In The God Strategy, David Domke and Kevin Coe offer a timely and dynamic study of the rise of religion in American politics, examining the public messages of political leaders over the past seventy-five years--from the 1932 election of Franklin Roosevelt to the early stages of the 2008 presidential race. They conclude that U.S. politics today is defined by a calculated, deliberate, and partisan use of faith that is unprecedented in modern politics.
Sectarian influences and expressions of faith have always been part of American politics, the authors observe, but a profound change occurred beginning with the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980. What has developed since is a no-holds-barred religious politics that seeks to attract voters, identify and attack enemies, and solidify power. Domke and Coe identify a set of religious signals sent by both Republicans and Democrats in speeches, party platforms, proclamations, visits to audiences of faith, and even celebrations of Christmas. Sometimes these signals are intended for the eyes and ears of all Americans, and other times they are distinctly targeted to specific segments of the population. It's an approach that has been remarkably successful, utilized first and most extensively by the Republican Party to capture unprecedented power and then adopted by the Democratic Party, most notably by Bill Clinton in the 1990s and by a wide range of Democrats in the 2006 elections.
"For U.S. politicians today, having faith isn't enough; it must be displayed, carefully and publicly. This is a stark transformation in recent decades," write Domke and Coe. With innovative, accessible research and analytical verve, they document how this hasoccurred, who has done it and why, and what it means for the American experiment in democracy.

Studies of Communication in the 2020 Presidential Campaign explores a wide range of communication elements, themes, and topics of the 2020 presidential election. The introduction provides a brief snapshot summarizing the role of more traditional elements of campaign communication as well as the newer elements of social media and journalistic practices that transformed the political landscape in 2020. Each chapter serves as a stand-alone study focusing on the role and function of communication within the context of the chapter topics and the 2020 election.

The Rhetoric of Official Apologies: Critical Essays focuses on the many challenges associated with performing a speech act on behalf of a collective and the concomitant issues of rhetorically tackling the multiple political, social, and philosophical issues at stake when a collective issues an official apology to a group of victims. Contributors address questions of whether collective remorse is possible or credible, how official apologies can be evaluated, who can issue apologies on behalf of whom, and whether there are certain kinds of wrongdoing that simply can't be addressed in the form of an official apology. Collectively, the book speaks to the relevance of conceptualizing official apologies more broadly as serving multiple rhetorical purposes that span ceremonial and political genres and represent a potentially powerful form of collective self-reflection necessary for political and social advancement.

Contemporary Christian Culture: Messages, Missions, and Dilemmas studies Christian media, its meanings, and its impact on social perceptions and lived experiences in a multicultural context and from within a communication framework. This interdisciplinary collection expands the dialogue surrounding race, culture, and Christian messages and provides a valuable resource for researchers, educators, and church practitioners who are interested in understanding how racial and cultural identity are impacted by religious media products.

American democracy is in a period of striking tumult. The clash of a rapidly changing socio-technological environment and the traditional presidency has led to an upheaval in the scope and standards of executive leadership. Yet research on the presidency, although abundant, has been slow to adjust to changing realities associated with digital technologies, diverse audiences, and new elite practices. Meanwhile, journalists and the public continue to encounter and shape emerging presidential efforts in deeply consequential ways. Joshua Scacco and Kevin Coe bring needed insight to this complex situation by offering the first comprehensive framework for understanding contemporary presidential communication in relation to the current socio-technological environment. They call this framework the "ubiquitous presidency." Scacco and Coe argue that presidents harness new opportunities in the media environment to create a nearly constant and highly visible presence in political and nonpolitical arenas. They do this by trying to achieve longstanding presidential goals, namely visibility, adaptation, and control. However, in an environment where accessibility, personalization, and pluralism are omnipresent considerations, the strategies presidents use to achieve these goals are very different from what we once knew. Using this novel framework as a conceptual anchor, The Ubiquitous Presidency undertakes one of the most expansive analyses of presidential communication to date. Scacco and Coe employ a wide variety of approaches-ranging from surveys and survey-experiments, to large-scale automated content and network analyses, to qualitative textual analysis-to uncover new aspects of the intricate relationship between the president, news media, and the public. Focusing on the presidency since Ronald Reagan, and devoting particular attention to the cases of Barack Obama and Donald Trump, the book uncovers remarkable shifts in communication that test the institution of the presidency and, consequently, democratic governance itself.

American democracy is in a period of striking tumult. The clash of a rapidly changing socio-technological environment and the traditional presidency has led to an upheaval in the scope and standards of executive leadership. Yet research on the presidency, although abundant, has been slow to adjust to changing realities associated with digital technologies, diverse audiences, and new elite practices. Meanwhile, journalists and the public continue to encounter and shape emerging presidential efforts in deeply consequential ways. Joshua Scacco and Kevin Coe bring needed insight to this complex situation by offering the first comprehensive framework for understanding contemporary presidential communication in relation to the current socio-technological environment. They call this framework the "ubiquitous presidency." Scacco and Coe argue that presidents harness new opportunities in the media environment to create a nearly constant and highly visible presence in political and nonpolitical arenas. They do this by trying to achieve longstanding presidential goals, namely visibility, adaptation, and control. However, in an environment where accessibility, personalization, and pluralism are omnipresent considerations, the strategies presidents use to achieve these goals are very different from what we once knew. Using this novel framework as a conceptual anchor, The Ubiquitous Presidency undertakes one of the most expansive analyses of presidential communication to date. Scacco and Coe employ a wide variety of approaches-ranging from surveys and survey-experiments, to large-scale automated content and network analyses, to qualitative textual analysis-to uncover new aspects of the intricate relationship between the president, news media, and the public. Focusing on the presidency since Ronald Reagan, and devoting particular attention to the cases of Barack Obama and Donald Trump, the book uncovers remarkable shifts in communication that test the institution of the presidency and, consequently, democratic governance itself.

This volume offers a timely and dynamic study of the rise of religion in American politics, examining the public messages of political leaders over the past seventy-five years. The authors show that U.S. politics today is defined by a calculated, deliberate, and partisan use of faith that is unprecedented in modern politics. Beginning with the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980, America has seen a no-holds-barred religious politics that seeks to attract voters, identify and attack enemies, and solidify power. Domke and Coe identify a set of religious signals sent by both Republicans and Democrats in speeches, party platforms, proclamations, visits to audiences of faith, and even celebrations of Christmas. The updated edition of this ground-breaking book includes a new preface, an updated analysis of the last Bush administration, as well as a new final chapter on the Jeremiah Wright controversy, the candidacies of Mike Huckabee and Sarah Palin, and Barack Obama's victory.