Podcasts, history, and presidential communication

by Julia Azari 


Yesterday Obama stirred up controversy with his comments in a podcast interview with comedian Marc Maron. The president made Twitter light up and gave, apparently, hours of material to cable news commentators by - without putting too fine a point on it - saying the n-word. The word came in the context of a sentence about how racism is "not just a matter of overt discrimination." It's a point that's consistent with recent social science (summarized nicely here by Sendhil Mullainathan). Several people have rightly pointed out on Twitter that this isn't the first time a president has used that word - many used it in very different ways, behind closed doors.

That's not, however, what happened here. The president used a word he must have known would draw attention, in a somewhat unconventional media context, while making a nuanced point about an important and salient issue. So how do we understand significance and potential impact of the president's remarks? There's been plenty of debate about whether he should have used the word and whether the ensuing controversy is a distraction. I'll leave those debates to others - but here are three scholarly perspectives that I think are useful for understanding the president's remarks - the offending word, the president's larger point, and the type of conversation he had with Maron.

Influencing media coverage  

There's a strain of scholarly literature that assesses the impact of presidential speeches on media coverage of policy areas. The findings of these stories present a mixed picture of media impact. For example, Matt Eshbaugh-Soha and Jeff Peake find that major presidential addresses can increase media attention to topics, usually in the short term and more rarely for longer periods. Obama's mention of subtle racism isn't going to drastically change media coverage on the topic for years to come. His choice of words did, however, bring more media attention than the podcast interview would probably otherwise have received. And in order to present the quote where Obama uses the shocking word, you also have to present the sentence that gets to his core point about the nature of racism in society. In a modest way, Obama's choice of words has the potential to promote a specific media frame - one that competes with the common "colorblind" frame. This is only a hypothesis, however. The statement occurred during a niche podcast rather than a major address, and agenda-setting and promoting a frame are not the same thing. Nevertheless, the idea that presidential rhetoric can influence media coverage has some support in the empirical literature.

The "first citizen" dilemma

I borrow this term from Marc Landy and Sidney Milkis' book Presidential Greatness, in which they talk about the tensions inherent in democracy and executive strength. The idea that the president is an ordinary person as well as head of government and state helps to make such a powerful position more compatible with constitutional democracy.
As the presidency has developed this tension has, in my estimation, become more acute. In my own research, I examine how growing concern about the imperial presidency in the sixties and seventies led to efforts to present the president in more casual ways and to stress the connection between the president and the electorate. (These efforts included Jimmy Carter walking down Pennsylvania Avenue during his inaugural parade, and participating in a call-in show in 1977, to name a few.)

Obama, as I've noted before, has experimented with the line between presenting himself as an everyday citizen and using more conventional presidential imagery. The interview - for which he apparently went to Maron's garage(!) - already represents another such experiment. But the choice to engage race bluntly and with controversial language can also be viewed through this lens. The whole interview, but that line in particular, lacked the kind of trappings we're used to seeing in more ceremonial speech settings. To use a word that is sometimes applied to FDR's Fireside Chats, the fact that Obama used a word (fortunately) not often heard in professional conversations or mainstream political discourse lent the broadcast a feeling of intimacy. This may or may not have been effective - or even mattered at this stage in Obama's presidency. But it represents a specific approach to an old dilemma.

Defining the polity and its values 

This perspective comes mainly from the literature in communications, although Landy and Milkis refer to the president's role as "civic educator" throughout their book. This literature goes in a couple of directions - scholars have explored presidential efforts to define American national identity in the face of diversity and to define national values in a positive and celebratory way. Other scholarly works analyze the capacity of presidential speeches to engage listeners as citizens. During an inaugural address, for example, citizens are invited to imagine themselves in the context of the nation's history - of inaugurations past and even future (see this and this for further elaboration). Presidential rhetoric plays a specific role in describing the nation - the values that inform our civic nationalism and the connections among citizens in an imagined community.

What does this all have to do with Obama's podcast interview? Part of the distinction is format. In ceremonial speeches, presidents address the people (whatever that may mean and whoever may be listening) directly. Vanessa Beasley's book, You, the People (linked above) highlights this second-person perspective in its title. Media interviews necessarily lead to a more third-person approach when talking about the polity, whether other elites or citizens or whatever. In his interview, Obama isn't talking about American society in the third person - he says, "racism, we aren't cured of it." In the particular segment of the interview in which he talks about racism, he is clearly analyzing a problem in American society, not elevating an idealized or aspirational version of its values. We're used to being compared favorably to the past (which Obama also did in this part of the interview, describing the racial progress that has occurred) in political rhetoric, hearing superlative descriptions of the character of the American people (which Obama did when talking about politics and polarization), and hearing touching anecdotes that illustrate abstract points about American values (which Obama did not do in this particular piece). We're not used to historically informed social criticism in political speeches. When presidents describe a problem to us, they're expected to build us up, not call us out! (Just ask Jimmy Carter, who used a more conventional format to inform the nation of its malaise.)

But the availability of media formats beyond press conferences and prime time addresses allows presidents to communicate in different ways. And throughout the podcast today, Obama offered commentary on politics, policy, and American society, as well as his own past and relationship with his daughters. And it was in this context that he offered commentary on race that wasn't just about equal opportunity, or the promise of American ideals, or fatherhood and responsibility. The president made a major point about society, and he wasn't talking to us - he was talking about us, as one of us. Grammatically and practically, it's a small distinction. But when we consider the role that presidential rhetoric has played in American democracy, it's an appreciable shift. In other words, it wasn't just the choice of language that challenged norms about presidential communication.

Ultimately, I'm not sure how important this event is. Words are powerful on their own, perhaps especially ugly ones. At the same time, I think the larger point, its presentation, and the media event itself is at least as noteworthy. The impact will probably be subtle.  It won't change politics tomorrow. It won't lead to the passage - or failure - of legislation or a major shift in the electorate. However, for those of us who are interested (in a scholarly way or otherwise) in presidential communication and media, we may look back on the Obama presidency as a turning point in how presidents presented themselves and spoke to - and about - the American public.