Chapter 7: The Struggle for Control: News from the Presidency

Test Bank

Multiple Choice Questions

1. President Obama spent the first several weeks of his second term dealing with controversy related to which of the following?

A. the discovery of a massive secret U.S. government surveillance program

B. the administration’s handling of the attack in Benghazi

C. IRS targeting of Tea Party groups

D. all of these

2. Which major branch of government gets the most coverage from mainstream media?

A. executive

B. legislative

C. judicial

D. No majority as coverage is mostly equivalent.

True/False

1. You could say that yesterday’s political press release is today’s politician tweet.

2. The early phases of Obama’s second term and Trump’s first 100 days in office highlighted the adversarial nature of the relationship between the press and the president.

3. The three major branches of government earn high volumes of coverage from the national press, in roughly equal proportions.

And: F

4. When members of Congress earn a lot of coverage, it is because they have been working hard on important policy issues.

5. Social media networks are attractive communication venues for leaders because it allows direct transmission of their messages.

6. The American public is often inattentive during campaigns, tuning out major parts of the campaign, and the 2016 presidential election was no different.

7. In recent years, the honeymoon period between the press and the president has gotten considerably longer.

8. Presidential candidates Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton earned consistently negative coverage during the 2016 presidential general election.

Short Answer

1. What are the characteristics of the office of the president that enable it to attract to much more coverage relative to the other branches?

2. What are the characteristics of Congress that make coverage of only certain members commonplace?

3. What is a possible upside of receiving less coverage, as in the apparent case of the judiciary?

4. What is the honeymoon period and why is it significant for governance?

5. What are the four presidential communication strategies?

Essay

1. Why is the relationship between political leaders both adversarial and co-dependent? Explain this paradox and the relationship it has to news content and governance.

2. Describe the relationship between the structure of the three major U.S. government institutions and the amount and type of coverage they receive (i.e., rank them according to how much they are covered and the nature of that coverage and then explain why the different types of institution get more/less and favorable/unfavorable coverage). Then, relate this to their relative levels of popularity with the citizenry. Finally, build on this to make an argument about why the news media matter to politics and governance.

3. What are the various media-related reasons that modern presidents have trouble shaping public opinion with respect to their policy agendas?

4. What are various ways that presidential digital communication has evolved in recent years? What are some of the implications for citizenship and governance?