My dissertation examines partisan communication in television news. In this dissertation, I highlight the obstacles faced by members of Congress as they attempt to communicate with voters through the free media. In particular, I will argue that the presidential party in Congress is systematically hobbled in its attempts to communicate to the public, and can generally only do so at the cost of intra-party conflict with the president. Modeling Partisan Communication Students of Congress have observed that the fortunes of party members are joined together by their party's image.
Parties can define themselves to voters through their words and through their actions.
While most research into party behavior examines the latter activity, in this dissertation I focus on the ability of parties to coordinate their talk. In Chapter 1 I find that a party's attempt to communicate their desired message to voters via talk is not always a simple process, particularly when compared to the process of legislation. If a majority party in the House decides to pass a bill, voting the bill through is generally trivial. If a legislative party decides to talk about a particular issue to the American public, on the other hand, there is no guarantee that their message will be delivered. Further, in contrast to the passage of legislation, I find that unified party government in Washington actually presents greater challenges to party communication than divided government.