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Democracy is about ideas and narratives. Stories that provide a common set of facts, influence public opinion, and create majoritarian will. The President, the press, and the people are each primary authors of the American story. Whose version of events determines how Americans see themselves and how the world sees America?
Continuing our series on the future of democracy, the Salzburg Global American Studies Program explored the roles and relationships between the executive branch in the US, the international media, and citizens of global democracy. Given the variety of voices shaping the public’s imagination, how have citizens productively participated in democracy in the past and how do they participate now? This “virtual town hall meeting” – the third of three – focused on how the media presents American business and society.
The multi-component program brought together a diverse interdisciplinary group from North America, Europe, South America, Africa and the Middle East, and Asia to identify and discuss the ways in which media coverage of the US presidency coincides and differs domestically and internationally. Participants analyzed which political, economic, and cultural trends the press chooses to highlight, monitor, and comment upon, in order to discuss how this influences world events, public response and the future of democratic institutions and civic engagement.
The public relies on the media to gain insight into how the president, and other world leaders, view key events, issues, and figures as well as how they use political, economic, and cultural crosscurrents to make policy choices. Nowadays, political leaders can speak directly to their public, engaging citizens in fresh ways or manipulating them to stoke grievance and division. Beyond the news, cultural representations of US presidents – real and fictional – have also long influenced how the world and the US views “leadership of the free world.” Other countries’ reactions to American presidential actions are influenced by their own national media markets and may in turn determine how those media report on their own heads of state.
