The 2020 presidential debates: reasoned argument or political theater

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-18
Author(s):  
Robert C. Rowland
Keyword(s):  
Political Theater ◽  
Presidential Debates

Investigating the President

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Douglas L. Kriner ◽  
Eric Schickler
Keyword(s):  
Public Policy ◽  
Political Theater ◽  
Policy Outcomes ◽  
Presidential Power ◽  
Political Pressure ◽  
Comprehensive Overview ◽  
Partisan Polarization ◽  
Approval Rating ◽  
Congressional Investigations ◽  
Over Time

Although congressional investigations have provided some of the most dramatic moments in American political history, they have often been dismissed as mere political theater. But these investigations are far more than grandstanding. This book shows that congressional investigations are a powerful tool for members of Congress to counter presidential aggrandizement. By shining a light on alleged executive wrongdoing, investigations can exert significant pressure on the president and materially affect policy outcomes. This book constructs the most comprehensive overview of congressional investigative oversight to date, analyzing nearly 13,000 days of hearings, spanning more than a century, from 1898 through 2014. The book examines the forces driving investigative power over time and across chambers, and identifies how hearings might influence the president’s strategic calculations through the erosion of the president’s public approval rating, and uncover the pathways through which investigations have shaped public policy. Put simply, by bringing significant political pressure to bear on the president, investigations often afford Congress a blunt, but effective check on presidential power—without the need to worry about veto threats or other hurdles such as Senate filibusters. In an era of intense partisan polarization and institutional dysfunction, the book delves into the dynamics of congressional investigations and how Congress leverages this tool to counterbalance presidential power.

Vēsturiskā atmiņa Latvijas teātra jaunās paaudzes mākslinieku darbos: izrādes „Dvēseļu utenis” piemērs

2020 ◽  
pp. 269-275
Author(s):  
Ieva Rodiņa
Keyword(s):  
Historical Memory ◽  
Intergenerational Relationships ◽  
Phenomenological Approach ◽  
Political Theater ◽  
Hermeneutic Phenomenological ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Social ◽  
Humanistic Study ◽  
New Generation ◽  
Flea Market

The aim of the research “Historical Memory in the Works of the New Generation of Latvian Theater Artists: The Example of “The Flea Market of the Souls” is to focus on the current but at the same time little discussed topic in Latvian theater – the change of generations and the social processes connected to it, that are expressed on the level of world views, experiences, intergenerational relationships. Most directly, these changes are reflected in the phenomenon of historical memory. The concept of “postmemory” was defined by German professor Marianne Hirsch in 1992, suggesting that future generations are closely related to the personal and collective cultural traumas of previous generations, which are passing on the past experience through historical memory, thus affecting the present. Grotesque, self-irony, and focusing on socio-political, provocative questions and themes are the connecting point of the generation of young Latvian playwrights born in the late 1980s and early 1990s, including such personalities as Jānis Balodis, Rasa Bugavičute-Pēce, Matīss Gricmanis, Justīne Kļava, etc. However, unlike Matīss Gricmanis or Janis Balodis who represent the aesthetics of political theater, in Justīne Kļava’s works, sociopolitical processes become the background of a generally humanistic study of the relationships between generations. This theme is represented not only in “The Flea Market of the Souls”, but also in other plays, like “Jubilee ‘98” and “Club “Paradise””. The tendency to investigate the traces left by the Soviet heritage allows to define these works as autobiographical researches of the identity of the post-Soviet generation, analyzing life in today's Latvia in terms of historical memory. Using the semiotic, hermeneutic, phenomenological approach, the play “The Flea Market of the Souls” and its production in Dirty Deal Teatro (2017) are analyzed as one of the most vivid works reflecting the phenomenon of historical memory in recent Latvian original drama.

scholarly journals Europe Abhors Donald Trump: The Opinion on the 2020 U.S. Presidential Elections and Their Candidates in the European Newspapers

2021 ◽  
pp. 000276422110055
Author(s):  
Marçal Sintes-Olivella ◽  
Pere Franch ◽  
Elena Yeste-Piquer ◽  
Klaus Zilles
Keyword(s):  
Qualitative Methodology ◽  
Election Campaign ◽  
Donald Trump ◽  
Presidential Debates ◽  
White House ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
European Public ◽  
The Media ◽  
The Common ◽  
The U.S

What is the opinion held by the European press on the U.S. election campaign and the candidates running for president? What are the predominant issues that attract the attention of European print media? Does Europe detest Donald Trump? The objective of the present study is to analyze the perception European commentators had of the 2020 race for the White House. The media, the audience, and European governments were captivated more than ever before by how the U.S. election campaign unfolded, fixing their gaze on the contest between Donald Trump and Joe Biden. Through a combined quantitative and qualitative methodology, a combination of content analysis and the application of framing theory (hitherto scarcely applied to opinion pieces), our research centers on exploring the views, opinions, and analyses published in eight leading newspapers from four European countries (France, Germany, Spain, and the United Kingdom) as expressed in their editorials and opinion articles. This study observes how the televised presidential debates were commented on, interpreted, and assessed by commentators from the eight newspapers we selected. The goal was to identify the common issues and frames that affected European public opinion on the U.S. presidential campaign and the aspirants to the White House.

Cold War Political Theater

2009 ◽  
Vol 33 (3) ◽  
pp. 535-538
Author(s):  
nigel j. ashton
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Political Theater

Closing the Knowledge Gap: How Issue Priming Before Presidential Debate Viewing Encourages Learning and Opinion Articulation

2021 ◽  
pp. 000276422110003
Author(s):  
Freddie J. Jennings ◽  
Robert H. Wicks ◽  
Mitchell S. McKinney ◽  
Kate Kenski
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Process ◽  
Vice President ◽  
Political Knowledge ◽  
Political Sophistication ◽  
Donald Trump ◽  
Presidential Debates ◽  
Cognitive Elaboration ◽  
Priming Condition ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Presidential Debate

One mechanism by which citizens learn about candidates and issues is through watching presidential debates. Some scholars have raised concerns that these events, however, disproportionately benefit those already high in political knowledge more so than others with lesser knowledge levels. We hypothesize that knowledge begets knowledge because it prompts a constructive cognitive process that results from elaboration and reflection. We test this hypothesis in an experiment that also considers whether issue priming could help mitigate the deficit that those lower in political sophistication have when viewing campaign events. Participants ( N = 543) watched a 9-minute segment focusing on economic issues drawn from the first 2020 presidential debate between President Donald Trump and former Vice President Joseph Biden. Half of the participants were randomly assigned to an issue priming condition and viewed the debate segment after reading a narrative text on economic policy, and the other half read an unrelated text. The study presents a model that reveals the following: (a) cognitive elaboration mediates the relationship between prior political knowledge and learning from a campaign event, (b) providing citizens with background issue–related knowledge produces a similar elaborative effect as did preexisting political knowledge, and (c) participants demonstrate greater political opinion articulation following this enhanced elaboration leading to more learning. The implications for cultivating a knowledgeable democratic electorate are discussed.

scholarly journals Terra Madre 2006: Political Theater and Ritual Rhetoric in the Slow Food Movement

2008 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 31-39 ◽  
Author(s):  
adrian peace
Keyword(s):  
Political Theater ◽  
The Political ◽  
Slow Food ◽  
Political Spectacle ◽  
The Core ◽  
Global Character ◽  
Secular Rituals ◽  
The Many ◽  
Mega Event ◽  
Food Movement

The biannual mega-event of Terra Madre is now established as the political flagship of the Slow Food movement. It assembles in Turin the leading cosmopolitan figures of this neo-tribal, post modern organization, along with several thousand of its ordinary members, who were drawn in 2006 from the ranks of food producers, cooks and academics. The most significant secular rituals of Terra Madre involve the theatrical celebration of its global character, beginning with the assembly of representatives from some 1600 ““food communities”” distributed throughout the world. Equally important are the many smaller scale activities in which the details of the movement's politics are articulated and embellished, at times in strikingly rhetorical ways. In this paper, which is based on ethnographic research, the theatrical and rhetorical qualities of Terra Madre as a political spectacle are explored in some detail. It is argued, in conclusion, that what is inadvertently exposed are some of the political myths which lie at the core of the Slow Food movement's contemporary philosophy.

Small Screen, Big Feels

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Melissa Ames
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
The United States ◽  
Presidential Debates ◽  
Audience Studies ◽  
The Walking Dead ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
In Series ◽  
Fear And Anxiety ◽  
Small Screen ◽  
Network Era

While television has always played a role in recording and curating history, shaping cultural memory, and influencing public sentiment, the changing nature of the medium in the post-network era finds viewers experiencing and participating in this process in new ways. They skim through commercials, live tweet press conferences and award shows, and tune into reality shows to escape reality. This new era, defined by the heightened anxiety and fear ushered in by 9/11, has been documented by our media consumption, production, and reaction. In Small Screen, Big Feels, Melissa Ames asserts that TV has been instrumental in cultivating a shared memory of emotionally charged events unfolding in the United States since September 11, 2001. She analyzes specific shows and genres to illustrate the ways in which cultural fears are embedded into our entertainment in series such as The Walking Dead and Lost or critiqued through programs like The Daily Show. In the final section of the book, Ames provides three audience studies that showcase how viewers consume and circulate emotions in the post-network era: analyses of live tweets from Shonda Rhimes's drama, How to Get Away with Murder (2010--2020), ABC's reality franchises, The Bachelor (2002--present) and The Bachelorette (2003--present), and political coverage of the 2016 Presidential Debates. Though film has been closely studied through the lens of affect theory, little research has been done to apply the same methods to television. Engaging an impressively wide range of texts, genres, media, and formats, Ames offers a trenchant analysis of how televisual programming in the United States responded to and reinforced a cultural climate grounded in fear and anxiety.

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