“My use of social media is not Presidential – it’s Modern Day Presidential” : A Study on How Donald Trump Frames Mainstream Media on Twitter
Kullberg, Robin (2021)
Kullberg, Robin
2021
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Julkaisun pysyvä osoite on
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi-fe202101071270
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi-fe202101071270
Tiivistelmä
One of Donald Trump’s most important tools as president of the U.S. is arguably the social media platform Twitter, on which he has engaged in constant attack on what he calls ‘Fake News’. His discourse on various news networks and media professionals largely characterizes his years as a ‘Social Media President’. The aim of this thesis is to study how Trump addresses various media entities and what linguistic features outline Trump’s rhetoric in a computer-mediated context.
This research is two-fold: Study 1 deals with quantitative data on Trump’s mentions of fourteen news networks and ten media professionals during his first two years as president; and Study 2 comprises a detailed qualitative analysis on 82 tweets which were selected from Study 1. All data was collected from Trump Twitter Archive, a comprehensive compilation of Trump’s tweets. Identifying and determining the political bias of each news network mentioned by Trump was aided by online media bias charts Ad Fontes Media, AllSides and Media Bias/Fact Check.
The results showed that Trump overwhelmingly endorses Fox News and its journalists, and that he is consistently critical of left-wing media outlets and their employees. While the former is usually mentioned on its own, Trump habitually frames several left-wing news networks in a single tweet, often under a moniker, such as Fake News or Failing. He evidently uses a narrow vocabulary which is often based on competition, success and money and his use of speech acts resembles that of the average Twitter user. The qualitative tweet analysis showed that there are subtle differences in how he frames various media professionals of the same political bias, and in some cases his attitudes change over time.
In conclusion, Trump uses Twitter to effectively create a version of reality which in which he can promote and praise himself as well as his supporters, and, more importantly, where he can frame his critics as liars, fakers and frauds unconstrained by the influence of mainstream media.
This research is two-fold: Study 1 deals with quantitative data on Trump’s mentions of fourteen news networks and ten media professionals during his first two years as president; and Study 2 comprises a detailed qualitative analysis on 82 tweets which were selected from Study 1. All data was collected from Trump Twitter Archive, a comprehensive compilation of Trump’s tweets. Identifying and determining the political bias of each news network mentioned by Trump was aided by online media bias charts Ad Fontes Media, AllSides and Media Bias/Fact Check.
The results showed that Trump overwhelmingly endorses Fox News and its journalists, and that he is consistently critical of left-wing media outlets and their employees. While the former is usually mentioned on its own, Trump habitually frames several left-wing news networks in a single tweet, often under a moniker, such as Fake News or Failing. He evidently uses a narrow vocabulary which is often based on competition, success and money and his use of speech acts resembles that of the average Twitter user. The qualitative tweet analysis showed that there are subtle differences in how he frames various media professionals of the same political bias, and in some cases his attitudes change over time.
In conclusion, Trump uses Twitter to effectively create a version of reality which in which he can promote and praise himself as well as his supporters, and, more importantly, where he can frame his critics as liars, fakers and frauds unconstrained by the influence of mainstream media.
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