The Relationship between the Essay and the Hegemony Theory
The author The ideas from the essay + page number The relationship between the essay and the Hegemony theory
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Stephen J. Farnsworth and S. Robert Lichter In this essay, the author focuses on the issues of presidents being the main concern of political news. The essay takes the reader through president Clinton’s scandals during his reign. The essay as well explores how president Bill Clinton managed to sustain his popularity amid many opponents and critics. From the article, it is evident that his scandals especially the Clinton-Lewinsky sexual involvement could have had a lot damage to the image of the president and the White House at large. His struggle towards shaping the media worked against negative influence imminent to the country’s leadership. The president manages to turn around the scandal through the media to lessen the impact to the White House. The president went against the norm of staying on defense for the matters at hand and decided to go on offense.
Normally, big crises like the one facing president Clinton in the essay require that the accused apply triage. This is a technique work to open defense against the media perceptions. For instance, the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal compelled the president and his defense team to admit the mistake in the name of the president. This resulted into changing the face of the media towards the president and the White House officials. The team emerges as rationale in the face of reporters as well as television newscasts. In addition, the move appealed to the public that the president should remain in office. Notably, the partisan House impeached the president. However, it was difficult for the senate to move a vote of no confidence in the president, which could result in his removal from office. The main defense for the president was public approval. The essay has a wide range of correlations to the hegemony theory that draws on realist, liberal and historical structuralist points of view. This is because the president in the event of the scandal did not seek for self-interest to protect his name. He admitted the flaws and carried the burden of all accounts upon his name. According to the essay, this was to manipulate the media to give a good impression of the White House and all officials.
In this case, the essay associates to the hegemony theory’s perspective of general interest as well as individual benefits. As a result, the president relies on taking offense to function as a coercive method in achieving his personal interest of remaining in office. This does not just work for him to maintain control of the American people but protect the name of the senate and the White House at large.
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David Domke, Erica S. Graham, Kevin Coe, Sue Lockett John and Ted Coopman In this article, the authors bring out a different way in which politicians succeed in controlling political and media information. The focus of the article is in the event there is a crisis in the country. The main theme in the essay is administrators going public as a technique for them to gain control of media information. Politician like Bush seek to influence decisions made by the Congress through speaking directly to the public. This assures support for policies that should come into place. In addition, they create a positive effect through interacting with the press so that they release information favorable to the administration.
The authors posit that seeking public opinion is efficient during crises (pg 253). This is because there is likelihood of public opinion to affect policy inaction. The media tends to treat the administration positively in which case an inclination to the information released to the public by the media must give a positive impression of the federal government. The article discusses the issue of going public in relation to the Patriot Act meant to fight against terrorists. Notably, it is imperative for the administration to leverage public support to ensure that implementation of policies is successful. The authors give a number of reasons on the significance of going public to control citizens’ support and media information. According to them, it is critical for the administration to provide a consistent perspective among leaders and the citizens alike to gain their confidence and support.
The authors sum up six themes for the research about the inclusion of the Patriot Act that focus on people’s liberty. It was evident that the Act could face a lot of opposition from the congress. As a result, the president and attorney general decided to speak to the public prior to the debate to gain their confidence and influence the congress to enact the policy against terrorism. From the findings of this article, the administration maximizes its position as the basic voice of the country’s politics through timing a large number of its tools of communication to the public on the anti-terrorist act. This should take place before debate by the congress (pg. 260). This relates to the hegemony theory in that it focuses on promoting generalized benefits as opposed to the self-interest. The six themes under study in the article focus the outcomes rather than coercion that assure compliance by the state’s constitution. This means that the Patriot Act provides not only absolute gains but also relative benefits. According to the conflict foreseen in the congress enacting the act, the policy relates to hegemony theory through provision of non-exclusion. This implies that all citizens of the united States of America would benefit from security even though some of them offered little contribution. The themes are non-rival to all people affected by incidences of terrorism. Collective benefit is central to the decision of the president to go public and convince the citizens to support the new act. The realist perspective provided in the hegemony theory signifies the possibility of openness and stability in the country through personal liberty and state security. As a result, the correlation between the theory and the essay is not only open but also sufficient for an open administrative system.
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Patrick J. Sellers In this essay, the author focuses on how the administration manipulates messages in the United States of America through the media. According to the writer of the essay, initially the legislators won re-election by themselves without contribution from the parties involved. The author points out that the legislators have many techniques of winning considerable media coverage of their ideas (Pg. 268). He reveals that the legislator managed to win media coverage through carefully planned events using the constituents as well as producing press releases that focused on recent accomplishments of the party. They sought to solve narrow and short-term issues of the society so that they could evade cumbersome cases of addressing complicated concerns of the country. With this move, a lot of competition arises among parties to win voters’ attention to their apparent salient matters of the state. As a result, party members go an extra mile to communicate messages directly to the audience (Pg. 269).
The author takes a different perspective that can help parties publicize their messages to the congress in the US. The writer believes that many legislators taking part in promoting the same message to the national media makes that message to receive news coverage regardless of the numbers of the competing parties in the message (Pg. 269). Therefore, it is prudent for the members of the congress to publicize their issues before the congressional meeting since this has a mutual benefit for all individuals involved. Because of increased participation in the dissemination of messages by members of the Democrat part, their ideas received enormous media coverage as opposed to the Republicans although they had large numbers. This closely relates to the ideas proponed in the hegemony theory on the collective responsibility of individuals geared to a common course. According to the theory, individual members should follow policies that other key players believe are relatively beneficial. The outcome of the contribution to message dissemination is mutually beneficial to every person within the party. The theory provides a baseline for motives and strategies of the hegemon individuals. The motive for the congressional participation is to get their issue covered in the media. They put in a collective responsibility strategy to ensure they have a common course.
