Evolution of Media and its Influence on the American Presidency

This essay explores the intricate relationship between media and the presidency, highlighting how news coverage shapes public perception and political agendas. It contrasts the approaches of different U.S. presidents, from Lyndon B. Johnson's preference for personal interactions to Theodore Roosevelt's proactive use of his office and Barack Obama's embrace of social media. The essay further discusses John F. Kennedy's pioneering use of television and underscores the mutual influence between the media and the presidency, where presidential speeches and remarks are leveraged by the media for momentum, illustrating their interconnected roles in American politics.

Running head: MEDIA AND PRESIDENCY
Media and Presidency
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1MEDIA AND PRESIDENCY
News or media is considered as the key source of information for the larger population.
With the media coverage of any incident political leaders and other members who are politically
significant can reach to the public. The media gives the opportunity to manage the public and set
up a political agenda accordingly. The stories of presidency include those that of the president or
any other stories related to him. The research done on the presidential news is mostly related to
national news but there are also reasons to know about the coverage in the local media. The
presidents of different countries are always bothered about the news coverage which goes on
beyond their local visit (Fiske and Hancock).
All the presidents’ mentality varies from one another. While one tries to avoid the new
and innovative technology, the other grabs the opportunity. The 36th president of the United
States of America, Lyndon Baines Johnson who wanted to practice politics by means of personal
interactions and backroom plotting. He was not the person who liked to broadcast his messages
to the public by means of television or any other media. He did not have any grudge on the
media but did not like their attack on the political processes. In one of his speech he said, “All
politics has changed because of you [the media]” (Tabrys, Jason et al.)
Theodore Roosevelt, the 26th President of the United States of America changed the
public’s viewpoint about presidency by stating the centrality of office in American government.
It is a fact that the president is elected by the whole country but the decision and the opinion of
the public is greatly affected by the media. Roosevelt had initiated a theory named as
stewardship theory of the presidency which stated that the president has the freedom to do as per
the requirement of his countrymen by keeping within the norms and policies (Enli and Naper).

2MEDIA AND PRESIDENCY
In contrast to both the presidents mentioned above, Barack Obama, the 44th president of
the United States of America was called as the first social media president. During his tenure, the
White house started using the social media services such as Twitter, Facebook, Snapchat and
Instagram for the first time. The white house takes pride in their achievement when Obama had
first used a filter on Snapchat, went live on Facebook and tweeted. Similarly, John F. Kennedy
was considered as the first television president although he was not the first president to appear
in television. Rather, Franklin Roosevelt was the first president to come in television and Truman
made the first televised presidential address in the year 1947. The concept of using broadcasting
media was first introduced by Kennedy with the popular debate in 1960 with Richard Nixon
(McKay).
Therefore it can be stated the prominent presidents of the United States of America has
used media for televised news conferences and interviews. In the same way, the media has also
used the speeches and remarks of these presidents for gaining momentum, both being interrelated
to each other.

3MEDIA AND PRESIDENCY
Reference
Enli, Gunn, and Anja Aaheim Naper. "Social Media Incumbent Advantage: Barack Obama's and
Mitt Romney's Tweets in the 2012 US Presidential Election Campaign." (2016): 364-378.
Fiske, John, and Black Hawk Hancock. Media Matters: Race & Gender in US Politics.
Routledge, 2016.
McKay, David. American politics and society. John Wiley & Sons, 2017.
Tabrys, Jason et al. "How TV And Evolving Media Technology Changed The American
Presidency." UPROXX, 2017, http://uproxx.com/news/tv-media-american-presidency-evolution/.