The need for American presidential candidates and sitting presidents to connect with citizens has led to the adoption of diverse media strategies that include traditional news initiatives with established journalists, face-to-face interaction with small groups of supporters, and visits to traditionally non-political entertainment-based venues. The American Presidency and Entertainment Media: How Technology Affects Political Communication examines the recent embrace of entertainment forums for political purposes. Featuring interviews with White House insiders and late night talk show veterans, this book analyzes the major moments in the presidency’s increasingly cozy relationship with entertainment-based television shows and the major factors leading individual administrations and campaigns to take chances to reach largely non-political audience. It offers a new theoretical underpinning for this phenomenon, predicts how future campaigns will operate in this regard as media technology and American political culture evolve, and connects the marriage of politics and televised entertainment to the ascension of Donald Trump to the presidency.

" Winner of the 2003 Ray and Pat Browne Book Award, given by the Popular Culture Association The contributors to Hollywood's White House examine the historical accuracy of these presidential depictions, illuminate their influence, and uncover how they reflect the concerns of their times and the social and political visions of the filmmakers. The volume, which includes a comprehensive filmography and a bibliography, is ideal for historians and film enthusiasts.

The essential issue of this project is the relationship between the American people and their president. As technology changes, people adapt to new methods of communication which simultaneously allow them to connect with others and the wider world more easily and yet also separate themselves from others and the wider world more easily. The need for presidential candidates and sitting presidents to connect with citizens has led to the adoption of diverse media strategies that include traditional news initiatives with established journalists, face to face interaction with small groups of supporters, and visits to traditionally non-political entertainment-based venues. This dissertation research examines that last element of presidential-level communication: an embrace of entertainment forums for political purposes. This project is a necessary contribution to the field because there has not been a thorough and exclusive examination of the embrace of the entertainment-based venue by presidential campaigns guided by the thoughts of veterans of presidential campaigns themselves. Some scholars and journalists have partially analyzed this phenomenon as part of a larger examination of presidential communication strategy, but this specific element has largely been uninspected and has become especially relevant in the context of the presidency of Barack Obama, a trailblazer in the use of entertainment-based venues for political purposes, and in the context of presidential campaigns and administrations going forward. The 2016 presidential primaries have only made the purpose of this project more urgent because of the rise of Donald Trump, perhaps the ultimate example of the fusing of politics and entertainment. To understand the phenomena driving presidential campaigns to embrace entertainment-based venues, I conducted interviews with twenty-two veterans of presidential campaigns dating back to the 1980 election. Between them, these twenty-two political strategists have worked for five administrations - Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama - and a number of major campaigns in every election cycle since 1980, including the 2016 campaign. I also conducted two interviews with veterans of the most viewed entertainment platforms of the 1990s and 2000s: The Tonight Show with Jay Leno and The Late Show with David Letterman. These twenty-four interviews, including with one individual who worked for both a presidential campaign and a late night entertainment talk show, were conducted between March 2015 and February 2016 and included targeted questions and an oral history component. Presidential candidates have increasingly needed to stress the lighter sides of their personalities to appeal to a voting public fascinated by the horserace media coverage of presidential politics but largely uninterested in the minutiae of day-to-day policymaking. Slowly, sitting presidents have attempted to do the same but have had to balance revelation with the responsibilities of holding the highest office in the land. This project evaluates the implications of the moves that presidential campaigns and presidential administrations have made to become more accessible and connected with the citizenry in a constantly changing media environment. Based on the data collected through the interview process, his project offers a new theoretical underpinning for this media strategy based on a synthesis of role theory, the postmodern presidency theory, and technological determinism that allows for the significant influence of individual personality in the decision-making process and predicts how future campaigns will operate in this regard as media technology and American political culture evolve.

Thesis (M.A.) from the year 1998 in the subject American Studies - Culture and Applied Geography, grade: 1,0, LMU Munich, language: English, abstract: In Hollywood film history, the U.S. president has had many images - a brave leader, an incompetent fool, a lovable hero. One thing is for certain: No matter what era, Presidents, whether fictional or real, are frequent fodder for filmmakers. After Vietnam and the revelations of Watergate, however, the number of films with presidential portrayals steadily decreased, and the depictions that did appear generally cast a corrupt or inept Chief Executive. It is therefore more than surprising why filmmakers today have decided to produce such an incredibly large number of films as compared to the last two decades. Presidents have been portrayed as minor characters in dozens of Hollywood films, either for inspirational purposes or simply to keep the plot moving. Lately, not only the number of President films has increased significantly, but there is also a clear tendency to let the Presidents move towards center stage, and they are now often pictured as the protagonists. This phenomenon opens up a whole range of questions: How are the Presidents depicted? Is there a certain trend in the portrayals? Or are those portrayed all different from each other? Are there differences or similarities to older characterizations? What does this tell us about Hollywood's view of the Presidency? Has it suddenly changed? And what are the reasons for such a sudden boost in the number of films? By taking a closer look at a selection of Hollywood productions, this paper provides an attempt to find answers to these questions. Of the string of fictional Presidents that American filmmakers have recently created, some are more loathsome than their real-life counterparts, others more heroic. Both types seem designed to connect with audiences' hopes and fears - what the Hollywood dream factory does best. Interestingly, the portrayals have been all over

Eminent scholars Peter C. Rollins and John O'Connor make an important contribution to the field with an eclectic mix of essays, which translate visual language into on-screen politics. While the series may be criticized as "idealistic," its clever techniques of camera work, lighting, editing, and mise en scene reflect America's best image of itself, and entertains a loyal audience that desperately wants to believe in the nobility of the American dream. This collection introduces readers to the sensibilities to appreciate the show's nuances and the necessary knowledge to avoid any misreadings. It will be of interest to students of politics, popular culture, fans and critics alike.

This thesis - Shooting the President: Screen Depictions of the American Presidency from John F. Kennedy to Josiah Bartlet - examines the depiction of the presidency in American film and television from 1960 until the present day. In this study I explore the relationships between the presidency and Hollywood, particularly in the context of genre structures. I examine the constructions of specific presidential mythologies based on the real presidencies of Kennedy, Nixon and Clinton and the construction of fictional presidencies in the television series The West Wing. In four sets of case studies, I will chart the changing significance of each president through different genres, looking particularly at how each presidential mythology is affected by the anxieties and fashions of the contemporary political and social world. I also examine the ways in which the appearance of presidentiality is created within each text by various means including set design, the choice of actor, the use of dialogue and the framing of particular characters. The aims of my thesis are to demonstrate how a telegenic style of politics formed during and after the Kennedy presidency can be seen to be both represented and enhanced in genre films and television series. I chart the relationship of this new mediated style of presidency through my case studies as it faces challenges such as Watergate, Clinton's sex scandals and the terrorist attacks of September 11 2001. Finally, I aim to demonstrate through a close reading of the latter seasons of The West Wing how the American public can be seen to be prepared by its popular media for the success of the first black president, Barack Obama.

Examines presidential power within the context of U.S. history and the ongoing relationships presidents and ex-presidents formed with one another.