Publication Type
Journal Article
Version
acceptedVersion
Publication Date
2-2003
Abstract
We are accustomed to a characterization of Franklin Roosevelt’s legendary Fireside Chats as intimate exchanges between the president and the people. This essay argues that the Fireside Chats were a harsher, more castigatory rhetorical genre than such a characterization would allow. A content analysis of the 27 Fireside Chats recorded in FDR’s Public Papers suggests that the Fireside Chats were, on a number of indices, far less intimate than have traditionally been supposed, and in fact among the more vitriolic and declamatory utterances of the 32nd president. The essay proceeds with a discussion of how this illusion of intimacy was created and perpetuated, and explores the implications of these findings for the nature of presidential oratory.
Discipline
American Politics | Political Science
Research Areas
Political Science
Publication
Rhetoric & Public Affairs
Volume
6
Issue
3
First Page
438
Last Page
464
ISSN
1094-8392
Identifier
10.1353/rap.2003.0066
Publisher
Project Muse
Citation
LIM, Elvin T..(2003). The lion and the lamb: Demythologizing Franklin Roosevelt's fireside chats. Rhetoric & Public Affairs, 6(3), 438-464.
Available at: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/soss_research/2815
Copyright Owner and License
Authors
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/10.1353/rap.2003.0066