Report on 2 U.S Presidents Regimes and the Media

Abstract: The role of media cannot be ignored in any sense, when it comes to portraying political issues as well as personalities, because media is the watchdog as well as the guardian of a democratic society, so it has to maintain its responsibility to inform citizens about the true picture of things. This role of media has also been crucial with regards to regimes of U.S presidents including President G.W. Bush and Barack Obama. So, this paper is going to analyze and compare the second regime of President Bush with the first regime of President Obama to see their relationship with media as well as how they treated media and what influence was made. The paper analyzed the regimes of both Presidents and it was found that both presidents had turbulent times with media. It was also found out that President Obama was the first president, who came face to face with the essence and power of social media, which was never faced by any other U.S preside.

I. Introduction/General Background of the Media

 The role of media has always been increasing in so many facets of life, and politics is one of them. The media has great influential capabilities, so it is always important to see how it is influencing the lives of people as well as people from the political arena. It is true that there was time, when only two major groups of media were popular, the print as well as electronic media, but this has changed with the inclusion of technology in every aspect of life. The new forms of media have become a great force in making their impact on society, and social media is one of them. The increasing rate of internet users and social media users have made this new form of media an important factor to go with the political regimes in recent times, and their role, as well as impact, has been significant in so many ways. If things continue like this, then it can be said that the role of media, especially the new form of media will be increased with the passage of time. The fact of the matter is that media is an influential platform, which can quickly shape as well as change the opinion of people regarding their rulers, so even when it comes to U.S presidency, the role of media remain important and relevant that how certain presidents have been shaped by the media, what aspects of their personality have been focused, and which ones have been ignored (Owen, 2014)

            It is a fact that when democracy is under discussion, then one cannot refuse the important and critical role of media in it, because independent media is one of the major pillars of a sovereign state. Democracy cannot evolve and work with its true meaning if there are no independent and free media to operate. The influence of government on media in terms of coming up with sanctions and restrictions on media is a way that dictatorship regimes do on regular basis, because they don’t want their public to get the real picture of things, so these regimes dominate and influence media, and also influence their operations by using force of government. This is something cannot be expected by the regimes, who have their political basis on democratic values. So, when it comes to the presidency of the United States, the role of media, as well as presidential impact on media, will always remain crucial in so many ways. It is a well known fact that U.S president is not only the most important figure in U.S, but around the world as well, because the United States is a superpower in the world, and it becomes relevant for the whole world that who is holding the position of presidency as changes in policies are expected from every U.S president (Edwards & Howell, 2011)

            It has been observed that the role of media, especially the traditional press, has been critical in the democracy of the United States as well as for the politics of the White House. The presence of press has been significant in the matters of White House and its role in shaping the political nature of American people has also been vital in so many ways. It has been mentioned earlier that free media and press is fundamental to the essence of real democracy to operate in any country or region so without free media & press, the concept of democratic values can be vague and deceiving for the masses. The history of American democracy has shown that freedom of the press has been there for the majority of the period, because if the press is not free to inform citizens, then the true concept of democracy cannot be practiced. However, it has also been observed that presidency has maintained good and balanced relationships with media and journalists, but overall media policy, as well as democratic values in this regard, have been observing various shifts in the policy with the change of Presidents in the White House. The focus of this particular analysis will be given to two former U.S Presidents: George W. Bush and Barack Obama. It is important to mention here that both have completed two tenures each in the White House, but the focus of the discussion will be given to the last regime of George W. Bush and the first regime of Barack Obama (Mannerberg, 2017)

II. The 2^nd Regime of President George W. Bush

            It is important to get the basic information about President Bush that when he was elected and how many years he remained in the White House etc. It is a fact that George W. Bush was the 43^rd American President. Earlier, he has served as Texas Governor as a Republican candidate. He has completed his graduation from Harvard Business School and Yale University. It is important to mention here that his contest for the Presidency was not an easy one, and he won a close contest in this regard. The other important fact about President Bush is that he remained in the White House from 2001 till 2009, completed his two successive tenures in the Presidency. There have been so many major events which happened during his presidency which set the policy way forward for his two regimes. The first major event was the incident of 9/11, which actually changed the whole aspect of American politics and its media. This huge incident led the United States to start a war against terrorism and President Bush was involved in making those important decisions, which also changed the lives of Americans for many coming years, and things have never been the same ever since after this war against terrorism. President Bush has also been criticized for making various wrong decisions as well and one of them was the decision of invading Iraq in 2003, which was based on the rationale of Iraq having Weapons of Mass Destruction. So, it is important to analyze further that how his decisions and presidency was portrayed, criticized by media, and what influence did he make to media for turning opinions in his favor (HISTORY.COM EDITORS, 2009)

            The things and facts regards to media have been changing and evolving with the passage of time throughout American history, and presidential debates have been one of the major aspects of relationship between the presidential candidates and the media because these presidential debates have been broadcasted on electronic media, covered by press, and in recent times; these debates have been creating buzz through the presence of social media (TABRYS, 2017). But one fact has been coming from the regime of President Bush is that Bush administration had turbulent and difficult situations with media, which means that its relations with the media were not as smooth as they should have been, especially keeping the global war on terror in context, as Bush administration certainly needed help from the news media to portray an image that war on terror is indispensable. The news media realized that they have to be cautious while making any comments and criticism on Bush administration because it was observed that administration officials were making scrutiny attacks on those journalists, who published critical articles as well as stories. It was also observed that the Bush administration was regulating the information with news media in a different manner, where sometimes the information came with secrecy or even delays at times. President Bush has been one of those, who have a low record of press conferences with media, which shows its overall uncomfortable affair with the media. It was important for the news media to fulfill its responsibilities as a watchdog of society regardless of these hurdles from President Bush and his administration. It was observed that majority of media failed to fulfill its watchdog role, as stories in favor of the war on terror by Bush administration was prominent in media, whereas critical and questioning stories were published on back pages of the press and media (Satara, 2008)

            It has been mentioned earlier that President Bush was one of its kind in terms of holding press conferences in the modern history of Presidency, as he started this relation with media by doing very few numbers of press conferences, which continued throughout his 2^nd regime as well. The media during the 2^nd regime also continued to face various issues because the Bush administration was coming at war with media and media business was fighting for its survival as a watchdog. The U.S democracy always pampered the freedom of the press and free media, but these elements were challenged by the presidency during the first and 2^nd regime of President Bush. The editors, as well as reporters, showed various concerns that they have been facing trouble in performing their actual role as a watchdog as well as guardians of the American democratic society, and it was never like this before. The unfortunate truth is that maybe all political leaders make lies and show tainted pictures of things, but secrecy, as well as lies and wrong depiction of matters, was used to be at the highest level during President Bush’s presidency. Many things were kept a secret from media, and things were portrayed in a way, which only favored the decisions made by President Bush. It means that President Bush’s relations and treatment with media were not fair in so many ways, and he tried to influence and impact media through its officials so that he can turn the opinions in his favor. One good example that how things were kept secret from public came in 2006, when a case was lodged by Professor Susan B. Long against administration that Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has not published the required tax enforcement data with details on monthly basis, which is a must as per order of the court made in 1976. It shows that things were quite shady and confusing under the presidency of President Bush (Alderman & Zornick, 2008)

            One of the other major events of the 2^nd regime of President Bush was the Hurricane Katrina, which really affected the public image of President Bush as Hurricane Katrina was devastating, and media reports confirmed that Bush administration has failed to take adequate measures before and after the hurricane. The news and press media reports came with so much criticism against President Bush that he was not leading the matter as he should have so that devastations made by Hurricane Katrina could have been far less from actual stats. It is vital for the White House to take adequate measures before such horrific events so that damages can be kept on the lower side. The government response to this disaster was faulty and it came with so many shortcomings and failures, and this time President Bush could not stop media to portray real facts and information on facts could not be changed by Bush administration, because situation on the ground was bad, and it cannot be depicted that everything was fine. The people given shelter after their leaving their homes were not given enough food and other facilities, and national news channels showed various horrific and sad stories in this regard, which really affected the image of President Bush, who was on vacations during this catastrophe. The media bashed the government for its slow and failed response before and after the hurricane, and President Bush has never recovered from the bad reputation, which he earned through media due to Hurricane Katrina (Walsh, 2015). These facts and issues clearly suggest that President Bush’s relations and treatment with media was unfair as well as turbulent, and Bush administration really was a trouble for the freedom of press and media.

III. The 1^st Regime of President Barack Obama

Barack Hussein Obama was an American politician and attorney. He was born on 4 August 1961 and became the forty-fourth president of the US. His presidency began in 2009 and it remained till 2017. As a member of the Democratic Party, he was actually the first president to be an African America. From Illinois, he served as the senator of United States. Barack Obama actually has a significant relation with media and his campaign on social media is an example (Wallenfeldt & Mendell, 2019).

Four years after the social media platform, Facebook was introduced and launched in 2008; the first huge step was taken in the utilization of the internet for running a political campaign. Facebook was used by Barack Obama as he paved his way across the US throughout 2008 and 2007 for promoting his candidacy. Using this platform of social media, he increased his reach which increased voters and also strengthened his audience which was pre-existing. Although the outcomes of election of 2008 can be argued as to why Barack Obama achieved success and to what extent of effect did social media had on the result, it is more interesting to realize that campaign deployed by Obama hired approximately hundred individuals for running the presence that he had on the internet. At that time, the platform used to have more than twenty million users and got more than one billion views per page on a daily basis. It means that the campaign of Obama gave him a significantly wider reach (Katz, Barris, & Jain, 2013)

As the trail of the election of 2012 started in 2011, great power was again shown by Obama for utilizing social media in terms of running an effective political campaign on a social media platform. On April 4, for the very first time in the history of politics, a re-election bid was announced through a video on YouTube. Even a hashtag was used by Barack Obama which indicated his fluency with the social media. His use of social media during his second run throughout his campaigns increased drastically. As he spoke, more people listened and with the attention of the world, Obama started to interact with individuals through social media. This alone indicates how his use of social media gave him a competitive edge since he utilized social media for reaching more people and gaining their confidence in himself as well. His use of social media has offered a new turn to the use of social media and it has also become a platform for running political campaigns.

The relation of Barack Obama with media journalists has been neutral throughout his presidency. But from the media perspective, it can be said that journalists were irked by him due to the lack of reaction which they needed. For instance, whenever they asked questions which would elicit a certain reaction from the president, Obama would remain neutral without giving the needed reaction. Journalists needed a reaction or a headline which could attract viewers or readers but Obama was always a skeptic and didn’t give any such reaction (McComb-Gray, 2017).

Former President of the United States Barack Obama, after marking his 100 days in the office, enjoyed relative positive media coverage as compared to his predecessors i.e. Bill Clinton and George Bush. Barack Obama appeared as a president who delivered sweeping and broad speeches with global themes; the digital age opportunities were leveraged by Obama to gain maximum political benefits. But most of the times it meant narrowly talking to base voters or the groups of people who are not connecting to the process of mainstream politics. The role of Obama is judged by history in the office's transformation; he is the first president of the United States that faced launch of social media throughout the country and established a media standard for other politicians that how they should be connected to the digital media. Other presidents of the United States faced network TV; Barack Obama is Netflix, streaming-video president (Street, 2015).

On the other hand, critics showed concern that this social media governance might cheapen the presidency power by the activism of hash-tag substitution for serious policy formation. In the Obama Era, the White House, in the shift to new from old media, became the media production company that looked like distribution service of news run by the state (Street, 2015).  The positive stories are found by the researches about negative have outweighed by Obama by two-to-one, i.e. 42 percent versus 20 percent while the percentage of neutral or mixed stories is 38 percent. When a broader media universe, one that had forty-nine outlets and modern media 2009 culture is reflected by it more, is evaluated, the numbers of coverage are similar for Obama, though somewhat more negative and somewhat less positive. In the expanded media universe, that had local newspapers, news websites, additional regional, network morning news, cable news, and National Public Radio, the percentage of positive coverage of Obama is 37 percent, the percentage of neutral coverage of Obama is 40 percent, and the percentage of negative coverage of Obama is 23 percent (Pew Research Centre, 2009).

When Obama entered the office, his mandate was stronger and popular as compared to Bush as he was elected to his first term with over 50 percent popular votes and when he left the office, there were historically low ratings for favorability. The significant variations are there how different sectors of the media covered the presidency of Obama. Evening network television and newspaper gave a most positive treatment to Obama while online sites for news have been neutral. Strikingly different young presidency’s portrayals were offered by Fox News and MSNBC, while the tone of the overall media was more closely reflected by CNN. Meanwhile, the highest percentage of neutral stories was offered by PBS and NPR, among other media means (Pew Research Centre, 2009).

IV. Conclusion on 2 U.S Presidents Regimes and the Media

            After analyzing and comparing in detail the two regimes of U.S presidents; the first regime of Barack Obama and the 2^nd regime of G.W. Bush, it can be said that both presidents were different in their style and approach, but their relation, treatment, an affair with the media was not too different, because both used to have turbulent times with the media. There was one addition to the regime of President Obama and that was the influence and evolution of social media as social media started to gain attention and space in the lives of people, so President Obama was referred as the first social media president. It can also be said that the situation for media was not as bad during the regime of President Obama as it was during the regime of President Bush, because media was not facing that much scrutiny. Moreover, social media also forced the Obama administration to be on the back foot as masses were able to voice their opinions through the essence of social media.

 REFERENCES of 2 U.S Presidents Regimes and the Media

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