of the jeremiad, although taken out of their original context and modified to suit a modern multiethnic society, can still be detected in contemporary political communication. It will be of interest to students and scholars of presidential rhetoric, political communication, sociolinguistics, and cultural studies.

The Presidency and the Rhetoric of Foreign Crisis
The Presidency and the Rhetoric of Foreign Crisis

Author: Denise M. Bostdorff

Publisher: Univ of South Carolina Press

Published: 1994

Total Pages: 326

ISBN-13: 9780872499683

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The Presidency and the Rhetoric of Foreign Crisis examines presidential crisis management--or the way U.S. presidents portray foreign crises to the American public--as a potent tool for the accumulation, and at times the forfeiture, of political power. Arguing that it is largely through presidential communication that foreign crises become "real" for American citizens, Bostdorff does not claim that presidents fabricate crises but rather that they vigorously advance their version of the crisis to the American public in order to rally support for their foreign policies. Bostdorff contends that presidential language can heighten the significance of events that otherwise would attract little public attention--such as a coup on the tiny Caribbean island of Grenada--and thereby persuade citizens to support U.S. military intervention and to view the commander in chief as a decisive, victorious leader. To prove her assertions, Bostdorff presents case studies from six successive administrations. Beginning with Kennedy and the Cuban missile crisis of 1962, she examines Johnson and the Gulf of Tonkin, Nixon and Cambodia, Ford and the Mayaguez, Carter and Iran, and Reagan and Grenada. Concluding with an evaluation of Bush and Panama, Bostdorff identifies the recurring themes that defined crisis rhetoric, explains how that rhetoric encourages particular public reactions, and raises disturbing questions about the implications for the American polity.

The Rhetorical Presidency
The Rhetorical Presidency

Author: Jeffrey K. Tulis

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2017-11-07

Total Pages: 264

ISBN-13: 1400888360

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Modern presidents regularly appeal over the heads of Congress to the people at large to generate support for public policies. The Rhetorical Presidency makes the case that this development, born at the outset of the twentieth century, is the product of conscious political choices that fundamentally transformed the presidency and the meaning of American governance. Now with a new foreword by Russell Muirhead and a new afterword by the author, this landmark work probes political pathologies and analyzes the dilemmas of presidential statecraft. Extending a tradition of American political writing that begins with The Federalist and continues with Woodrow Wilson’s Congressional Government, The Rhetorical Presidency remains a pivotal work in its field.

FDR's Body Politics
FDR's Body Politics

Author: Davis W. Houck

Publisher: Texas A&M University Press

Published: 2003-03-04

Total Pages: 155

ISBN-13: 158544233X

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Franklin Roosevelt instinctively understood that a politician unable to control his own body would be perceived as unable to control the body politic. He took care to hide his polio-induced lameness both visually and verbally. Through his speeches—and his physical bearing when delivering them—he tried to project robust health for himself while imputing disability, weakness, and even disease onto his political opponents and their policies. In FDR's Body Politics: The Rhetoric of Disability, Davis W. Houck and Amos Kiewe analyze the silences surrounding Roosevelt's disability, the words he chose to portray himself and his policies as powerful and health-giving, and the methods he used to maximize the appearance of physical strength. Drawing on never-before-used primary sources, they explore how Roosevelt and his advisors attacked his most difficult rhetorical bind: how to address his fitness for office without invoking his disability. They examine his broad strategies, as well as the speeches Roosevelt delivered during his political comeback after polio struck, to understand how he overcame the whispering campaign against him in 1928 and 1932. The compelling narrative Houck and Kiewe offer here is one of struggle against physical disability and cultural prejudice by one of our nation's most powerful leaders. Ultimately, it is a story of triumph and courage—one that reveals a master politician's understanding of the body politic in the most fundamental of ways.

Presidential Crisis Rhetoric and the Press in the Post-Cold War World
Presidential Crisis Rhetoric and the Press in the Post-Cold War World

Author: Jim A. Kuypers

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA

Published: 1997-08-26

Total Pages: 260

ISBN-13: 0313024405

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Kuypers combines rhetorical theory and framing analysis in an examination of the interaction of the press and the president during international crisis situations in the post-Cold War world. Three crises are examined: Bosnia, Haiti, and the North Korean nuclear capability issue. Kuypers effectively demonstrates the changed nature of presidential crisis rhetoric since the end of the Cold War. Kuypers employs a new historical/critical approach to analyze both the press and the Clinton administration's handling of three international crisis situations. Using case studies of Bosnia, Haiti, and the alleged North Korean nuclear buildup in 1993, he examines contemporary presidential crisis communication and the agenda-setting and agenda-extension functions of the press. The importance of this study lies in its timeliness; President Clinton is the first atomic-age president not to have the Cold War meta-narrative to use in legitimating international crises. Prior studies in presidential crisis rhetoric found that the president received broad and consistent support during times of crisis. Kuypers found that the press often advanced an oppositional frame to that used by the Clinton administration. The press frames were found to limit the options of the President, even when the press supported a particular presidential strategy. This is a major study that will be of interest to scholars and researchers of the press, the modern presidency, and American foreign policy.

Writing JFK
Writing JFK

Author: Thomas W. Benson

Publisher: Texas A&M University Press

Published: 2004

Total Pages: 156

ISBN-13: 9781585442812

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Following the dramatic Bay of Pigs fiasco in 1961, President John F. Kennedy moved to repair the damage the invasion had done to his image and to his relations with the press. Thomas W. Benson examines two speeches and a press conference held by JFK in the days after the crisis, shedding light on how the structures of speech writing influence the texts of the speeches and policy formation, as well as the ways the press mediates and even helps to formulate presidential rhetoric. Writing JFK: Speechwriting and the Press in the Bay of Pigs Crisis provides the full text of both speeches and the press conference, as well as Benson's analysis of what would come to be known as "spin control." He demonstrates how the speeches display the implicit collaboration of Kennedy with his speech writers and the press to create a depiction of Kennedy as a political and moral agent. A central feature of the book is Benson's exploration of "the enormous power of the presidency to compel press restraint and to command the powers of publicity." In this brief but intensive examination, Benson holds a magnifying glass of rhetorical inquiry to the processes of contemporary government. These speeches have never before been studied in such depth, and Benson has drawn on many sources to arrive at unique historical and critical understanding of them. The resulting insight into the relationship among the press, politics, and public policy will appeal to all those interested in politics and rhetoric, the power of the American president, and the legacy of JFK.

FDR's First Fireside Chat
FDR's First Fireside Chat

Author: Amos Kiewe

Publisher: Texas A&M University Press

Published: 2007

Total Pages: 170

ISBN-13: 1603444548

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"I want to talk for a few minutes with the people of the United States."Thus began not only the first of Franklin Roosevelt?s celebrated radio addresses, collectively called Fireside Chats, but also the birth of the media era of the rhetorical presidency. Humorist Will Rogers later said that the president took "such a dry subject as banking and made everyone understand it, even the bankers." Roosevelt also took a giant step toward restoring confidence in the nation?s banks and, eventually, in its economy. Amos Kiewe tells the story of the First Fireside Chat, the context in which it was constructed, the events leading to the radio address, and the impact it had on the American people and the nation?s economy.Roosevelt told America, "The success of our whole national program depends, of course, on the cooperation of the public?on its intelligent support and its use of a reliable system." Kiewe succinctly demonstrates how the rhetoric of the soon-to-be-famous First Fireside Chat laid the groundwork for that support and the recovery of American capitalism.

Framing the Global Economic Downturn
Framing the Global Economic Downturn

Author: Paul 't Hart

Publisher: ANU E Press

Published: 2009-09-01

Total Pages: 362

ISBN-13: 1921666056

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The global economic downturn that followed the collapse of major US financial institutions is no doubt the most significant crisis of our times. Its effects on corporate and governmental balance sheets have been devastating, as have been its impacts on the employment and well being of tens of millions of citizens. It continues to pose major challenges to national policymakers and institutions around the world. Managing public uncertainty and anxiety is vital in coping with financial crises. This requires not just prompt action but, most of all, persuasive communication by government leaders. At the same time, the very occurrence of such crises raises acute questions about the effectiveness and robustness of current government policies and institutions. With the stakes being so high, defining and interpreting what is going on, how and why it happened, and what ought to be done now become key questions in the political and policy struggles that crises invariably unleash. In this volume, we study how heads of government, finance ministers and national bank governors in eight countries as well as the EU engage in such 'framing contests', and how their attempts to interpret the cascading events of the economic downturn were publicly received. Using systematic content analysis of speeches and media coverage, this volume offers a unique comparative assessment of public leadership in times of crisis.