Governing from Center Stage: White House Communication Strategies During the Television Age of Politics (review)

Easily one of the most exaggerated and patently gratuitous titles in recent political communication literature is Howard Kurtz's Spin Cycle: Inside the Clinton Propaganda Machine. In their rush to sell books, Kurtz and his publisher suggested that Clinton's use of communication in the White House was somehow unique and destructive, setting a new standard for political pandering and debasing the presidency as he trafficked in "propaganda." Moreover, Clinton's "propaganda machine" in Kurtz's formulation should be debunked in favor of the "truth" that, presumably, Kurtz was able to provide.

A corrective to the excesses of Kurtz and others like him who myopically see the sky falling with every new presidential administration is provided by Lori Cox Han in her work Governing from Center Stage: White House Communication Strategies During the Television Age of Politics. Surveying presidential communication strategies through eight administrations (Kennedy through Clinton), Han offers an insightful and highly accessible chronicle of how our chief executives manage the press and publicly perform the presidency.

Han is a political scientist, and Governing from Center Stage is an adaptation of a doctoral dissertation completed at UCLA. Her analysis is a careful examination of the communication strategies of each presidential administration, informed chiefly by thorough research in six presidential libraries and a content analysis of coverage about specific issues in the New York Times. Her findings are not particularly startling. But the research is complete, and Han's results reveal that the old adage is probably true when applied to presidential communication strategy—there really is nothing new under the sun.

Governing from Center Stage largely confirms what even the most casual observers probably already know about presidential communication strategy over the last few decades. Kennedy was well liked by reporters and managed them well, setting a new standard for communication practices in the television age. Johnson could never measure up to the martyred Kennedy's standard and was hamstrung by media suspicions and anxieties about the Vietnam War. Nixon was not well liked by the media and was often his own worst enemy in dealing with the press. The media were overly preoccupied with Ford's clumsiness and he was caricatured unfairly as a result, while Carter brought to the presidency a moral certainty and inexperience that doomed his administration's efforts. Reagan's team mastered the symbolism of the presidency successfully, and George H. W. Bush failed to fully learn the lessons of the Reagan team's triumphs. Finally, Clinton, while a strong communicator, let the preoccupation with scandal mar his presidency as his communication strategy failed to successfully manage a proliferating press. Han offers, in sum, a conventional and largely predictable picture of presidential communication strategy in the last half of the 20th century.

While Han's book is a solid contribution to the literature on presidential communication management strategies, she begins with a potentially flawed assumption, makes some interesting though possibly troubling methodological choices, and reaches results that are frequently overdrawn and somewhat exaggerated.

Regrettably, Han insists on creating separations between governing, presidential leadership, and communicating. Han frets about the disconnection between governing and communicating, arguing that "Communicating is not necessarily governing, and this study will demonstrate . . . how many presidents have been frustrated by their inability to lead effectively and live up to public expectations during the media age" (3). While communicating may not necessarily be governing, governing certainly must always be about communicating. Indeed, Han's entire analysis reveals how virtually every facet of presidential leadership and governance is dependent upon communication strategy and presidential/press relationships. Why many political observers and presidential commentators insist on bifurcating governing and communicating remains a mystery, and Han's analysis undercuts rather than supports the assumption upon which she bases her investigation.

Governing from Center Stage...