Senior Honors Projects, 2010-2019
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.
Date of Graduation
Spring 2014
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Bachelor of Arts (BA)
Department
Department of Political Science
Advisor(s)
David Jones
Kathleen Ferraiolo
Robert Roberts
Abstract
Over the course of the postwar era, media scrutiny of public officials has increased immensely. This scrutiny, while at first applied only to the public lives of politicians, has come to include their private lives and personalities. I seek to examine the factors that may have caused this scrutiny over time including technology, relationship with the media, the use of anonymous sources, competition among the media, and the availability of 24-hour news. Using a qualitative case study approach, I will analyze three presidential scandals in order to determine how these variables may explain an increase in the media scrutiny of public officials. Based on my findings, these variables appear related to the level of media scrutiny that public officials endure, although I was unable to determine if these variables cause scrutiny to increase or are just correlated with increased scrutiny.
Recommended Citation
Salomon, Stephanie Lynn, "Media scrutiny of politicians and the relevance of private life and personality" (2014). Senior Honors Projects, 2010-2019. 473.
https://commons.lib.jmu.edu/honors201019/473
