American Politics Commons^™

Elected Presidency Changes: It’S Not Just About The Politics, David Chan

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

The debate about the elected presidency(EP) is driven not just by politics and the law,but by perceptions, values and notions offairness. Policymakers and the public need toengage on these for fruitful discussions.

What Goes Up Must Not Come Down: The Tweet Retraction Process Of Politicians, Paige Settles

Mahurin Honors College Capstone Experience/Thesis Projects

In 2011, Congressman Anthony Weiner demonstrated the risks politicians face when utilizing Twitter. While past scholarship regarding Twitter has focused on the impact of the tweets candidates share with their voters, academic attention has not been afforded to the tweets candidates delete. This thesis seeks to delve further into the analysis of Twitter as a political campaign tool by examining the practice of tweet retraction. To achieve this end, this research presents two studies. The first analyzes the deleted tweets of members of the 112th Congress between May and November of 2012 in terms of quantity of retractions and the …

Race Prominent Feature In Coverage Of Trayvon Martin, Erin Willis, Chad Painter

Communication Faculty Publications

This textual analysis examines news framing of the shooting of Trayvon Martin by George Zimmerman. After studying coverage from The Sanford Herald (North Carolina), The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times and The Denver Post, the authors conclude national media perpetuated racial stereotypes, thus heightening the issue of race and making the case more emotional than factual.

Readers outside of Sanford, N.C., had few details about the physical altercation, the heart of Zimmerman’s self-defense claim.

Social Media & Political Engagement: Environmental Organizations, Social Media And Political Engagement, Tyler Cate

Political Science Theses and Capstones

Social media is becoming more important in today’s digital society, but how effective is the use of social media when it comes to political engagement? How do environmental organizations use social media and is it effective in encouraging their “followers” to engage in online and/or offline political activity? I collected Facebook and Twitter data from ten environmental organizations to assess the effectiveness of each posting. I hypothesize that the groups making direct calls for action via social media receive a greater response – beyond “clicktivism” or “slacktivism” – than the groups that do not. The data includes the number of …

Points Of Stasis In The 1960 And 2000 Presidential Debates, Kevin Stein

Speaker & Gavel

The clash component of a presidential debate sets it apart from other types of campaign messages because the candidates are faced with a potential for “imminent rebuttal” not found in other types of messages, such as television spots or stump speeches. This study is a rhetorical analysis of the 1960 and 2000 presidential debates and attempts to identify the specific points of stasis (clash) where two arguments meet. These points of stasis are labeled in the classic rhetorical theory literature as conjectural, qualitative, definitional, and translative. The study tests the application of these categories as a precursor to future research …

To Answer, Or Not To Answer - That Is The Question Of The Hour: Image Restoration Strategies And Media Coverage Of Past Drug Use Questions In The Presidential Campaigns Of Bill Clinton And George W. Bush, Shari Veil

Speaker & Gavel

This study analyzed the relationship between image restoration strategies and media coverage, specifically, the image restoration strategies utilized by Bill Clinton in 1992 and George W. Bush in 1999 in response to questions of past drug use and the ensuing media coverage during the respective campaigns. A literature review of political apologia and image restoration strategies is presented, followed by potential explanations for the extensive media coverage of the drug issue. Articles published in 7 newspapers during the respective political campaigns were retrieved and textually analyzed to determine the candidates’ image restoration strategies. The reported presidential comments were then critically …

Third Party Candidates In Political Debates: Muted Groups Struggling To Express Themselves, Carolyn Prentice

Speaker & Gavel

With the rise of a multitude of political parties, some campaign debate organizers are beginning to include third party candidates in their public debates. However, these third party candidates have been ignored in campaign debate literature. This study analyzed the transcripts of three campaign debates that included third party candidates, using muted group theory to understand the impact of third party candidates in campaign debates. The analysis demonstrates that third party candidates experience the communication obstacles of muted groups.

Since World War II, party affiliation among U.S. voters and straight-ticket voting has been on the decline (Miller & Shanks, 1996). …

Because I Said So: A Functional Theory Analysis Of Evidence In Political Tv Spots, Jayne R. Henson, William L. Benoit

Speaker & Gavel

This study examines presidential general election television advertising (1952-2004), primary advertising (1952-2008), and non-presidential advertising from 2002 (gubernatorial, U.S. Senate, U.S. House) to understand the use of evidence (statements for which sources are provided) in such campaign messages. 8% of the themes in these spots were supported by evidence (that is, identified a source for a claim). However, the longitudinal presidential data suggests that evidence in advertising was rare until the 1990s, when Bill Clinton in particular employed a great deal of evidence in his spots. Although the appeals across all ads were mainly positive (70% of the themes in …

Remaking American Greatness, Aubrey M. Waddick

Op-Ed Pieces

Op Eds, or opinion editorials, are typically published in daily newspapers and can raise awareness about a particular topic or aim to persuade others. For this project each student wrote an op-ed in which they presented their opinion or thoughts about the issue of islamophobic discourse coming from Republican candidates, especially Donald Trump.

In The Line Of Fire, Maggie Macdonald

Op-Ed Pieces

Op Eds, or opinion editorials, are typically published in daily newspapers and can raise awareness about a particular topic or aim to persuade others. For this project each student wrote an op-ed in which they presented their opinion or thoughts about the issue of islamophobic discourse coming from Republican candidates, especially Donald Trump.

Death Of A Politician, Brian W. Sanders

Global Tides

This paper strives to explain the remarkable efficacy of brash rhetoric, specifically analyzed through the lens of Donald Trump’s sustained popularity in the 2016 Presidential Election. Examining Trump’s rhetorically generated relationships with the media, immigrants, politicians, and women, this paper explores the increasing importance of sophistic rhetoric and rhetorical ethos. Appeals to audience identification through in-groups and out-groups are explored, followed by an examination of the appeal of violent metaphors and sanctity considerations to Trump’s voter base. Trump’s successful self perpetuating cycle of shocking statements, followed by increased news coverage and political popularity is explained. Finally, this paper analyzes the …

Towards A Requirement Framework For Online Participation Platforms, Astrid Hellsmanns, Claudia Niemeyer, Margeret A. Hall, Tom Zentek, Christof Weinhardt

Interdisciplinary Informatics Faculty Proceedings & Presentations

Online participation platforms (OPPs) are frequently used by public institutions to involve citizens in political opinion forming and decision making. A literature re-view reveals different approaches to evaluate these OPPs. These approaches focus only on partial requirements of participation processes. In this research in progress, we develop and pretest an interdisciplinary literature-based requirement frame-work. It includes the categories usability, security, information, transparency, inte-gration, and mobilisation. Our aim is to close the research gap of a context-specific analysis and evaluation of OPPs.

White Faces In A Black Movement: Why Their Voices Matter, Chauncey L. Alcorn

Capstones

This story follows the lives of two white activists in New York's Black Lives Matter movement. It examines the largely ignored impact white activists have had on the BLM movement and also explores the history of white activists in the abolitionist and Civil Rights movements. The climax details a highly-publicized spat between rival Black Lives Matter organizations that happened during a Dec. 4 protest to commemorate the one-year anniversary of Officer Daniel Pantaleo's non-indictment in Garner's death. My main character, a white male, was blamed for causing the rift and was asked to step down from his leadership position in …

A Functional Analysis Of 2008 Presidential Primary Tv Spots, William L. Benoit, Leslie Rill

Speaker & Gavel

The 2008 presidential campaign was unusual for a number of reasons. For the first time since 1952, neither the President nor the Vice President contended for the Oval Office. This meant highly contested primaries in both major political parties. As the Democratic primary ground toward the end, the leading candidates were an African-American–Barack Obama–and a woman–Hillary Clinton. More money was raised and spent on the primary campaign than ever before. This means that the campaign messages in this election deserve scholarly attention. This study applies Benoit’s Functional Theory and Petrocik’s Issue Ownership Theory to primary campaign ads from both major …

When Water Works: A Case Study Of Campaign Tears And The 2008 Presidential Election, Ryan Neville-Shepard

Speaker & Gavel

Since the fall of Senator Ed Muskie in the 1972 Democratic primary there has been an unwritten rule that political candidates should avoid crying. However, four presidential candidates cried in ten separate incidents during the 2008 election cycle, with only three episodes receiving negative attention. Addressing this inconsistency in the “Muskie rule,” in this essay I argue the effect of crying on a political candidate’s image is not well understood. As such, this essay develops and applies a framework for comprehending when crying will likely trigger a public relations crisis, and when it might actually benefit a candidate.

A Functional Analysis Of 2008 General Election Presidential Tv Spots, William L. Benoit, Mark Glantz

Speaker & Gavel

This study performed content analysis on the general election TV spots from Democratic nominee Barack Obama and Republican nominee John McCain in the 2008 presidential campaign. There was no significant difference in function by incumbency, which is not surprising given that neither major party candidates was the sitting president or vice president. Unlike ads from previous years, these ads contained more attacks (65%) than acclaims (34%; and like earlier campaigns few defenses: 1%). These ads stressed policy (58%) more than character (42%). The Democratic candidate, as in previous elections, discussed policy more, and character less, than the Republican candidate. Both …

A Functional Analysis Of 2008 And 2012 Presidential Candidacy Announcement Speeches, William L. Benoit, Mark Glantz

Speaker & Gavel

This study investigates messages in the surfacing phase of the presidential campaign, through a content analysis of presidential candidacy announcement speeches from the 2008 and 2012 elections. This study applied the Functional Theory of Political Campaign Discourse to nine Democratic announcement speeches from 2008, 11 Republican announcement addresses from 2008, and 12 Republican announcement speeches from 2012. This work extends previous research on announcement speeches from 1960-2004 (Benoit, Henson, Whalen, & Pier, 2007). Overall, announcements from 2008 and 2012 used acclaims (75%) more than attacks (25%) or defenses (0.5%). The same announcements discussed policy more than character (58% to 42%); …

Obama Transforming: Using Functional Theory To Identify Transformational Leadership, Kristina Drumheller, Greg G. Armfield

Speaker & Gavel

The 2008 presidential campaign convention speeches broke records as viewers flocked to the speeches by Obama, Palin, and McCain in numbers that rivaled American Idol ratings. Adapting functional theory (Benoit, 2007) to include transformational leadership characteristics (Bass & Avolio, 1990), President Obama‘s 2008 nomination acceptance speech was used test the adapting of functional theory for analyzing leadership claims. Secondary data were used as evidentiary support of Obama‘s efforts to make changes once in the White House. Results are discussed and framed within functional theory and transfor-mational leadership.

Newspaper Coverage Of The 2008 General Election Presidential Campaigns, William L. Benoit, Jayne R. Goode, Mark Glantz

Speaker & Gavel

News coverage of political campaigns is very important to the political campaign process. Some voters pay little attention to debates or other sources of information about the candidates and their policies. The news is one important source of this information. Newspapers can also supplement and reinforce the information possessed by voters who do attend to campaign messages. This study content analyzed news coverage of the 2008 general election presidential campaign (New York Times, Washington Post, USA Today). Horse race coverage was most common topic (45%), followed by themes about character (32%), and policy (23%). The tone of newspaper coverage was …

A Functional Analysis Of 2008 And 2012 Presidential Nomination Acceptance Addresses, William L. Benoit

Speaker & Gavel

This study investigates the presidential candidates’ nomination acceptance ad-dresses in 2008 and 2012. This study applied Benoit’s (2007) Functional Theory of Political Campaign Discourse to the four Acceptances (one from McCain, two from Obama, and one from Romney). Traditionally the conventions kick off the general election campaign and the nominees’ acceptance addresses are high-lights of these events. This work extends previous research on acceptance ad-dresses speeches from 1952-2004. The speeches in 2008 and 2012 used acclaims (73%) more than attacks (27%) or defenses (0.5%). Incumbents acclaimed more, and attacked less, than challengers, particularly when they discussed their records in office …

Survival Strategies In Solidly Partisan States An Analysis Of Centrist Appeals In 2012 U.S. Senate Debates, Matthew L. Spialek, Stevie M. Munz

Speaker & Gavel

With the growing number of centrist senators diminishing on Capitol Hill, the next few election cycles will be crucial to the survival of this moderate group of lawmakers. Campaign debate scholars should investigate how vulnerable incumbents construct a centrist issue agenda and image to connect with voters in states ideologically incongruent with the incumbents’ parties. In doing so, debate scholars will also fill the lack of lower-level debate research. Utilizing both quantitative and qualitative methods, this analysis examined the debate appeals of Sens. Claire McCaskill (D-MO) and Scott Brown (R-MA). Findings suggest McCaskill’s issue agenda was congruent with a centrist …

News Coverage Of The 2008 Presidential Primaries, William L. Benoit, Corey Davis, Mark Glantz, Jayne R. Goode, Leslie Rill, Anji Phillips

Speaker & Gavel

President George W. Bush was completing his second (and final) term in office and Vice President Dick Cheney decided not to run for president. Thus, the 2008 American presidential primary is the first “open” campaign (with no sitting president or vice president competing) since 1952 with highly competitive primaries for both major political parties. This study uses content analysis to investigate news coverage (national newspapers, network television news, and local newspapers) of the 2008 American presidential primary campaign. Most themes in the news concerned the horse race (66%) with somewhat more emphasis on the candidates’ character (18%) than their policy …

Choosing Progress: Evaluating The "Salesmanship" Of The Vietnam War In 1967, Gregory A. Daddis

History Faculty Books and Book Chapters

"As the president and his war managers increasingly saw Vietnam as a 'race between accomplishment and patience,' publicizing progress became an integral part of the war. Yet far from a unique case of bureaucratic dishonesty, the 1967 salesmanship campaign demonstrates the reality, even necessity, of conversation gaps when one is assessing progress in wars where the military struggle abroad matters less than the political one at home."

The Interaction Of Community Size And Perceived Local Political Efficacy Among Low-Income Individuals, Dylan Allen Brugman

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

As the world’s population continues to urbanize, urban studies are increasingly important. Studying the social science behind the rise of the city and its effect on various social phenomena should be a priority for scholars in the field of politics, sociology, and communication, because of the reasonable assumption that the environment of the city alters the way that a person engages people and systems within the city. This is especially true for peripheral and marginalized populations that often lack access to the social institutions necessary to improve their livelihoods. Using Diffusion of Innovation and urban studies theories of Anomie, Gemeinschaft …

Explaining The Revolution: Vernacular Discourse And The Tipping Point In America’S 2006 Midterm Election, Ryan Michael Shepard

Communication and Theater Association of Minnesota Journal

The 2006 midterm election marked perhaps the first time that the American public held the Bush administration accountable for its controversial actions. Various explanations have been offered for the backlash, ranging from public concern about the war to disgust over sex scandals involving prominent conservatives. In this essay, through analysis of vernacular discourse appearing in letters to the editor from USA Today, I argue that the election results stemmed from Bush’s weakening credibility – in respect to the dimensions of honesty, competence, and moderation – which limited the effectiveness of his rhetoric that was so powerful since September 11th.

Private Military Contractors, Security Forces, And Mercenaries, Naomi Pearson

Laurier Undergraduate Journal of the Arts

No abstract provided.

The Liberal As An Enemy Of Queer Justice, Craig Schamel

Catalyst: A Social Justice Forum

Abstract

Liberalism as a historical mode of the political is the context in which the movement and ensuing struggle for queer justice emerged in most Western countries. The terminology, practices, tendencies, beliefs, ethics, laws, and patterns of political and social life which have been determined by this mode of the political, it is argued, are inimical to queer justice and render its achievement impossible. Liberalism as a mode of the political is approached from below, from knowledge gained in practical experience in queer groups which considered themselves revolutionary at least to some degree, and from the effects on such groups …

A Librarian Run’S For Political Office (Or Cincinnatus Looks Outside The Ivory Tower), Peter L. Kraus

Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal)

Librarians have long been activists for social and political causes outside of their profession; however, few take the crucial step and actually run for political office at the local, state, or national level. In March 2014, after being involved in local and state politics for over ten years and volunteering for political campaigns at the local, state, and national level, and with some encouragement from individuals I knew in political and academic circles, I threw myself into the political realm by registering to run as a (moderate) Republican for a House seat in the Utah Legislature. Little did I know …

Occupy Judaism: Religion, Digital Media, And The Public Sphere, Ayala Fader, Owen Gottlieb

Articles

This article provides an analysis of Occupy Judaism, an explicitly religious expression of Jewish protest, which occurred simultaneously with Occupy Wall Street, the direct-democracy movement of 2011. Occupy Judaism, like Occupy Wall Street, took place both in physical spaces of protest in New York City and digitally, through mobilizing and circulating debate. The article focuses on the words and actions of Daniel Sieradski, the public face and one of the key founders of Occupy Judaism, supplemented by the experiences of others in Occupy Judaism, Occupy Wall Street, and Occupy Faith (a Protestant clergy-led initiative). We investigate what qualified as religion …

Negative Campaigns And Their Influence On Voter Attitudes, Estefan Colindres

Student Scholar Symposium Abstracts and Posters

There is a legitimate debate over negative campaigning and whether it either mobilizes voter participation or suppresses it. Previous studies suggest that the relevant political information brought by negative campaigns play a significant role in mobilizing the electorate (Finkel and Geer, 1998). On the other hand, some studies explain that negative campaigns challenge the legitimacy of the electoral process and consequently drain the electorate (Krupnikov, 2011).

As such, my research question asks of the effect of negative campaigning on voter participation - are people turned off and to what extent? What kind of impact does negative campaigning have on voters …