Publication Type
Journal Article
Version
publishedVersion
Publication Date
2-2002
Abstract
This study examines how images of the American electorate were deployed after the11 September 2001 terrorism incident and during the Clinton impeachment. Transcripts of congressional proceedings, news coverage, and presidential campaign addresses were analyzed to determine how the phrase the American people was used during these two crises and in unrelated presidential campaign speeches. The analysis considered the roles, actions, qualities, and circumstances ascribed to the people, as well as the time orientation and the forces aligned against the people. The results show that (1) relative to presidential campaign rhetoric, both crises resulted in greater concentration on the electorate; (2) the crises differed from one another as well, with the impeachment texts featuring a contentious electorate and the 11 September texts identifying the people’s psychological strengths and anxieties; and (3) both crises were also affected by exogenous factors—partisanship in the case of impeachment, and the passage of time for the terrorism incident.
Discipline
American Politics | Political Science
Research Areas
Political Science
Publication
Political Psychology
Volume
23
Issue
3
First Page
417
Last Page
437
ISSN
0162-895X
Identifier
10.1111/0162-895X.00292
Publisher
Wiley
Citation
HART, Roderick P., JARVIS, Sharon E., & LIM, Elvin T..(2002). The American people in crisis: A content analysis. Political Psychology, 23(3), 417-437.
Available at: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/soss_research/2808
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.
Additional URL
https://doi.org/10.1111/0162-895X.00292