Going Global: Climate Change Discourse in Presidential Communications

Abstract

ABSTRACTThis study examines the contexts likely to influence the U.S. president to invoke climate change and how he might alter the content of his message based on these contexts. I draw on two datasets, one is a random sample (n = 1539) of all spoken presidential communications from George H.W. Bush through Barack Obama, and the other is the corpus of spoken presidential mentions of climate change (N = 2919). Using the first dataset, I examine the effect of geographic location and type of communication on a president’s decision to invoke climate change. In the second dataset, I test the effect of geographic location on the discursive approach he takes and his overall sentiment on the issue. The results show that presidents are more likely to invoke climate change in foreign locations and that the geographic context of the communication can influence the president’s choice of discursive approach and sentiment.