The Ideological Content of Presidential Communications

Abstract

This article examines the widespread belief that American presidents tailor their political message to suit the predispositions of their audiences. Some 69 of Lyndon B. Johnson's and 62 of Ronald Reagan's communications, as reproduced in Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States, are coded for content and assigned an ideology score; the audiences for each of these presidential communications are also categorized according to ideological predisposition. I expected to find Reagan, the ideologue, to be more consistent in message content than Johnson, the pragmatist. Yet both were nearly equal in the degree to which their messages were inconsistent. When the two presidents varied the content of their rhetoric, it accorded with the predispositions of their audiences, yet each varied his messages along a different dimension. When combined with findings of an earlier study, which concluded that Johnson had a penchant for tailoring Viet Nam messages to his audiences, it is argued that situation and beliefs are in a "push-pull" relationship, depending on the nature of the content of the presidential communication. When a "position" issue such as Viet Nam is at stake, the situation is likely to be more influential and presidential behavior more calculated; and when a "core" issue like freedom or equality is the subject of presidential rhetoric, beliefs are likely to be more important and presidential behavior more habitual.

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