The TV drama "The West Wing," which concludes its seven-year run this Sunday, has helped reshape the cultural understanding of the presidency, according to Trevor and Shawn Parry-Giles, University of Maryland political communication experts who have closely studied the series and written a book analyzing its content, "The Prime Time Presidency: The West Wing and U.S. Nationalism."
'The West Wing' offered a compelling, romantic, complicated vision of the American presidency over the span of seven tumultuous years of American history," says Trevor Parry-Giles, an associate professor of political communication at Maryland. "First aired in the aftermath of the Clinton impeachment, and continuing through the 2000 election debacle, the 9/11 attacks, and the war in Iraq, 'The West Wing' provided its viewers with another layer of meaning about the presidency " one that is easily the most complex popular culture depiction of a president and his administration ever offered."
The husband and wife team have also written about image-making in the Clinton administration.
"The series offered a rich and often ambivalent depiction of women, people of color, the military, and politics in general," says Shawn Parry-Giles, who is an associate professor at Maryland and directs the Center for Political Communication and Civic Leadership. "It offers a glimpse of the dynamic tensions at work in contemporary discourses about American nationalism, U.S. national identity, and the American presidency at the dawn of the 21st century."
For interviews, contact them directly at the numbers below.
TREVOR PARRY-GILES, associate professor, University of Maryland
Expertise: political communication, advertising and popular culture; Bill Clinton's Presidency; hurricane Katrina and President Bush's response; American political rhetoric; Supreme Court confirmation history and politics
Credentials: co-author, "The Prime-Time Presidency: The West Wing and U.S. Nationalism" and "Constructing Clinton: Hyperreality and Presidential Image-Making in Postmodern Politics"; author, "The Character of Justice: Rhetoric, Law, and Politics in the Supreme Court Confirmation Process"; former political consultant
Web site: http://www.wam.umd.edu/~tpg/
SHAWN PARRY-GILES, associate professor, University of Maryland; director, Center for Political Communication and Civic Leadership
Expertise: media coverage of presidency and First Lady; coverage of Hillary Rodham Clinton; popular culture and the presidency; U.S. war discourse; wartime propaganda; campaigns and elections, presidential debates
Credentials: books authored or co-authored: "The Prime-Time Presidency: The West Wing and U.S. Nationalism;" "The Rhetorical Presidency, Propaganda, and the Cold War, 1945-1955," "Constructing Clinton: Hyperreality and Presidential Image-Making in Postmodern Politics;" current book project focuses on media coverage of Hillary Rodham Clinton from 1992-2000 " a case study of women and political coverage
Web site: http://www.wam.umd.edu/~spg/
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