Listen free for 30 days

Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
Premium Plus auto-renews for $14.95/mo + applicable taxes after 30 days. Cancel anytime.
Creatures of Politics cover art

Creatures of Politics

Written by: Michael Lempert, Michael Silverstein
Narrated by: Clay Teunis
Try for $0.00

$14.95 a month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy Now for $26.40

Buy Now for $26.40

Pay using card ending in
By confirming your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and Amazon's Privacy Notice. Tax where applicable.

Publisher's Summary

It's a common complaint that a presidential candidate's style matters more than substance and that the issues have been eclipsed by mass-media-fueled obsession with a candidate's every slip, gaffe, and peccadillo. This audiobook explores political communication in American presidential politics, focusing on what political insiders call "message". Message, Michael Lempert and Michael Silverstein argue, is not simply an individual's positions on the issues but the craft used to fashion the creature the public sees as the candidate. Lempert and Silverstein examine some of the revelatory moments in debates, political ads, interviews, speeches, and talk shows to explain how these political creations come to have a life of their own. From the pandering "Flip-Flopper" to the self-reliant "Maverick", the authors demonstrate how these figures are fashioned out of the verbal, gestural, sartorial, behavioral - as well as linguistic - matter that comprises political communication.

©2012 Michael Lempert and Michael Silverstein (P)2013 Redwood Audiobooks

What the critics say

" Creatures of Politics makes for a fascinating read and an illuminating look into the complex realm of political rhetoric." ( Publishers Weekly)
"A timely, fascinating, pathbreaking book by two outstanding scholars that is sure to appeal to a wide audience." (Richard Bauman, author of Voices of Modernity: Language Ideologies and the Politics of Inequality)
"This book captures better than any other the way 'messaging' works in the mediatic public sphere. The authors have developed a sophisticated analytic framework, while their lively account of the culture of presidential communication remains sensitive to both the comedy and the seriousness of its subject." (Michael Warner, Yale University)

What listeners say about Creatures of Politics

Average Customer Ratings

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.