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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.

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.

American democracy is in a period of striking tumult. The clash of a rapidly changing socio-technological environment and the traditional presidency has led to an upheaval in the scope and standards of executive leadership. This book brings needed insight to this situation by offering the first comprehensive framework - what the authors term the 'ubiquitous presidency' - for understanding contemporary presidential communication in these complex times.

This research investigates how digital news headlines influence contemporary news information seeking. In two studies (a lab experiment and a field test), we examine how the presentation of news information—traditional, summary news headlines or clickbait, curiosity news headlines—influences the attitudinal and behavioral components of news seeking. Study 1 models the news-seeking process, finding that summary headlines heighten perceptions of headline information adequacy, which increase expectations that an article will provide clear information, which in turn increase anticipated audience engagement with news compared to some curiosity headlines. Study 2 determines that individuals' selection behavior on nine local newspaper websites also favors summary headlines. The findings encourage researchers to employ information-seeking mechanisms in understanding news selection decisions.

The American presidency is evolving, and with it public expectations of how often and where the president should communicate. The rhetorical presidency, characterized by inclusive public appeals broadcast in a few media venues, has transitioned to a ubiquitous presidency wherein accessible, personal, and pluralistic communications are the norm. Despite these changes in communication style at the presidential level, scholars have yet to document formally how individuals' expectations might be changing accordingly. Specifically, what do individuals expect of the frequency of and venues for presidential communication? We investigate established and emergent expectations of presidential communication via a field survey completed in the lead up to the 2016 Iowa Caucuses. The findings indicate that while expectations of presidential communication are shifting with executive behavior, beliefs remain moored to foundational notions of the informational, transparent, and dignified presidency. These shifts have democratic repercussions for the institutional presidency and for citizens.

The rhetorical presidency—a deeply influential paradigm for understanding presidential communicative governance—has been disrupted by dramatic changes in the U.S. electorate, the media environment, the goals of public appeals, and the nature of political content. To address the rhetorical presidency's limitations with regard to current presidential communication practices, we conceptualize and offer a preliminary test of a new paradigm: the ubiquitous presidency. This paradigm argues that modern presidents cultivate a highly visible and nearly constant presence in political and nonpolitical arenas of American life by being accessible, personal, and pluralistic.

The cross-pressured citizen—a person who affiliates with one political party but plans to vote for the nominee of another—embodies the complicated nature of political decision making. Enduring considerable scrutiny since the pioneering campaign studies of the 1940s and 1950s, the role of the cross-pressured partisan in a presidential election campaign is still not fully understood by scholars. First, this study explores who the cross-pressured partisan was in the 2012 presidential campaign by examining the formative factors that influenced the likelihood of prospective defection from one's "home" party. Second, we explain how cross-pressured citizens behaved when seeking out news media compared to their consistent counterparts. Using national survey data collected at the midpoint of the 2012 campaign, we find that approval of President Barack Obama was a critical factor in understanding cross-pressured partisanship. Furthermore, cross-pressured Republicans were significantly less likely to attend to conservative cable programming compared to consistent Republicans. The results present a compelling extension of over seven decades of work examining the cross-pressured citizen.

The emergence of a national "Tea Party" movement in the United States stimulated much media commentary regarding the movement's origins, goals, participants, and even temperament. Unlike political movements of the recent past, the Tea Party stands starkly to the right. This study examines nightly cable news coverage of this movement by using key frames associated with the "protest paradigm"-the tendency for media to marginalize movements by drawing attention away from core concerns raised by such movements. We ask whether the protest paradigm can be applied to a right-wing movement and whether such application varies by the ideological leaning of a given source. That is, do cable news channels use frames in ways consistent with their respective ideological hues? We draw on a representative sample of stories regarding the national movement from the most viewed nightly news programs on Fox News, MSNBC, and CNN, with the Associated Press as a reference point. Results show significant differences across sources in issue and marginalization frame use. Although utilization of marginalization frames is popular among ideological channels, traditional news sources are not immune from using these devices. [Reprinted by permission; copyright Sage Publications Inc.]

The emergence of a national "Tea Party" movement in the United States stimulated much media commentary regarding the movement's origins, goals, participants, and even temperament. Unlike political movements of the recent past, the Tea Party stands starkly to the right. This study examines nightly cable news coverage of this movement by using key frames associated with the "protest paradigm"—the tendency for media to marginalize movements by drawing attention away from core concerns raised by such movements. We ask whether the protest paradigm can be applied to a right-wing movement and whether such application varies by the ideological leaning of a given source. That is, do cable news channels use frames in ways consistent with their respective ideological hues? We draw on a representative sample of stories regarding the national movement from the most viewed nightly news programs on Fox News, MSNBC, and CNN, with the Associated Press as a reference point. Results show significant differences across sources in issue and marginalization frame use. Although utilization of marginalization frames is popular among ideological channels, traditional news sources are not immune from using these devices.

This research assesses how the environment for coronavirus disease (COVID) information contributed to the public's willingness to support measures intended to mitigate the spread and transmission of the virus in the early stages of the pandemic. A representative sample of 600 Floridians was surveyed in April 2020. After controlling for sociodemographic factors, COVID anxiety, and knowledge about the virus, we find that components of the information environment mattered for public opinion related to mitigation policies. Television news sources, including local and national network news, center-left cable news (i.e., CNN, MSNBC), and Fox News, contributed to shaping policy support. The results highlight the importance of televised news coverage in shaping public opinion toward healthcare-related policies.