By Rachel Grant, Membership Co-Chair, University of Florida, rgrant@jou.ufl.edu

Dr. Amber Roessner is an associate professor of journalism and electronic media in the College of Communication and Information at the University of Tennessee—Knoxville. She recently wrote Jimmy Carter and the Birth of the Marathon Media Campaign.

Q: Describe the focus of your book.  

A: This book tells the story of a transformative moment in American politics and journalism by examining the rise of Jimmy Carter, Time’s 1976 “miracle” man, through a representational and relational analysis of archival documents, media texts, and memory texts surrounding the negotiation of political images by presidential aspirants, campaign consultants, frontline reporters, and various publics involved in the bicentennial campaign. Though many cultural observers dismissed Carter’s campaign and presidency as the final chapter of Watergate, this book reveals that his “miraculous” rise in the bicentennial campaign signaled a new chapter in American politics and journalism that still reverberates today.