The narrative that wasn’t: what passes for discourse in the age of Trump

2019 ◽  
Vol 42 (2) ◽  
pp. 225-241
Author(s):  
Emily R Anderson
Keyword(s):  
News Media ◽  
Presidential Election ◽  
Political Discourse ◽  
Fake News ◽  
Donald Trump ◽  
Political Narratives ◽  
Us Presidential Election ◽  
Discursive Power

This article considers political discourse and the role it played in the 2016 US presidential election while paying particular attention to its construction of narrative. Foucault’s understanding of discourse and power frames the argument that Donald Trump successfully abandoned political narratives. Instead, he often used idiosyncratic language, instances in which the surface of a statement outshines its content. These normally appear in Trump’s tweets and culminate in his invective against the ‘fake news’ media. In order to respond to Trump, his interlocutors must posit a premise and then refute it; in even granting that there is a premise, one must take Trump on his own terms. Trump thus disrupts the direction of traditional discursive power.

Fake It “Till You Make It”: Debunking Fake News in a Post-Truth America

2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 114-133
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
First Amendment ◽  
Presidential Election ◽  
Political Discourse ◽  
Cutting Edge ◽  
American People ◽  
Fake News ◽  
News Sources ◽  
The Media ◽  
The U.S

Since the 2016 U.S. presidential election, attacks on the media have been relentless. “Fake news” has become a household term, and repeated attempts to break the trust between reporters and the American people have threatened the validity of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. In this article, the authors trace the development of fake news and its impact on contemporary political discourse. They also outline cutting-edge pedagogies designed to assist students in critically evaluating the veracity of various news sources and social media sites.

How Twitter drives the global news agenda: Tweets from Brazil, Russia, India, China, the UK and US and online discourse about the 2016 US presidential election

2021 ◽  
pp. 174276652110399
Author(s):  
Jane O’Boyle ◽  
Carol J Pardun
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Content Analysis ◽  
News Media ◽  
Presidential Election ◽  
Online Discourse ◽  
Political Communications ◽  
The Us ◽  
Us Presidential Election ◽  
The Uk ◽  
India And China

A manual content analysis compares 6019 Twitter comments from six countries during the 2016 US presidential election. Twitter comments were positive about Trump and negative about Clinton in Russia, the US and also in India and China. In the UK and Brazil, Twitter comments were largely negative about both candidates. Twitter sources for Clinton comments were more frequently from journalists and news companies, and still more negative than positive in tone. Topics on Twitter varied from those in mainstream news media. This foundational study expands communications research on social media, as well as political communications and international distinctions.

The small, disloyal fake news audience: The role of audience availability in fake news consumption

2018 ◽  
Vol 20 (10) ◽  
pp. 3720-3737 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jacob L Nelson ◽  
Harsh Taneja
Keyword(s):  
Social Network ◽  
News Media ◽  
Presidential Election ◽  
Social Network Sites ◽  
High Availability ◽  
Small Subset ◽  
Fake News ◽  
Media Environment ◽  
Internet Users

In light of the recent US election, many fear that “fake news” has become a force of enormous reach and influence within the news media environment. We draw on well-established theories of audience behavior to argue that the online fake news audience, like most niche content, would be a small subset of the total news audience, especially those with high availability. By examining online visitation data across mobile and desktop platforms in the months leading up to and following the 2016 presidential election, we indeed find the fake news audience comprises a small, disloyal group of heavy Internet users. We also find that social network sites play an outsized role in generating traffic to fake news. With this revised understanding, we revisit the democratic implications of the fake news crisis.

Perceptions of democracy and the rise of Donald Trump: A framing analysis of Saudi Arabian media

2019 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 159-175 ◽  
Author(s):  
Benjamin Isakhan ◽  
Zim Nwokora ◽  
Chengxin Pan
Keyword(s):  
Saudi Arabia ◽  
21St Century ◽  
Presidential Election ◽  
Saudi Arabian ◽  
Democracy Promotion ◽  
Framing Analysis ◽  
Donald Trump ◽  
Kingdom Of Saudi Arabia ◽  
The Us ◽  
Us Presidential Election

The 2016 US presidential election, which brought Donald J. Trump to power, raised concerns that his ascendency could undermine US democracy promotion and enable illiberal regimes to resist calls for reform. This article seeks to hold this argument up to empirical scrutiny via a framing analysis of coverage of the US election in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA). To some extent, the analysis supports the claim: throughout the election, the KSA media offered several substantive criticisms of democracy. However, Trump’s campaign also served as a catalyst for a discussion about the merits of democracy, revealing some admiration for its key principles, and an acknowledgement of the challenges it faces in the 21st century.

scholarly journals Analysis of Facebook Meme Groups Used During the 2016 US Presidential Election

2019 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 205630511880879 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mia Moody-Ramirez ◽  
Andrew B Church
Keyword(s):  
Facial Expressions ◽  
Political Party ◽  
Presidential Election ◽  
Hillary Clinton ◽  
Group Setting ◽  
Donald Trump ◽  
Political Ideas ◽  
Us Presidential Election ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Facebook Pages

Using content analysis, this study examines how citizens may use memes to share grassroots political ideas in a social media group setting during elections. Specifically, it offers a glimpse at the types of meme-related Facebook pages that emerged during the 2016 presidential election with an emphasis on representations of the two front-runner candidates—Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. Generally, Facebook-meme pages and profile photos of both candidates were negative in tone with Trump more likely to be framed in terms of his hairstyle and facial expressions and Clinton in terms of the email scandal and her relationships with people. Political party and gender differences between these two candidates contributed to variations in representations. Study findings are important as they offer a look at grassroots use of memes during a major election and provide a general overview of Facebook user depictions of the two politicians.

Feeling protected: protective masculinity and femininity from Donald Trump and Joe Biden to Jacinda Ardern

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carol Johnson
Keyword(s):  
Presidential Election ◽  
Positive Emotions ◽  
Prime Minister ◽  
Political Leaders ◽  
Donald Trump ◽  
Electoral Defeat ◽  
Gendered Leadership ◽  
Us Presidential Election ◽  
Negative Feelings

This article emphasises the role that political leaders’ discourse plays in evoking positive emotions among citizens in uncertain times, such as feeling protected, secure and proud in addition to the leaders’ (often interconnected) role of encouraging negative feelings such as fear, resentment and anger. The article argues that such discourse frequently involves performances of gendered leadership. It cites examples from a range of countries to illustrate the points being made, but focuses on the 2020 US presidential election which saw a contest between two forms of protective masculinity: Trump’s exclusionary, macho, hypermasculinity versus Biden’s more socially inclusive, empathetic and softer version. Trump’s protective masculinity failure over managing the COVID-19 pandemic was arguably one of the factors contributing to his electoral defeat, while Biden aimed to make voters feel safer and more protected than under Trump. The article also provides examples of protective femininity, with a particular focus on the discourse of New Zealand’s prime minister, Jacinda Ardern.

Characteristics of Tweets from @realDonaldTrump in Early 2020

2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (8) ◽  
pp. 475-483
Author(s):  
Cynthia Whissell
Keyword(s):  
News Media ◽  
First Year ◽  
Fake News ◽  
Donald Trump

This research examines the tweeting behavior of US president Donald Trump during the early crisis months of 2020. A study of 1507 tweets posted in January-April 2020, and a comparison of these to tweets from the first year of his presidency (2017) led to several statistically significant conclusions.  Overall, the language of the tweets remained somewhat positive or pleasant. Trump’s tweets were both longer and much more frequent in 2020 (the rate rose from 7 to 30 per day). The pleasantness of the language in tweets was negatively related to their popularity (popular tweets used relatively unpleasant language). The president’s tweeting behavior modified somewhat (e.g. fewer hourly tweets) in conjunction with the coronavirus crisis and the abrupt decline of the markets in March. The tweets gave evidence of a distinctly Trumpian vocabulary that favored words and phrases such as “great”, “hoax”, and “fake news media”.

Fake News and the Jesus Historian

2016 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 248-261
Author(s):  
Anthony Le Donne
Keyword(s):  
General Public ◽  
Political Discourse ◽  
Popular Media ◽  
Historical Jesus ◽  
Fake News ◽  
Political Climate ◽  
Donald Trump ◽  
Cultural Phenomenon

This article surveys a cultural phenomenon in American popular media that complicates how the historical Jesus is received: fake news. It suggests that fake Jesus news relates to the problems we face in Donald Trump-related political discourse. Moreover, the present political climate will make it even more difficult for professional historians to be heard and trusted by the general public.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document