Managing the Press : Origins of the Media Presidency, 1897-1933

by Ponder, Stephen

• ISBN13: 9780312213848
• ISBN10: 0312213840
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1999-01-15
• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan

Summary

Managing the Press re-examines the emergence of the twentieth century media President, whose authority to govern depends largely on his ability to generate public support by appealing to the citizenry through the news media. From 1897 to 1933, White House successes and failures with the press established a foundation for modern executive leadership and helped to shape patterns of media practices and technologies through which Americans have viewed the presidency during most of the twentieth century. Stephen Ponder shows how these findings suggest a new context for contemporary questions about mediated public opinion and the foundations of presidential power, the challenge to the presidency by an increasingly adversarial press, the emergence of "new media" formats and technologies, and the shaping of presidential leadership for the twenty-first century. Managing the Press explores the rise of the media presidency through the lens of the late twentieth century.

Author Biography

Stephen Ponder is Associate Professor of Journalism and Communication at the University of Oregon.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	vii
Introduction	ix
McKinley and the First White House Press Corps	1	(16)
Theodore Roosevelt: Publicity! Publicity! Publicity!	17	(18)
The White House and the First ``Press Bureaus''	35	(14)
Taft: Avoiding the Press	49	(14)
The Consequences of ``Nonpublicity''	63	(14)
Wilson: Centralizing Executive Information	77	(14)
Presidential Propaganda in World War I	91	(18)
Harding and Coolidge: Emergence of the Media Presidency	109	(18)
Herbert Hoover and Cabinet Publicity in the 1920s	127	(14)
Hoover: The Press and Presidential Failure	141	(16)
Conclusion: The Media Presidency	157	(10)
Notes	167	(48)
Selective Bibliography	215	(16)
Index	231