Newspaper Attention to Major Presidential Addresses: A Reexamination of Conceptualizations, Predictors, and Effects

The relationship between presidents, press, and the public has long been of interest to scholars. This study provides insight into that relationship by adding to Coe and Neumann's (2011 Coe , K. , & Neumann , R. ( 2011 ). The major addresses of modern presidents: Parameters of a data set . Presidential Studies Quarterly , 41 , 727 – 751 . doi: 10.1111/j.17415705.2011.03912.x [Crossref] , [Google Scholar]) conceptualization of “major presidential addresses” a new criterion: newspaper attention. Via nearly 2,000 New York Times articles focusing on 418 presidential speeches between 1933 and 2013, we track newspaper attention to major addresses to answer three questions: 1) How can focusing on newspaper attention refine the conceptualization of major addresses? 2) What predicts newspaper attention to major addresses? 3) Do major addresses, and the corresponding newspaper attention, matter for presidential approval?