Personalising politics in a global crisis: the media communication techniques of John Curtin and Franklin D. Roosevelt in the Pacific War, 1941-45

Personalising politics in a global crisis: the media communication techniques of John Curtin and Franklin D. Roosevelt in the Pacific War, 1941-45

During their Pacific war alliance, Curtin and Roosevelt expanded the national leader’s use of the media to symbolise a more public persona of governance that involved citizens in crisis discussions. While the ‘personalisation of politics’ is a growing scholarly topic, there is a lack of research on the two leaders’ use of relatively new media to evoke perceptions of their direct communications with publics during this conflict. Although they benefited from censorship, this study of their communication techniques reveals insights into how political leaders have framed media rhetoric and camera imagery to convey their administrations as increasingly inclusive public spaces.