Skip to main content

The Press, the Public, and the Two Presidencies of George W. Bush

  • Chapter
Transformed by Crisis
  • 53 Accesses

Abstract

President George W. Bush received a historic rally in American public support following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. The opinion rally was so unprecedented that it took over two years for President Bush’s approval rating to finally descend back to pre-9/11 levels. The media, in particular, played a critical role in rallying public opinion around President Bush, the administration’s leadership and policy agenda.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

eBook
USD 16.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 16.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
USD 54.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Preview

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Notes

  1. John Kingdon, Agendas, Alternatives, and Public Policies (Boston: Little, Brown, 1995);

    Google Scholar 

  2. Jeffrey Peake, “Presidential Agenda Setting in Foreign Policy,” Political Research Quarterly 54 (2001), 69–86.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  3. Jeffrey E. Cohen, “Presidential Rhetoric and the Public Agenda,” American Journal of Political Science 39 (1995), 87–107.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  4. Joanne Miller and Jon Krosnick, “News Media Impact on the Ingredients of Presidential Evaluations: Politically Knowledgeable Citizens are Guided by a Trusted Source,” American Journal of Political Science 44 (2000), 301–315.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  5. George Edwards III, William Mitchell, and Reed Welch, “Explaining Presidential Approval: The Significance of Issue Salience,” American Journal of Political Science 39 (1995), 108–134.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  6. Donald R. Kinder and D. Roderick Kiewiet, “Sociotropic Politics: The American Case,” British Journal of Political Science 11 (1981), 129–161;

    Article  Google Scholar 

  7. Michael Mackuen, Robert Erikson, and James Stimson, “Peasants or Bankers? The American Electorate and U.S. Economy,” American Political Science Review 89 (1992), 1125–1142.

    Google Scholar 

  8. Aaron Wildavsky concluded in his “two presidencies” thesis that presidents have significantly better records on foreign policy than on domestic policy. In foreign affairs, presidents are granted more authority, consensus, and active role. Aaron Wildavsky, “The Two Presidencies,” in Steven A. Shull, ed., The Two Presidencies: A Quarter Century Assessment (Chicago: Nelson Hall, 1991), 11–25.

    Google Scholar 

  9. See also, Douglas Foyle, Counting the Public In: Presidents, Public Opinion, and Poreig Policy (New York: Columbia University Press, 1999);

    Google Scholar 

  10. Paul Peterson, “The President’s Dominance in Foreign Policy Making,” Political Science Quarterly 109 (1994), 215–234.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  11. Jeffery Mondak, “Source Cues and Policy Approval: The Cognitive Dynamics of Public Support for the Reagan Agenda” American Journal of Political Science 37 (1993), 186–212;

    Article  Google Scholar 

  12. Mark Peffley, Ronald Langley, and Robert Goidel, “Public Response to the Presidential Use of Military Force,” Political Behavior 17 (1995), 307–337.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  13. W. Lance Bennett and Jarol Manheim, “Taking the Public by Storm: Information, Cuing, and the Democratic Process in the Gulf Conflict,” Political Communication 10 (1993), 331–351.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  14. Samuel Kernell, “Explaining Presidential Popularity,” American Political Science Review 72 (1978), 513.

    Google Scholar 

  15. W. Russell Neuman, “Patterns of Recall among Television News Viewers,” Public Opinion Quarterly 40 (1976), 115–123.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  16. See, for example, Shanto Iyengar and Adam Simon, “News Coverage of the Gulf Crisis and Public Opinion: A Study of Agenda-Setting, Priming, and Framing,” Communication Research 20 (1993), 365–383;

    Article  Google Scholar 

  17. Bruce Jentleson, “The Pretty Prudent Public: Post-Vietnam American Opinion on the Use of Military Force,” International Studies Quarterly 36 (1992), 49–74.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  18. Doris Graber, Processing Politics: Learning from Television in the Internet Age (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001), 2–3.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  19. Donald Jordan and Benjamin Page, “Shaping Foreign Policy Opinions: The Role of TV News,” Journal of Conflict Resolution 36 (1992), 227–241;

    Article  Google Scholar 

  20. Iyengar, Is Anyone Responsible? How Television Frames Political Issues (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991).

    Book  Google Scholar 

  21. Limor Peer and Beatrice Chestnut, “Deciphering Media Independence: The Gulf War Debate in Television and Newspaper News,” Political Communication 12 (1995), 81–95; Iyengar and Simon, “News Coverage of the Gulf Crisis and Public Opinion.”

    Article  Google Scholar 

  22. Full-text media sources are found to be more reliable indicators of actual media coverage than are proxies from index entries and abstracts. Index entries can oversimplify policy positions attributed to various sources, and these proxies can underestimate policy statements from the administration. See, Scott Althaus, Jill Edy, and Patricia Phalen, “Using Substitutes for Full-Text News Stories in Content Analysis: Which Text is Best?” American Journal of Political Science 45 (2001), 707–723.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  23. Brody, Assessing the President: The Media, Elite Opinion, and Public Support (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1991), 110–111.

    Google Scholar 

  24. Matthew McCombs and Jian-Hua Zhu, “Capacity, Diversity, and Volatility of the Public Agenda,” Public Opinion Quarterly 59 (1995), 495–525.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  25. Jon Krosnick and Donald Kinder, “Altering the Foundations of Support for the President through Priming,” American Political Science Review 84 (1990), 497–512.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  26. J. R. Lee, “Rallying ‘Round the Flag: Foreign Policy Events and Presidential Popularity,” Presidential Studies Quarterly 7 (1977), 252–256.

    Google Scholar 

  27. Bernard Cohen, The Press and Foreign Policy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1963).

    Google Scholar 

  28. Robert Goidel and Ronald Langley, “Media Coverage of the Economy and Aggregate Economic Evaluations,” Political Research Quarterly 48 (1994), 313–328.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  29. Howard Lavine and J. Sullivan, “The Relationship of National and Personal Issue Salience to Attitude Accessibility on Foreign and Domestic Policy Issues,” Political Psychology 17 (1996), 293–315.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  30. John Mueller, War, Presidents and Public Opinion (New York: Wiley, 1973), 209.

    Google Scholar 

  31. John Oneal, Bradley Lian, and J. H. Joyner, “Are the American People Pretty Prudent? Public Responses to US Uses of Force,” International Studies Quarterly 40 (1996), 265.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  32. Zhongdang Pan and Gerald Kosicki, “Voters’ Reasoning Processes and Media Influences During the Persian Gulf War,” Political Behavior 16 (1994), 117–156; Bennett and Manheim, “Taking the Public by Storm,” 335–341.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  33. We coded coverage of Democratic partisan opposition, yet there were also some instances of bipartisan criticism of presidential policy, which are found to be particularly damaging to presidential evaluation. See Benjamin Page, Robert Shapiro, and Glen Dempsey, “What Moves Public Opinion?” American Political Science Review 81 (1987), 38–40.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  34. Daniel C. Hallin, “The Media, the War in Vietnam, and Political Support,” Journal of Politics 46 (1984), 2–24; Peer and Chestnut, “Deciphering Media Independence,” 89.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  35. Matthew Baum, “The Constituent Foundations of the Rally-Round-the-Flag Phenomenon,” International Studies Quarterly 46 (2002), 269.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  36. Bradley Lian and John Oneal, “Presidents, the Use of Military Force and Public Opinion,” Journal of Conflict Resolution 37 (1993), 277–300;

    Article  Google Scholar 

  37. John Zaller, The Nature and Origins of Mass Opinion (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1992).

    Book  Google Scholar 

  38. Benjamin Page and Robert Y. Shapiro, The Rational Public: Fifty Tears of Trends in Americans’ Policy Preferences (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992).

    Book  Google Scholar 

  39. J. Meernik and P. Waterman, “The Myth of the Diversionary Use of Force by American Presidents,” Political Research Quarterly 49 (1996), 573–590.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  40. Samuel Kernell, Going Public, 3rd edition (Washington, DC: CQ Press, 1997);

    Google Scholar 

  41. Bruce Miroff, “The Presidency and the Public: Leadership as Spectacle,” in Michael Nelson, ed., The Presidency and the Political System, 5th edition (Washington, DC: CQ Press, 1998).

    Google Scholar 

  42. Robert D. Putnam, “Bowling Together,” American Prospect 13:3 (2002), 1–4.

    Google Scholar 

  43. George C. Edwards III and B. Dan Wood, “Who Influences Whom? The President, the Media, and the Public Agenda,” American Political Science Review 93 (1999), 327–344.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  44. B. Dan Wood and Jeffrey Peake, “The Dynamics of Foreign Policy Agenda Setting,” American Political Science Review 92 (1998), 173–184.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  45. Frank Baumgartner and Bryan Jones, Agendas and Instability in American Politics (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993).

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Authors

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

Copyright information

© 2004 Jon Kraus, Kevin J. McMahon, and David M. Rankin

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Rankin, D.M. (2004). The Press, the Public, and the Two Presidencies of George W. Bush. In: Kraus, J., McMahon, K.J., Rankin, D.M. (eds) Transformed by Crisis. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-137-06449-3_4

Download citation

Publish with us

Policies and ethics