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Television and Presidential Popularity in America

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2009

Darrell M. West
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Extract

Presidential approval ratings are a frequently used barometer of performance and popularity. However, despite recognition of the media age in which we live, little work has examined the impact of television on presidential popularity. Using a 1980 and 1984 television content study, panel data from the 1980 National Election Study and rolling cross-sectional data from the 1984 Continuous Monitoring Study, I compare two American presidents (Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan) commonly seen as having different effectiveness on television. While media effects were not uniformly present during the two presidencies, there was some evidence that television harmed popularity, particularly when the content of news stories and commentary turned negative. I conclude by discussing the ramifications of these results for presidential strategies based on ‘going public’.

Type
Research Article
Information
British Journal of Political Science , Volume 21 , Issue 2 , April 1991 , pp. 199 - 214
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1991

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References

1 Mueller, John, ‘Presidential Popularity from Truman to Johnson’, American Political Science Review, 64 (1970), 18–34CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Kernell, Samuel, ‘Explaining Presidential Popularity’, American Political Science Review, 72 (1978), 506–22CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Gilens, Martin, ‘Gender and Support for Reagan: A Comprehensive Model of Presidential Approval’, American Journal of Political Science, 32 (1988), 19–49.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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14 There also were significant, albeit negative, correlations between television exposure and citizen assessments of Congress. In the September panel, the tau correlations were –0·10 (p < 0·05) for overall assessment and –0·13 (p < 0·001) when strength of opinion was measured.

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20 Some researchers have included measures of policy performance, i.e., approval ratings for inflation and the like, as factors used to explain overall job performance. However, my analysis indicates that these factors are interrelated and therefore conceptually not very distinct. A more reasonable strategy would be to incorporate citizen evaluations of economic performance overall, rather than a job performance rating of the economy. The latter is contaminated by feeling towards the president and therefore does not provide a clear indicator of economic views.

21 Bartels, Larry, ‘Expectations and Preferences in Presidential Nominating Campaigns’, American Political Science Review, 79 (1985), 804–15.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

22 To test for the possibility of racial differences in media effects, this analysis was conducted first for the overall sample and then for whites only. The results were nearly identical and the figures reported here are based on the results for the overall sample.

23 The items measuring citizen perceptions of presidential leadership in 1980 were ‘How well does strong leadership describe Carter as President?’ and in 1984 ‘How much would you say “provides strong leadership” fits your impression of Ronald Reagan: a great deal, somewhat, a little, or not at all?’ It may appear that perceptions of presidential leadership are highly colinear with approval. Therefore, to make sure that the television effects were not biased by this factor, I re-estimated the models without presidential leadership as an independent variable. The television effects were virtually the same as reported in this article.

24 Questions used in 1980 to measure views about real-world economic and foreign policy events included ‘What about the economy? Would you say that over the past year the nation's economy has gotten better, stayed about the same, or gotten worse?’ and ‘Where would you place what the federal government is doing at the present time?’ (a seven-point scale question where I is that it is ‘important to try very hard to get along with Russia’ and 7 is that it is a ‘big mistake to try too hard to get along with Russia’). In 1984, the following terms were used: ‘Now, still talking about the country as a whole, would you say that over the past year the nation's economy has gotten better, stayed about the same, or gotten worse?’ and ‘During the past year, would you say that the United States’ position in the world has grown weaker, stayed about the same, or has it grown stronger?'

25 Markus, Gregory, ‘Political Attitudes during an Election Year: A Report on the 1980 NES Panel Study’, American Political Science Review, 76 (1982), 538–60CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and MacKuen, Michael and Brown, Courtney, ‘Political Context and Attitude Change’, American Political Science Review, 81 (1987), 471–90.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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27 Kernell, Samuel, Going Public: New Strategies of Presidential Leadership (Washington, DC: Congressional Quarterly Press, 1986), p. 1.Google Scholar

28 Rose, Richard, The Postmodern President (Chatham, NJ: Chatham House Publishers, 1988)Google Scholar; and Barilleaux, Ryan, The Post-Modern Presidency (New York: Praeger Publishers, 1988).Google Scholar

29 For a more general argument about constraints on the president, see Bond, Jon and Fleisher, Richard, The President in the legislative Arena (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990)Google Scholar; and Peterson, Mark, Legislating Together (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1990).Google Scholar

30 Brody and Shapiro point out that opinion leaders play a decisive role in public responses to policy failures, thereby compounding the consequences of problematic events themselves. See Brody and Shapiro, ‘Policy Failure and Public Support’.