Presidents have historically used communications tools to interact with people across the country. The first prevalent form of communication tool used by presidents were public speeches delivered in-person to an audience of spectators who received the speech. An example of this would be Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, which demonstrates a key aspect of early Presidential communications: the need to be seen to be communicating directly to the people. Indeed, this helps explain the character of American presidential campaigns in the latter-half of the 19th century: the whistle-stop train tour was done in order to be seen to be directly communicating with Americans.
The second communications tool used by Presidents was the newspaper. During the years between 1869 and 1928 newspapers were the prime source of the American public’s news and political information (Gentzkow et al. 2981). The newspaper was the physical embodiment of the spreading of information across the country. Newspapers were the way that the American public could keep up with the president and his dealings, and presidential public images were strongly influenced by the portrayal of presidents in newspapers. At the same time, Presidents could use newspapers to recreate the historic need to directly interact with Americans, but with newspapers the interaction was mediated by both the staff of the newspaper and the staff of the President. Nonetheless, newspapers permitted some semblance of interaction between the President and the public, albeit at a distance. It was through newspapers that presidents tried to introduce his plans for the country. For this reason, the newspaper was a key factor in political campaigns for the presidency; “in the years 1869-1928, one additional newspaper increases presidential turnout by 0.3 percentage points” (Gentzkow et al. 2981). Thus, newspapers were an immensely important factor from which presidents sought to secure support, if not indeed control, because they mediated the relationship between the president and the public in a way that could build support for the Presidency. Newspapers built and maintained the infrastructure of information in the United States and held on to this position for close to 70 years. “The opening or closing of newspapers has long been linked to the health of democracy” (Gentzkow