Introduction to the Special Issue on the Barack Hussein Obama Presidency

On November 4, 2008, Barack Hussein Obama was elected America's 44^th president and sworn in the next January 20. He was re-elected in 2012 and his 8 years in office ended January 20, 2017. It was a historic presidential tenure for various reasons. His wife, Michelle, summed her husband's tenure in the White House best when she spoke these words at the 2016 Democratic Party convention: “I wake up every morning in a house that was built by slaves. And I watch my daughters, two beautiful, intelligent black young women, playing with their dogs on the White House lawn.” Those words spoke volumes by highlighting the monumental fact that a Black man, Barack Obama, served as America's president, which marked a long journey of Blacks in America from slavery. As several of the articles in this special issue confirm, Obama's tenure is historic for other reasons as well.

History will show that there remains a long way to go in the journey of African Americans in America. In fact, the 8-year presidential tenure of President Barack Obama reminds all of us there are challenges that are yet to be overcome. Foremost among them is that racial issues largely remain and there is the feeling that President Obama may not have done enough on Black issues.

Of course, it is not surprising that some of President Obama's achievements will be vigorously contested. However, his achievements will stand the test of time. Waldman (2016) concurs by writing,

I wrote (before the 2008 elections) that he (Obama) had four great tasks before him. “If he sees the country through the current economic crisis, brings the war in Iraq to an end, passes health-care reform … and sets the country on a course away from reliance on fossil fuels, Obama would be considered the most important president since Franklin D. Roosevelt.” To varying degrees he has done all four. (para. 3 and 4)

Furthermore, Glastris, Cooper, and Hu (2012) counted among President Obama's successes the passing of health care reform after five previous presidents had failed in attempts to pass similar reforms. Obama passed an almost $800 billion stimulus that reduced unemployment claims after a recession that was regarded as the biggest since the Great Depression of the 1920s. Also, he passed the Wall Street Reform that would push back on lending excesses of financial houses. However, there were also failures, including concerns about his handling of relations with Iran and his failure to resolve the intractable Iraq war. There were also claims of racial timidity (Coates, 2012; Dyson, 2016; West, 2014).

The Howard Journal of Communications, in keeping with its focus on “ethnicity, gender, and culture as they interact with communication,” examines how Obama's Presidency is viewed from the lens of his and other's communications. There is a great deal of writing in this area, ranging from the novelty of his presidential campaign's extensive use of online social networking and his presidency's public engagement using social media (Adams & McCorkindale, 2013; Boys, 2010; Cogburn & Espinoza-Vasquez, 2011) to the inevitable analyses of Obama's encounters with racial discourses (Cisneros, 2015; Joseph, 2011; McKittrick, 2012).

Racial discourse was, particularly, pervasive during President Obama's tenure. A major marker of this discourse was Obama's relationship with controversial preacher Jeremiah Wright (Frank, 2009). Though the controversy occurred before Obama's 2008 election, the discourse was loaded with racial innuendos and throughout his presidency those innuendos were never fully erased as they always lurked in the background and sometimes appeared in the foreground. Further, President Obama's dogged attempt to maintain or occupy the space of postracial discourse was always tenuous and questioned. Sweet and McCue-Enser ( 2011) described President Obama's oratorical positioning on this issue as one in which Obama constructed his audience, the people, as constantly in flux, always being perfected but never fully finished, yet available to negotiate a national identity in the process of seeking a “perfect” nation.

Beyond the gaze at Obama, there is always an imagination of the inner feelings of the dominant racial group. After all, they had trusted Obama and saw in him as one that they could negotiate with in a vision of a new America. Brown (2011) interviewed 16 White men, who were in leadership positions in various organizations across America, to explore what these males imagined. In the end, Brown learned that members of the dominant racial group may rework racial ideologies when desired by reading racial meanings onto the actions of a popular Black leader. These meanings were in flux, dynamic, and indeterminate as opinion polls demonstrated throughout President Obama's tenure.

Contents of this special issue

President Obama's tenure, ultimately, was about disparate issues, but we narrow our focus on ethnicity, gender, and culture as they interact with communication. Therefore, this special issue seeks to capture meanings of President Obama's communications and other's communications about him. The articles published here are those selected from blind reviews following a call for papers distributed more than a year before the end of Barack Obama's presidency. They represent some of the strongest articles on Obama's presidency to date.

The first article by Judy L. Isaksen explores President Obama's use of humor and comedy in messaging. The article argues his use of humor and comedy is intentional and represents a way of negotiating Black masculinity. Isaksen argues that the social perceptions of Black masculinity view Black males as “violent and threatening,” among other pathologies, and require means of identity negotiation and dismantling of pre-existing perceptions. For President Obama, the use of humor and comedy becomes a means of overcoming those pre-existing perceptions. Isaksen provides examples of Obama's use of humor, including his use of humor to confront questions about his religion and nationality. Isaksen argues Obama's intentional use of humor allows him to critique the dominant culture's construction of intersectional identities of race, gender, religion and citizenry.

Yet, Obama's presidency was not always about President Obama. In many ways, his wife, First Lady Michelle Obama, was frequently the focus of discourse among Americans. Thus, MarianMeyers and Carmen Goman's article exploring narratives on Michelle Obama is quite appropriate. Meyers examines YouTube videos designed to redefine the First Lady, following earlier media framing of her as an unpatriotic and angry Black woman. Meyers' study deviates from her previous work (2013) and Mortensen (2015) that examined online representation of the First Lady. The current article explores meanings within narratives provided by the White House and the first lady via YouTube videos. Meyers' article discovers two primary themes: (a) education, hard work, and perseverance which are narrated as important for success; and (b) motherhood and family. The two, she argues, denote achievement of the American Dream.

The third article by Srividya Ramasubramanian and Amanda R. Martinez uses experimental design to investigate news framing of President Obama. The article specifically examines whether exposure to negatively framed stories (compared to positively framed stories) on President Obama result in symbolic racist beliefs that are mediated by an anti-Black effect and increased stereotypical perceptions of African Americans. The results of the path analysis confirm that negatively framed stories lead to symbolic racism from anti-Black affect. However, the study notes that the type of story—positively or negatively framed—did not impact stereotypical perceptions. The author believes that the nonsignificant finding regarding stereotypical perceptions could be explained by current social tendencies among White Americans not to publicly admit stereotypical perceptions of a racial group.

Timothy R. Gleason and Sara S. Hansen's article analyzes official photographs from the White House by examining image control, visual rhetoric of images, and possible motivations of the presidential office in controlling images of the president. Hansen argues that the study is important because of the Presidency's decision to stop photojournalists from photographing certain White House events in 2013. Hansen uses Althusser's (2014) ideological state apparatus and visual rhetoric to examine ten images photographed without photojournalists. She finds the images attempt to connect the president with past leaders (with their images as background) and power. Hansen, however, notes the images often project President Obama's uneasiness in a suit compared to his images during informal settings. Hansen attempts to explain the Presidency's attempt to control photographed images by citing the White House staff's discomfort with Fox News' adversarial reports on Obama's tenure.

Prior to the 2008 presidential election, The New Yorker magazine featured on its front cover a caricature of Barack and Michelle Obama that raised the specter of racism and religious identity. Elka M. Stevens and Tyson D. King-Meadows' article, “Technicolor Racism or Caricature Assassination? Satirizing White Anxiety About the Obama Presidency,” interrogates the defense of the image as satire and also uses secondary analysis of survey data from a Pew study to examine support for caricature. Stevens' iconographical analysis concludes the caricature depicted the Obamas as connected to each other but disconnected from American values. These conclusions follow deep analysis of dress, body, and background of the images. The data analysis suggests that although Republicans and Whites endorsed the image as a caricature and funny, Democrats and non-Whites saw the images as offensive and racist.

Jeffrey B. Kurtz's article focuses on President Obama's rhetorical struggles to work within tensions created by the intersection of race and violence. Kurtz examines four cases involving Obama's spoken responses to shootings in Tucson, Newtown, and Charleston and then the not-guilty verdict of George Zimmerman for the murder of Trayvon Martin. Kurtz's argues that Obama inherits James Baldwin's civic anger in challenging citizens to seek reconciliation during difficult moments. Obama's decision to construct this line of rhetoric earned him critics but Kurtz argues it invites us to deeply rethink how we approach tense racial situations, particularly embedded in politically and racially charged lynchings. Kurtz labels this as productive civic anger.

Finally, R. E. Glenn's essay is an analysis of President Obama's speeches at Tribal Nations Conferences. Glenn argues that President Obama's relationship with indigenous Americans is unique in American presidential history. Glenn's essay notes that demands of indigenous Americans differ significantly from those of minorities. He argues that although minorities agitate for participation in the American Dream, indigenous Americans seek to be separated from it and to return to precolonial systems. He then argues an examination of President Obama's speeches at the annual Tribal Nations Conferences presents America not as a unity of states but rather as a state of differing nations. Glenn concludes that President Obama has been friendly to indigenous nations and has advanced some of their needs by establishing the Indian Healthcare Improvement Act as part of the Affordable Care Act and implementing programs to improve access to broadband Internet for indigenous communities.

Conclusion

This special issue on Barack Obama's presidency is intended to record exemplars of President Obama's communication during his historic tenure as the 44^th president of the United States. It was a remarkable tenure that included many activities and achievements that were important to communication scholarship, particularly in the area of culture, ethnicity, and communication. Although we do not claim that articles in this special issue are exhaustive, we certainly present them as representative of President Obama's time in office. As Waldman (2016) has claimed, it was and continues to be a presidential tenure not only remarkable for its racially historic footnote but a tenure where “Obama would be considered the most important president since Franklin D. Roosevelt” (para. 4).