Abstract
In Homestyle: House Members in their Districts (1978) Richard Fenno argued that members of Congress utilize different “home styles” when communicating with various segments of their constituency. These tailored, face-to-face interactions help build trust, are essential to the reelection effort, and shape member behavior once in office. In this paper, we reconfigure and extend Fenno’s theory to help explain presidential (in)action in the digital age. By analyzing President Trump’s daily press briefings and social media presence during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, we argue that just as a representative’s home style carries over into governance, the same can be said for a president in what we have called “presidential home styles.” We find that the characteristics that made Trump a successful campaigner in the 2016 election are not conducive to effective governance, especially during a crisis.
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© 2020 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Introduction: The Forum, Fall, 2020
- Race and Gender on Fox and MSNBC
- Understanding Trump Supporters’ News Use: Beyond the Fox News Bubble
- Presidential Home Style: Trump in the Era of COVID-19
- The Role and Impact of Fox News
- Legislator Adoption of the Fake News Label: Ideological Differences in Republican Representative Use on Twitter
- Will Reality Bite Back: Conspiratorial Fictions and the Assault on Democracy
- Book Reviews
- Review of A Century of Votes for Women: American Elections Since Suffrage
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Introduction: The Forum, Fall, 2020
- Race and Gender on Fox and MSNBC
- Understanding Trump Supporters’ News Use: Beyond the Fox News Bubble
- Presidential Home Style: Trump in the Era of COVID-19
- The Role and Impact of Fox News
- Legislator Adoption of the Fake News Label: Ideological Differences in Republican Representative Use on Twitter
- Will Reality Bite Back: Conspiratorial Fictions and the Assault on Democracy
- Book Reviews
- Review of A Century of Votes for Women: American Elections Since Suffrage