Murrell Library Research Guides: Communication and Mass Media: Mass Media & Political Communication

Speeches, Public Statements, and Other Media

The American Presidency Project
Fabulous site containing lots of information on the presidency, especially a fully searchable database of the Papers of the Presidents back to Washington, the Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents (Carter to G.W. Bush), and the Daily Compilation of Presidential Documents (2009-current). Also has party platforms back to 1840, convention speeches, candidates' remarks, election debates back to 1960, executive orders and proclamations, presidential approval back to 1941, vetoes, state of the union addresses, press briefings, and more.
Congressional Record for the 43rd-114th Congresses: Parsed Speeches and Phrase Counts, 1873-2017
Contains processed text from the bound and daily editions of the United States Congressional Record collected by Gentzkow et al. The bound edition covers the 43rd to 111th (1873–2011) Congresses, and the daily edition covers the 97th to 114th (1981–2017). Each edition includes all text spoken on the floor of each chamber of Congress. An automated script parses the text from each session to produce full-text speeches, metadata on speeches and their speakers, and counts of two-word phrases (bigrams) by speaker and party.
Federal News Service and CQ Transcripts
FNS contains White House briefings & statements by the President, Congressional hearings, National Press Club speeches (when discussing major topics or remarks by key U.S. or foreign figures), special briefings whether on record or not for attribution in addition to remarks of top ranking officials, 1988+. CQ contains transcripts of 4 to 5 complete congressional hearings per day as well as press briefings from the State, Justice, and Defense departments, presidential news conferences and press briefings, and speeches and press conferences by national newsmakers, 1995+. If searching for speeches, try something like: (HEADLINE(mccain w/8 (remarks OR speech))).
The White House Briefing Room
Official White House site providing text, photos, and video of statements, speeches, remarks, proclamations, executive orders, etc.
Presidential Speech Archive - Miller Center of Public Affairs
Extensive collection of presidential speeches from the Miller Center at the University of Virginia. Covers all administrations, many with audio and/or video.
Presidential Proclamations Project
The most complete record of presidential proclamations known to exist, with proclamations from President George Washington to President Barack Obama (approximately 10,000 records and counting). Provides a database of proclamations (and related directives), searchable by President, year, proclamation number, and issue category.
Annenberg/Pew Archive of Presidential Campaign Discourse
Contains transcripts of speeches, TV ads and debates of 12 US general election Presidential compaigns from 1952 though 1996. In .doc, .txt, and json formats.
United States Presidential Televised Debates, 1960-1996
Contains the transcripts of United States presidential and vice presidential televised debates of the twentieth century. Includes general election debates among candidates from 1960 to 1996.
Project Vote Smart: Public Statements
Large collection of public statements and press releases from public officials and candidates, both nationally and at the state level and for various offices.
Presidential Rhetoric
Site by two professors (Baylor & Vanderbilt) containing text of major speeches by presidents and presidential candidates. Contains speeches back to Washington. Also contains a list, by president, of links to other sites with information on rhetoric and speeches of that president.
American Rhetoric: Online Speech Bank
Large collection of speeches, both political and not, in mp3, PDF, and html formats.
Websites for Political Speeches
Collection of links by a researcher at Wake Forest University to additional speech sources. No longer updated, but may be worth checking for additional sources.
State of the State Speeches
Archive of state of the state speeches by governors in all 50 states 2002-2011.
House.Resource.Org
Bulk download of House of Representatives Committee Hearing videos and transcripts. Most are from the Oversight Committee, but other committees are also represented. 100th-112th Congresses (1987-2012).
Politwoops: Deleted Tweets of Public Officials
Politwoops tracks deleted tweets by public officials, including people currently in office and candidates for office. Can be filtered by state, party, position, or politician.

Sources for Paper Ideas

Columbia Journalism Review
CJR "examines day-to-day press performance as well as the forces that affect that performance." Lots of coverage of political topics. For articles from the magazine, current issues are in the DeLong Room in Firestone (PN4700 .C658).
American Journalism Review
AJR "examines how the media cover specific stories and broader coverage trends. AJR analyzes ethical dilemmas in the field and monitors the impact of technology on how journalism is practiced." AJR is published 6 times a year and has its archives fully online.
Center for Media and Public Affairs
Nonpartisan research unit at George Mason Univ. Has numerous studies of media coverage of presidential administrations and elections, political humor, international affairs, entertainment, and more.

Selected Web Sites of Interest

FactCheck.org
A nonpartisan project of the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania, Fact Check monitors the factual accuracy of what is said by major U.S. political players in TV ads, debates, speeches, interviews, and news releases.
Politifact.com's Truth-O-Meter®
Fact checking website from the St. Petersburg Times that provides a "scorecard separating fact from fiction" on statements by politicians and candidates. Each statement is rated on the Truth-O-Meter, with scores like "half-true," "false," and "pants on fire!"
Project Vote Smart Media Links
Large collection of links to various media sites and organizations from Project Vote Smart, a nonpartisan organization that provides extensive information on candidates and elected officials.
Center for Digital Democracy
A leading consumer protection organization in the U.S., CDD engages in research, public education, and advocacy about contemporary digital media and marketing and their impact on public health, children and youth, and privacy.
Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR)
Widely-recognized, progressive national media watchdog. Scrutinizes "media practices that marginalize public interest, minority and dissenting viewpoints."
Project Vote Smart: Public Statements
Large collection of press releases and public statements by national and state officials as well as candidates for public office.

Codes of Ethics

Codes of Ethics

One of the ways in which a news source demonstrates its authenticity and responsibility to its readers is through a publicly accessible code of ethics or standards. A sample of various codes, mission statements and ethics handbooks are listed below.

Accountable Journalism - The world’s largest collection of ethical codes of conduct and press organisations. The site is meant to be a resource, which explains global press ethics and regulation systems, and provides advice on ethical reporting and dealing with hate speech.
American Society of News Editors: Codes of Ethics - A comprehensive list of codes of ethics from 47 different news outlets and professional organizations dedicated to journalism.
Ethical Journalism Network - A UK organization that shares the conviction that the principles of ethical journalism are universal and a precious resource that builds respect for democracy and human rights.
International Association of Business Communicators Code of Ethics for Professional Communicators
Society of Professional Journalists Code of Ethics

Codes of Ethics from Media Outlets

BBC Code of Conduct
CNN (Warner Media) Ethics and Compliance
Columbia Daily Tribune (USA Today Network)
Kansas City Star Code of Ethics (McClatchy Newspapers)
Red dot used as a bullet NPR Ethics Handbook
New York Times: Standards and Ethics
USA Today Network Principles of Ethical Conduct For Newsrooms
Wall Street Journal - Dow Jones Code of Ethics

Political Advertising

Wisconsin Advertising Project, 1998–2008
Datasets covering TV campaign ads for federal and gubernatorial elections, 1998–2008. You can view the codebooks online, but you must submit a data use agreement and $20 for each campaign year requested. All datasets are provided in SPSS and Stata formats. Storyboards of all creatives are also provided as PDFs. Over time coverage increased to all 210 media markets in the US.
Wesleyan Media Project: Political Advertising Analysis, 2010–
Successor to the Wisconsin Advertising Project. Covers elections from 2010 on, with a rolling 4 year embargo imposed by Kantar Media/CMAG, who supply the data. You can view the codebooks online, but you must submit a data use agreement and $20 for each campaign year requested. There is some summary data and analysis available through the press releases of the project. Summaries of CMAG data on the current presidential election can be found on AdAge.com.
ProPublica Political Advertisements from Facebook
This database, updated daily, contains ads that ran on Facebook and were submitted by thousands of ProPublica users from around the world via a browser extension that automatically collected advertisements on their Facebook pages. Ads are classified using machine learning to identify likely political ads. Includes numerous data fields.
Political TV Ad Archive
A new project by the Internet Archive in conjunction with their TV News Archive. Collects political TV ads in key early 2016 primary election states and key media markets. Not clear if it will continue on past the primary season. In addition to the videos, you can download a unique list of all ads they've collected and details of the airings, including candidate, sponsor and type, number of airings, station, location, program type, negativity, and more.
OpenSecrets.org
Great source for data and analysis on campaign finance at the federal level. Covers contributions to candidates and PACs; campaign spending by outside groups; lobbying and interest groups; personal finances of politicians and the revolving door of politicians to lobbyists; political ad buys; and more. From the Center for Responsive Politics. 1998+ Bulk data freely available for non-commercial use.
ProPublica 2012 Political Ad Buy Data
Data on approximately $1.2 billion in political ad buys in 33 media markets during the 2012 election. This data set was created by nearly 1,000 volunteers and curated by ProPublica reporters.
Julian P. Kanter Political Commercial Archive
Housed at the University of Oklahoma, the Archive is the largest most comprehensive collection of political advertising in the world, with more than 90,000 commercials, TV ads back to 1950, and radio spots back to 1936. Items can be viewed on site, or a limited number can be requested remotely via a temporary loan (fees apply).
C-SPAN Political Ad Collection
The C-SPAN Video Library also collects some political ads for Congressional and other political candidates. Content can be filtered by date or additional keywords/terms. Early 1990s forward.
Stanford Political Communication Lab
Archive of numerous campaign ads from presidential (2000-2012) and various California congressional and state elections (1994-present). Ads can be viewed online. Site also has publications based on the research done at the lab.
The Living Room Candidate
A collection of presidential campaign commercials from 1952-2012, put together by the Museum of the Moving Image. Browse by year, by type of ad, and by issue. You can make your own ad by combining historical footage with your own images and audio.
EASE History Campaign Ads
Collection of over 200 presidential campaign ads from 1952-2012. Ads can be browsed by various tags: candidate, election year, issue, theme, incumbent vs. challenger, winner vs. loser, positive vs. negative. Interesting option to be able to watch two videos side by side to compare.
Political Advertising Resource Center (Univ. Maryland)
Current project has a large collection of political ads and analyses related to the health care reform of 2009.

Photo & Video Journalism

Internet Archive TV News Project (2009–)
Building on the Vanderbilt TV News Archive, the Internet Archive collects and preserves TV news from national U.S. networks and stations in San Francisco and Washington D.C. Search closed caption text and short, streamed clips (full broadcasts can be borrowed on DVD for a fee). The archive is updated with new broadcasts 24 hours after they are aired. Contains nearly 1.5 million broadcasts, including curated collections on Donald Trump, the Executive Branch, 9/11, and more.
GDELT Television Explorer
Allows you to visualize keyword trends in the Internet Archive's collection of American television news. The Television Explorer breaks results into individual sentences and counts how many of those sentences contain your keyword of interest. Results can be graphed or downloaded to CSV or JSON. See also their companion 2016 Campaign Television Tracker and 2016 Candidate Web Tracker
C-SPAN Video Library
Extensive archive of political video covering every C-SPAN program aired since 1987. Particularly valuable for coverage of Congress, including video of congressional hearings, but also lots of coverage of campaigns and elections.
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Try searching a person's name, then clicking on the individual's link in the "Persons" category. From here you can browse for content featuring that person by year or role (senator, governor, candidate, etc.).
Under the advanced search, you can also browse a list of tags (like 2008 elections) to help narrow your search.

Media & politics journals

Some journals that might be worth browsing:

Political Communication
Journal of Communication
International Journal of Press/Politics
Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly
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most recent year not available online; current issues in Periodicals Reading Room PN4700 .J7
Public Opinion Quarterly
International Journal of Public Opinion Research
Communication Research
Information, Communication & Society