scholarly journals Citizen Typography and Political Brands in the 2016 US Presidential Election Campaign

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas J Billard

The 2016 presidential campaign between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump saw citizen typography emerge in highly visible and highly impactful ways, particularly as the candidates made seemingly little attempt to maintain full control over their visual brand identities. But what does the surprising significance of typography in this recent campaign reveal about marketing and citizen participation in politics, about political brand management in a networked media environment, and about typography’s role as a key pillar of branded political communication? This essay offers two key concepts: the networking of political brands and an emerging logic of participatory aesthetics—both of which point to a decentralisation of traditional ‘brand management’ in favour of affectively-driven political engagement through visual communications disseminated over communication networks.

2018 ◽  
Vol 18 (3) ◽  
pp. 421-431 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas J Billard

The 2016 presidential campaign between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump saw citizen typography emerge in highly visible and highly impactful ways, particularly as the candidates made seemingly little attempt to maintain full control over their visual brand identities. But what does the surprising significance of typography in this recent campaign reveal about marketing and citizen participation in politics, about political brand management in a networked media environment and about typography’s role as a key pillar of branded political communication? This essay offers two key concepts: the networking of political brands and an emerging logic of participatory aesthetics – both of which point to a decentralization of traditional ‘brand management’ in favour of affectively driven political engagement through visual communications disseminated over communication networks.


2014 ◽  
Vol 152 (1) ◽  
pp. 57-74 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jim Macnamara ◽  
Gail Kenning

Following the 2004 US presidential election campaign, which was described as ‘a critical turning point’ in use of social media, and particularly the 2008 Obama campaign, there has been increasing focus on use of social media for political campaigning and what is termed e-electioneering and e-democracy. However, studies of election campaigns between 2010 and 2012 in a number of countries have identified what Steve Woolgar (2002) calls cyberbole in relation to social media for political engagement. With substantive patterns of change in political communication yet to be identified, a quantitative and qualitative study of social media use in the 2013 Australian federal election campaign was conducted using the same methodology as studies of the 2007 and 2010 campaigns to gain comparative longitudinal data. This identified trends in the volume of e-electioneering and the ways in which social media are being used for political communication and democratic engagement.


2019 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 128-138
Author(s):  
KyuJin Shim ◽  
Klive (Soo-Kwang) Oh

This study investigated the effects of fear of isolation (FOI) on political content consumption and creation in the context of online communication. Using more than 1,000 respondents from South Korea, the study empirically tested a theoretical model of FOI on political content consumption and expressions with two mediators (i.e., attention/status-seeking, and anonymity-seeking). Results indicated that FOI is related to seeking attention and status in political outlets also connected to anonymity-preference that leads to political expression. Implications for political communication scholarship and for practitioners are that voters’ political participations can be understood in a framework different from traditional focus on persuasion, political ideology, or demographics because—in today’s virtual and interactive media environment—users are more content consumers or community participants.


Author(s):  
Yochai Benkler ◽  
Robert Faris ◽  
Hal Roberts

This chapter presents the book’s macrolevel findings about the architecture of political communication and the news media ecosystem in the United States from 2015 to 2018. Two million stories published during the 2016 presidential election campaign are analyzed, along with another 1.9 million stories about Donald Trump’s presidency during his first year. The chapter examines patterns of interlinking between online media sources to understand the relations of authority and credibility among publishers, as well as the media sharing practices of Twitter and Facebook users to elucidate social media attention patterns. The data and mapping reveal not only a profoundly polarized media landscape but stark asymmetry: the right is more insular, skewed towards the extreme, and set apart from the more integrated media ecosystem of the center, center-left, and left.


2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 39-44
Author(s):  
Nurali Shodiev ◽  

The article examines the development trends of modern networks of political communication, the growing influence of social networks on the Internet on the civic engagement of citizens. At thesame time, the role of various blogs in expanding citizen participation in public administration is scientifically analyzed.The analysis ofsocial networks, blogs and various media resources used on the Internet as a platform and tool for civic initiatives and activity in society is carried out. The article also discusses modern methods and techniques for using political communications to increase civic engagement.


2021 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
Author(s):  
Magdalena Riedl ◽  
Carsten Schwemmer ◽  
Sandra Ziewiecki ◽  
Lisa M. Ross

Despite an increasing information overflow in the era of digital communication, influencers manage to draw the attention of their followers with an authentic and casual appearance. Reaching large audiences on social media, they can be considered as digital opinion leaders. In the past, they predominantly appeared as experts for topics like fashion, sports, or gaming and used their status to cooperate with brands for marketing purposes. However, since recently influencers also turn towards more meaningful and political content. In this article, we share our perspective on the rise of political influencers using examples of sustainability and related topics covered on Instagram. By applying a qualitative observational approach, we illustrate how influencers make political communication look easy, while at the same time seamlessly integrating product promotions in their social media feeds. In this context, we discuss positive aspects of political influencers like contributions to education and political engagement, but also negative aspects such as the potential amplification of radical political ideology or conspiracy theories. We conclude by highlighting political influencers as an important research topic for conceptual and empirical studies in the future.


2020 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 73-87
Author(s):  
Nina Gorenc

The research behind this paper is set in the context of the 2016 US presidential election that has come to symbolize the post-truth era. We conducted a literature review on the 2016 election, with the aim to better understand the impact of computational propaganda on the election outcome and on the behaviour of voters. The paper opens with a definition of post-truth society and related concepts such as fake news and computational propaganda. It explores the changes of political communication in a digital environment and analyses the role of social media in the 2016 election. It probes into phenomena such as the trivialization of politics and the loss of credibility of political actors, which are both common in post-truth societies. The reviewed literature seems to indicate that social media have become strong actors on the political stage, but so far not the predominant source of political information and influence on the behaviour of voters. The paper makes two important contributions. Firstly, drawing on the concept of post-truth society, it analyses the role of computational propaganda in the 2016 presidential election, and secondly, it attempts to explain the paradox of general political apathy on one hand, and increased political activism on the other. These are some of the challenges we are now facing, and in order to be able to cope with them it is important to acknowledge and understand them.


Author(s):  
Vladimir E. Kosyakov ◽  

Introduction: the article contains the analysis of the unique features of Volodimir Zelensky’s presidential election campaign, the success of which is based on the image of a political leader deliberately built as totally different from the one traditional for the Ukraine’s political elite. Objectives: studying the main political trends in presidential campaigns of Volodimir Zelensky and Donald Trump, to identify common elements of their image-building strategies. Methods: comparative analysis. Results: the study verifies the effectiveness of building the counter-culture image of a political leader in the conditions of high levels of political cynicism and citizens’ distrust to their government. Conclusions: the tactics used by Donald Trump and Volodimir Zelensky during the 2016 US elections and 2019 Ukrainian elections respectively are similar at their core. The difference manifests itself in the types of political images used, as formed with respect to the candidates’ previous careers.


PLoS ONE ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. e0248049
Author(s):  
Bo MacInnis ◽  
Joanne M. Miller ◽  
Jon A. Krosnick ◽  
Clifton Below ◽  
Miriam Lindner

Research in a few U.S. states has shown that candidates listed first on ballots gain extra votes as a result. This study explored name order effects for the first time in New Hampshire, where such effects might be weak or entirely absent because of high political engagement and the use of party column ballots. In general elections (in 2012 and 2016) for federal offices and the governorship and in primaries (in 2000, 2002, and 2004), evidence of primacy effects appeared in 86% of the 84 tests, including the 2016 presidential race, when Donald Trump gained 1.7 percentage points from first listing, and Hillary Clinton gained 1.5 percentage points. Consistent with theoretical predictions, primacy effects were larger in primaries and for major-party candidates in general elections than for non-major-party candidates in general elections, more pronounced in less publicized contests, and stronger in contests without an incumbent running. All of this constitutes evidence of the reliability and generalizability of evidence on candidate name order effects and their moderators.


2017 ◽  
Vol 5 (4) ◽  
pp. 15-25 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karin Liebhart ◽  
Petra Bernhardt

This article addresses the strategic use of Instagram in election campaigns for the office of the Austrian Federal President in 2016. Based on a comprehensive visual analysis of 504 Instagram posts from Green-backed but independent presidential candidate Alexander Van der Bellen, who resulted as winner after almost one year of campaigning, this contribution reconstructs key aspects of digital storytelling on Instagram. By identifying relevant image types central to the self-representation of the candidate, this article shows how a politician makes use of a digital platform in order to project and manage desired images. The salience of image types allows for the reconstruction of underlying visual strategies: (1) the highlighting of the candidate’s biography (<em>biographical strategy</em>), (2) the presentation of his campaign team (<em>team strategy</em>), and (3) the presentation of the candidate as a legitimate office holder (<em>incumbent strategy</em>). The article thus sheds light on visual aspects of digital storytelling as relevant factor of political communication.


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