Communication

Getting the Message Across

Nicole Hemmer

• Publisher: University of Virginia Press
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN: 97808139453487
• eBook ISBN: 9780813940199
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Political History & Theory
• Index: Politics & International Relations

In an increasingly polarized political environment, the first year of the new president's term will be especially challenging. With a fresh mandate, however, the first year also offers opportunities that may never come again. The First Year Project is a fascinating initiative by the Miller Center of the University of Virginia that brings together top scholars on the American presidency and experienced officials to explore the first twelve months of past administrations, and draw practical lessons from that history, as we inaugurate a new president in January 2017.

This project is the basis for a new series of digital shorts published as Miller Center Studies on the Presidency. Presented as specially priced collections published exclusively in an ebook format, these timely examinations recognize the experiences of past presidents as an invaluable resource that can edify and instruct the incoming president.

Contributors: David Greenberg, Rutgers University * Anita Dunn, former Obama White House Communications Director * Susan Douglas, University of Michigan * Jeff Shesol, former Bill Clinton speechwriter * Mary Kate Cary, former Bush 41 speechwriter

Notes

The Not So Bully Pulpit

1 Sarah Wheaton, “Oval Office Address, RIP?” Politico, December 7, 2015, http://www.politico.com/story/2015/12/oval-office-address-rip-216509.

2 John Milton Cooper, Woodrow Wilson: A Biography (New York: Knopf, 2009), 255.

3 Kathleen Hall Jamieson, Eloquence in an Electronic Age: The Transformation of Political Speechmaking (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988).

4 Mark John Thompson, Enough Said: What’s Gone Wrong with the Language of Politics? (New York: Macmillan, 2016).

5 Franklin D. Roosevelt, “Address Accepting the Presidential Nomination at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago,” Chicago, July 2, 1932, https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/address-accepting-the-presidential-nomination-the-democratic-national-convention-chicago-1.

6 Woodrow Wilson, “Message Regarding Tariff Duties,” speech, Washington, D.C., April 8, 1913, http://millercenter.org/president/wilson/speeches/message-regarding-tariff-duties.

7 Frances Perkins, The Roosevelt I Knew (New York: Viking Press, 1946).

8 Olivia Zhu, “The Politics of Poetry,” Harvard Political Review, September 3, 2012, http://harvardpolitics.com/literary-supplement-1/the-politics-of-poetry/.

9 Peggy Noonan, What I Saw at the Revolution: A Political Life in the Reagan Era (New York: Random House, 1990), 65.

Manage the Micromoments

10 Sridhar Ramaswamy, “The Next $50 Billion,” speech, IAB Annual Leadership Meeting, Palm Desert, Calif., January 25, 2016, https://doubleclick-publishers.googleblog.com/2016/01/a-better-mobile-experience.html.

11 Ibid.

12 Sridhar Ramaswamy, “How Micro-Moments Are Changing the Rules,” Think with Google, April 2015, https://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/articles/how-micromoments-are-changing-rules.html.

13 Jeffrey Gottfried et al., “The 2016 Presidential Campaign—A News Event That’s Hard to Miss,” Pew Research Center, February 4, 2016, http://www.journalism.org/2016/02/04/the-2016-presidential-campaign-a-news-event-thats-hard-to-miss/.

14 Kevin C. Desouza et al., “Tracking Presidential Campaigns on Facebook,” Brookings Institution, April 13, 2016, https://www.brookings.edu/blog/techtank/2016/04/13/tracking-presidential-campaigns-on-facebook/.

15 “How Political Ads and Video Content Influence Voter Opinion,” Think with Google, March 2016, https://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/articles/political-ads-video-content-influence-voter-opinion.html.

16 Nancy Vogt, “Podcasting: Fact Sheet. State of the News Media 2016,” Pew Research Center, June 15, 2016, http://www.journalism.org/2016/06/15/podcasting-fact-sheet/.

17 “Top 200 Podcasts,” Podcast Chart, https://www.podcastchart.com/categories/top-200-podcasts.

18 Vogt, “Podcasting: Fact Sheet.”

19 Interview with the author, August 2016.

20 Interview with the author, August 2016.

21 Doerte Doemeland and James Trevino, “Which World Bank Reports Are Widely Read? Policy Research Working Paper 6851,” World Bank, May 2014, http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/387501468322733597/pdf/WPS6851.pdf.

22 Interview with the author, August 2016.

23 Christine Magee, “Sidewire Is Your Hotline to Political Insight,” Techcrunch, September 16, 2015, https://techcrunch.com/2015/09/16/sidewire-is-your-hotline-to-political-insight/.

24 Tim O’Reilly, “#SocialCivics and the Architecture of Participation,” Radar, March 31, 2015, http://radar.oreilly.com/2015/03/socialcivics-and-the-architecture-of-participation.html.

The Hundred Days Myth

25 On Roosevelt’s first hundred days, see Jonathan Alter, The Defining Moment: FDR’s Hundred Days and the Triumph of Hope (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2007); Anthony J. Badger, FDR: The First Hundred Days (New York: Hill and Wang, 2008); and Adam Cohen, Nothing to Fear: FDR’s Inner Circle and the Hundred Days That Created Modern America (New York: Penguin Press, 2009).

26 William Safire, ed., Safire’s Political Dictionary, 5th ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008), 331–32.

27 Badger, FDR, 22–45.

28 Ibid., 41.

29 Franklin D. Roosevelt, “Fireside Chat (Recovery Program),” July 24, 1933, The American Presidency Project, online at https://www.presidency.ucsb...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Introduction
• The Not So Bully Pulpit: Inducing Americans to Listen to the President Is Harder Than Ever
• Manage the Micromoments: Reaching Americans Where They Live—on Their Smartphones
• The Hundred Days Myth: Forget the Hype—It’s the Long Run That Matters
• Up Close and Personal: Exploit All the Available Tools to Manage the President’s Public Persona
• Do More with Less: Communications When Governing Takes More Effort Than You Think
• Contributors
• Notes