Analyze
President Trump’s tweets during the week of your last birthday (in 2018 or 2017).
What topics were covered? Were any individuals mentioned in the tweets? How
would you describe the tone of the tweets (positive, negative, neutral)? How
representative were that week’s tweets of President Trump’s general use of
Twitter as a communications tool? And how does President Trump’s use of Twitter
compare to the social media usage of other politicians, particularly President
Obama (as discussed in the Farnsworth chapters) or Hillary Clinton (covered in Denton Ch. 5)? You should refer to the Farnsworth or Denton chapters and at least one additional reading posted for this week (9/18) to
support your analysis. Also, upload to the class OneDrive shared file a screenshot of a tweet that best represents your week.
My birthday falls on June 22nd. So, I used Twitter’s advanced search function to curate President Trump’s tweets from June 17th through the 23rd. My first observation, not related to any of the questions, is that, judging by the number of tweets, this man is on his phone more than the average millennial. Not that I needed an excuse to use my phone more, but it helps.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, Trump covered a plethora of topics during the week. His most prevalent tweets were about himself, selling tickets to rallies and promoting upcoming public appearances. Not far behind that, however, were tweets attacking either “the Democrats” as an entity, or individual members of the party. Also prevalent were “kudos” tweets, praising various Republicans for supporting the MAGA agenda. He praised Pete Schumer and Henry McMaster, while he continuously called out Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi. The tone of said tweets depended on the subject matter. Anything including a positive for the Republicans was laced with exclamation points, while anything attacking the Democrats was laced with ALL-CAPS words interspersed throughout.
These tweets were about as stereotypically-Trump as you can get, as they actively represent what his Twitter feed has looked like since he began campaigning for president. Grammatically-incorrect, borderline slanderous rants and streams of consciousness clutter his feed. Adding onto those, Trump also makes sure to retweet anything praising him, regardless of the source: “It was the latest instance of Trump using Twitter to elevate relatively fringe accounts with messages he endorses, a practice that has drawn controversy in some cases,” (Wagner 2018). This was in reference to a tweet that was posted by @trueamerica1st, an account with around 6.4K followers, containing a graphic that reads “Thank God for Trump.” So, when the president is too lazy to tweet about himself, a common practice is to find someone else who’s done it already, and toss them a retweet.
The difference between the Twitter personas of Trump, and former President Barack Obama, are night and day. In a similar fashion to how the two speak in public, Obama’s feed comes off as polished and well-rehearsed, while Trump is clearly shooting from the hip. At the time, then-candidate Obama revolutionized how social media was used for an election, creating a one-stop-shop online for his followers to interact with his content, and each other: “Now (an Obama speech) was an interactive activity: a crowd of people reacting to the candidate, and to each other, in real time via Facebook, emails and text messages,” (Farnsworth 2018). Obama wisely used the spreading phenomenon of social media as a tool to spread his campaign nationwide. To give credit where credit is due, Trump also revolutionized how politicians use social media. Instead of using it to bring his followers together, however, he’s used it in a slightly different manner: “Trump routinely returned fire on his critics, using campaign-style rallies and Twitter to attack mainstream media outlets as failing business entities and as purveyors of ‘fake news’,” (Farnsworth 2018). If you’re someone or something with any sort of following (a news organization, etc.), and you’ve criticized President Trump, chances are he’s subtweeted you. He’s taken aim at everyone under the sun, and the crazy part is, people can’t get enough of it. The reality star has made the presidency a live-action reality show, and for some people, they can’t get enough of it.
Works Cited
DeleteFarnsworth, Stephen J. Presidential Communication and Character White House News Management from Clinton and Cable to Twitter and Trump. Routledge, 2018.
Wagner, John. “'THANK GOD FOR TRUMP': Trump Elevates a Tweet Offering Praise for Himself.” The Washington Post, WP Company, 10 Sept. 2018, www.washingtonpost.com/politics/thank-god-for-president-trump-trump-elevates-a-tweet-offering-praise-for-himself/2018/09/10/afc5f450-b4f6-11e8-a7b5-adaaa5b2a57f_story.html?utm_term=.8ad635422216&wpisrc=nl_politics-pm&wpmm=1.
Samantha Nardone 1
ReplyDeleteDuring the week of May 20th Trump was extremely active on Twitter and covered a variety of topics. Starting on Sunday there was controversy surrounding his tweets, leading CNN to publish an article entitled “Donald Trump said 11 false things in just 5 tweets Sunday morning.” One of the major themes was no collusion with Russia, which then led him into the witch-hunt that the Democrats are on and that they should really be investigating crooked Hillary Clinton. These set the tone for the week to follow. Trump tweeted about Russia, China, and North Korea seven times each during the week. He also tweeted about the Obama Administration seven times accusing them of spying on him during the election. He tweeted at Fox and friends four times to complement their coverage. The only people he mentions specifically in a negative way are Senator Schumer and John Brennan.
Nearly every tweet had the usual capitalization emphasis and exclamation points. His tone for a majority of the tweets was either anger or excitement. Going back and reading his tweets is like traveling back in time because I remember exactly what he was talking about and I remember the news coverage of his tweets, especially the no collusion with Russia. I think the samples of tweets that I looked at are very representative of what he talks about on a weekly basis. In fact, it is almost like he has a checklist of things he needs to talk about at least once a week. Some of the tweets could be pulled out and used today and they would still make sense.
While I think most people would say that Trump and Obama use social media very differently, I think there are a lot of similarities in what it did for their campaigns. While Obama’s tweets were clearly written by staff and were more eloquent than Trump’s, they showed the people that he was relatable and it connected him to younger voters, especially in the 2008 campaign. In chapter four of the Farnsworth book, it says, “A campaign event was no longer just a politician giving a speech, followed by news reports. Now it was also an interactive activity: a crowd of people reacting to the candidate, and to each other, in real time via Facebook, emails, and text messages.” This was the author talking about the 2008 Obama campaign, but it could just as easily have been about the Trump campaign in 2016, the only difference is instead of Facebook it was Twitter. Social media showed Americans in 2008 that Obama was young and different than the establishment while making him relatable especially when he tweeted about non-political topics like March Madness. We also saw social media used against him through birtherism. Social media showed Americans that Trump was going to be blunt and bold and was willing to call out the Republican establishment, but the way he tweeted showed that he was a man of the people. He also faced backlash on social media several times including after the Hollywood Access tape was leaked and after debates when people would make videos about him following Clinton around on stage or his weird breathing.
Samantha Nardone 2
DeleteWhile the styles of Trump and Obama might be different, they both achieved the same results. One of the key differences is the content being sent out via social media. Trump tweets all day about everything from the news to his travel plans to his opinions on pop culture. Obama’s team would tweet about sports or entertainment usually in congratulating a team or actor, where Trump is tweeting reviews. During the 2016 campaign, we as voters learned so much about Trump from his tweets, which is the exact opposite of what other candidates aimed to do. “People don’t need to know what I buy in the grocery store or what the name of my dog is — I don’t own a dog, by the way — but they do need to know why billionaires are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer,” said Bernie Sanders of his social media usage (Corasaniti, 2015). And even though Sanders used social media differently than Trump he was still more relatable than Clinton was to voters. I think each candidate needs to use social media in a way that fits their personality. If Clinton tweeted like Trump it would not have worked for her, but completely avoiding her personal life would have made her seem cold and distant, which still would not have helped.
Works Cited
Corasaniti, N. (2015, May 18). Seeking the Presidency, Bernie Sanders Becomes Facebook Royalty Through Quirky Sharing. The New York Times. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/19/us/politics/bernie-sanders-wants-to-be-president-but-hes-already-facebook-royalty.html
Farnsworth, S. J. (2018). Presidential communication and character: White House news management from Clinton and cable to Twitter and Trump. New York, NY: Routledge.
DiSalvo Part1
ReplyDeleteSince my birthday is the due date for this assignment, I started analyzing Trump’s tweets on Sept. 6 and ended on Sept. 13. 2018. His tweets covered scandal in the Department of Justice, the Russia Investigation, the NFL, endorsements for the midterms, criticism of the Democrats and Obama, trade deals, the Woodward book, 9/11, Puerto Rico hurricane deaths, and Hurricane Florence preparation. A frequent topic of the tweets was self-promotion posts that often featured of retweets from fan accounts such as @TrumpTrain. One example was a video clip of the electoral map on election night, reliving his victory. Approximately 20 of his tweets out of over 70 fell into this category of “self love” while only seven addressed 9/11. Several individuals were mentioned throughout the tweets, but the most frequent was Obama. Trump retweeted several conservative tweets that compared his job performance to Obama’s job performance to cast Trump in a positive light. Another name that was frequently retweeted or tagged was Dan Scavino, the White House director of social media. According to an article on wired.com, it is often unclear whether Trump is tweeting or if Scavino is tweeting. Their two accounts displayed significant of overlap. Wired.com says “A Scavino profile in Politico in June noted that he has Trump’s voice nailed, and is 'constantly recording content for online videos’”(Feinburg). For example the electoral map coverage he retweeted actually came from Scavino’s account.
Trump’s tweets fluctuate wildly between positive and negative. For example, when talking about the Colin Kaepernick Nike ad and the protests during the anthem his tone was negative. He wrote, “What was Nike thinking?”(Twitter). When defending himself against the claims in the Woodward book, his tone was also negative. He called the book, “a joke”(Twitter). However, he also said that the country is breaking records and has great potential under his leadership. Clearly, the mood of Trump’s tweets changes with his mood which vacillates with day-to-day events and newscasts.
In general, Trump tends to use Twitter to speak his mind, especially in the morning as he is watching Fox. Using this criteria, I can be certain that this weeks tweets were representative of Trump’s overall Twitter behavior. For example, on Sept. 8, he quoted Fox News in a tweet about North Korea’s parade. The parade was not going to feature nuclear weapons this year. Fox reported, “Experts believe that North Korea cut out the nuclear missiles to show Trump its commitment to denuclearize”(Chamberlain) and Trump inserted this exact quote into his tweet. Trump also has a tendency to retweet from “fringe accounts” run by conspiracy theorists. Trump continued this tradition this week by tweeting three doctored pro-Trump images. These tweets came from the @trueamerica1st account which previously has asserted that Sandy Hook is a hoax (Wagner). In the past, he has retweeted anti-Muslim videos from fringe, extremist accounts, so this is not out of character. He broke his normal erratic pattern this week to cover several nation wide events such as Rosh Hashanah, 9/11, and Hurricane Florence but not without a plug for Rudy Giuliani and a dig at the mayor of Puerto Rico.
DiSalvo Part 2
ReplyDeleteWhile both active on social media, Trump and Obama use it in different ways. Obama used social media to “emphasize the candidate’s youth and optimism…”(Farnsworth 96). He was active on YouTube and his campaign networking site with allowed users to interact with other supporters and learn about local campaign events. He made special efforts to appeal to non-political supporters by making appearances on ESPN and Youtube mash-ups. He recognized that “To reach audiences that may have little interest in politics, presidents need to be informal, and be able ‘not only to make a joke but in some cases to be in on a joke’(Scacco and Coe 2016).”(Farnsworth 96). Trump’s main platform is obviously Twitter. Like Obama, it also allows parts of his character to shine through. However, these are not always positive traits like optimism, but rather aggressive and cynical episodes of cyberbullying. As a result, 65% of people who disapproved of Trump, felt so because of his character, but only 36% who disapproved of Obama accredited disliking to his character (Farnsworth 146). In my opinion, Trump’s Twitter presence makes him more appealing to his supporters and less appealing to his critics. Obama’s social media presence was more neutral, but was definitely viewed positively by youth and non-political citizens.
Chamberlain, Samuel. "Trump 'Scared' Military Chiefs with Suggestion of Pulling US Military
Families Out of South Korea, According to Woodward Book.", 12 Sept., 2018.
Farnsworth, Stephen J. "The Social Media Presidency of Barack Obama; the
Twitter Presidency of Donald Trump." Presidential Communication and
Character: WhiteHouse News Management from Clinton and Cable to
Twitter and Trump. Edited by Taylor and Francis. Routledge, New York,
2018.
Feinburg, Ashley. "How to Tell when Someone Else Tweets from @realdonaldtrump.", Oct. 6, 2017.
Wagner, John. “‘Thank God For Trump’: Trump Elevates a Tweet Offering Praise for Himself.", 10 Sept., 2018.
I could not figure out how to attach a screenshot so I have copy and pasted the text from the Trump Tweet of the Week.
"The Economy is soooo good, perhaps the best in our country’s history (remember, it’s the economy stupid!), that the Democrats are flailing & lying like CRAZY! Phony books, articles and T.V. “hits” like no other pol has had to endure-and they are losing big. Very dishonest people!"- Donald Trump
This tweet is representative of the week because it involves self-promotion, criticism for the democrats, as well as disdain for the fake news. These themes were entrenched in this week's tweets but also in his tweets as a whole.
Donald Trump’s Twitter is unlike anything I’ve ever seen before from a political figure. I chose to analyze his tweets from October 29th 2017-November 4th 2017. During this time, Trump tweeted about a number of things. On October 31st, an Islamic terrorist drove a truck through a crowd of people in New York City. A good amount of his tweets from that day until the end of the week had to do with him offering his condolences to the people impacted by the tragedy and saying how we need to increase security and how migration is not acceptable because it leads to bad things happening. Throughout his tweets, he discusses many of his accomplishments such as tax cuts, increase in jobs and better health care. Trump says these accomplishments are due to “Republicans working hard and late” (posted at 9:22p.m.). When Trump talks about something he doesn’t like, he uses hurtful language that most Presidents would not use. In the book “Presidential Communication and Character” it says “His angry campaign messages belittled political opponents with personal put-downs, and he attacked the policy status quo on trade, immigration, and other hot-button issues online (Owen, 2017 Farnsworth, 2018). Trump says Democrats are on a political witch hunt and that the media should be focusing their attention on “Crooked Hillary”. He called people “low levels” and “liars”. The tone of his tweets varies. When he tweets about his accomplishments, they are usually done in a bragging manner. When he talks about anything he doesn’t like, it is done in a very negative tone. Many people believe Trump should not have access to Twitter because of the way he uses it, for example, ranting about how he doesn’t like the Democrats at 3AM. The tweets from this given time period show exactly what he is still doing today: using Twitter to connect with his fans and say unprofessional things. Trump’s Twitter however, gets an awful lot of attention from his fans, the media and basically everyone. Since they are so blunt, it is pretty hard to miss. These tweets are a strong way of communicating between Trump and his fan base. In the article “Thank God For Trump”: Trump Elevates A Tweet Offering Praise For Himselfr”, the title speaks for itself. “On Monday morning, the president retweeted an image of his head, draped with an American flag, with the words, “THANK GOD FOR TRUMP.” The original tweet came from the handle @trueamerica1st, a pro-Trump account with fewer than 3,000 followers at the time. It was the latest instance of Trump using Twitter to elevate relatively fringe accounts with messages he endorses, a practice that has drawn controversy in some cases” (Wagner, 2018). Trump wants to make connections with the public, so, making conversation on Twitter and being super active on social media, allows for those connections to flourish. “Twitter’s users say that hearing directly from candidates allows citizens to get news faster and feel more personally connected to their favored candidates” (Owen, 2017 Farnsworth, 2018). There are many articles out in the media trying to understand when Trump tweets and when his staff tweets. Former President Barack Obama used Twitter, however, not in the way Trump uses it. Also, the media portrayed Obama a lot more positively than they portray Trump.
ReplyDeletePart 2:
ReplyDeleteIn the book “Presidential Communication and Character” it says “Those television viewers who tuned in to the big three network evening newscasts of ABC, CBS and NBC saw consistently positive treatments for Obama” (Farnsworth, 2018). A lot of Obama’s success can be credited from his online YouTube use and making personal connections through his social media platforms (Farnsworth, 2018). These political figures both effectively communicated through social media, however, they had different outcomes.
Works Cited:
Wagner, John. "‘THANK GOD FOR TRUMP’: Trump Elevates a Tweet Offering Praise for Himself." Washington Post, 10 Sept. 2018.
Farnsworth, Stephen J. Presidential Communication and Character: White House News Management from Clinton and Cable to Twitter and Trump. New York: Routledge, 2018.
During the week of February 8, 2018, President Trump tweeted only from February 4-9, which is surprising as I immediately expected at least every day. He started off the week with almost “standard” like tweets of a President. He thanked first responders for their efforts for the train collision in South Carolina, congratulated the Eagles on their Super Bowl win, and then moved towards his more infamous Trump tweets later in the week. He moves on to tweet about how news coverage is misrepresentative of his success as a President, and that the economy is booming. He also threw in a couple bashes at Hilary Clinton during the week, referencing her by nickname. Ultimately, it comparison to all other weeks filled with Trump tweets, this one seemed just average. He tweets about current issues in the news, current big events, and defends himself whenever he feels necessary. This is typically we now know, how he uses twitter as a President now.
ReplyDeleteNot only did he mention Hilary Clinton, but the President also tweet to wish former President Reagan a happy birthday, thanked Fox News for being honest, mentioned Devin Nunes, Elon Musk, South Korea securing the Olympics, Henry Kissinger and more political figures. The overall tone of the tweets depended on the topic. When Trump feels he is talking about something good for America, patriotic etc. the tweet has a very positive tone, verse when he discusses anything to do with the Democrats, his tone is very argumentative. As discussed in Farnsworth, President Obama had a strikingly different approach to social media. He used it much more formally and informationally, whereas Trump embraces the Town Hall sort of vibe, responding to things casually as them come to provide an honest face to the people. He also uses as a place to simply bolster his image, which no President has done so successfully. As was seen in the article ‘Thank God for Trump’, it was seen that Trump tweeted that phrase, and it inevitably went viral. Ultimately, Trump has changed the way politicians in general use social media now, and it will surely be interesting to see how each President develops their own social media style as Trump undoubtedly has.
References:
DeleteFarnsworth, Stephen J. Presidential Communication and Character: White House News
Management from Clinton and Cable to Twitter and Trump. New York: Routledge, 2018.
“'THANK GOD FOR TRUMP': Trump Elevates a Tweet Offering Praise for Himself.” The
Washington Post, WP Company, 10 Sept. 2018, www.washingtonpost.com/politics/thank-god-for-president-trump-trump-elevates-a-tweet-offering-praise-for-himself/2018/09/10/afc5f450-b4f6-11e8-a7b5-adaaa5b2a57f_story.html?utm_term=.b94f2397415b&wpisrc=nl_politics-pm&wpmm=1.
During the week of my birthday earlier this year (April 8-14), President Trump was rather busy on Twitter. In summary, over the course of the first few days of the week Trump went on his usual rounds of bashing Hillary Clinton, took jabs at The Washington Post and The New York Times, said Chinese President Xi and him are good friends, denounced Russian President Putin for allegedly backing Assad after Syria was hit with a chemical attack, which to me is very ironic. He also posted some sketchy statistics to explain how the Chinese tariffs affect the automobile industry, and tweeted a video of himself bashing Democrats over their opposition of the border policy he wanted to instill.
ReplyDeleteThe highlight of the week was on April 10th, when Trump’s (former) attorney, Michael Cohen, had his office and home raided by the FBI in conjunction with the Russia investigation and the newly-surfaced Stormy Daniels scandal. Trump was visibly angry that day, tweeting “A TOTAL WITCH HUNT!!!”. After that President Trump calmed down on Twitter for the rest of the week, while expressing his anger in person. The rest of the week included rants about fake news and the Russia investigation, more tweets about how Russia and Putin are our enemy after the Syrian chemical attacks (again, ironic), Mike Pompeo’s confirmation hearing, and Andrew McCabe’s report being false.
President Trump utilizes his Twitter account differently from just about any politician. When it comes to social media, it is blatant that Trump is more interested in popularity than policy. As a former reality television star, Trump knows how to draw a crowd, and uses it to his advantage. During his campaign and more recent rallies, he tries to mention at least a few of his biggest talking points about public policy. By now, just about every American knows the president’s thoughts on the country’s biggest issues. His Twitter account is just an extension to his never-ending campaign to become reelected and stay relevant. All he is getting from his tweets is free publicity. His popularity has fired up his fan base so much that, “…Trump came to think his popularity was bulletproof. As [he] said in January 2016: ‘I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody. And I wouldn’t lose any voters…’” (Farnsworth 138). Trump’s tweets are mostly negative to spark conversation and to illustrate the need to side with the president and “make America great again”. This causes Trump to become almost invincible in the American social hierarchy, therefore he can stare scandals down and brush them to the side with little backlash.
Backtracking to Trump’s tirade about the FBI investigating Michael Cohen back in April, he only threw a fit on Twitter to get a point across. Trump wanted to take extremely negative press and turn it around to throw back at the FBI and media. In a similar case, in Yahoo News’s article, “'Very unfair!': Trump tweets cap another tumultuous week”, the President attempted to turned people who were critical of him due to the Russia investigation around by citing his recent achievement of meeting with Kim Jong Un. “For Trump, the fact that special counsel Robert Mueller’s ongoing investigation has yielded indictments and guilty pleas is beside the point”, writes David Knowles. “What matters to him is his perception of a double standard” (Knowles 1). When Trump is presented with a negative image from the media, he swings back and says it is unfair or fake. By deflecting any negativity, Trump is able to maintain his supporters’ adoration.
Works Cited
DeleteFarnsworth, Stephen J. Presidential Communication and Character White House News Management from Clinton and Cable to Twitter and Trump. Routledge, 2018.
Knowles, David. “'Very Unfair!': Trump Tweets Cap Another Tumultuous Week.” Yahoo! News, Yahoo!, 15 June 2018, www.yahoo.com/news/unfair-trump-tweets-cap-another-tumultuous-week-193319813.html.
My birthday falls on August 29th, and throughout the week of my birthday, President Trump was extremely active on Twitter as always, covering numerous topics, (or more likely went on numerous rants) such as about what the Obama people did during a presidential campaign, and what information Hillary Clinton paid for, how the Republican party will make America great again- and already is, his relationship with Kim Jong Un, how Kanye West says that ‘Trump wants to be the greatest president for black Americans’, how he will be doing a major rally for Senator Ted Cruz this upcoming October, and of course, some things about fake news. Overall, Trump’s tweets are normally rants with grammatical errors, ultimately praising himself. One great example of this would be his most recent retweet of an image on his head that was draped with an American flag saying “Thank God For Trump.”
ReplyDeleteA lot of his rants went on for about 4 tweets at a time, specifically the ones referring to his relationship remaining strong with Kim Jong Un and how there is no reason to be spending money on joint U.S.-South Korea war games right now. This rant also touches on his relationship with China’s great president, Xi Jinping, and how their bond will also remain very strong. Another couple of President Trump’s tweets on my birthday/birthday week, involved things that both Obama and Hillary Clinton did, these were displayed in two separate tweets. The first quote regarding Obama read “The Obama people did something that’s never been done…They spied on a rival presidential campaign. Would it be OK if Trump did it next? I am losing faith that our system is on the level. I’m beginning to think it is rotten & corrupt. Scary stuff Obama did.” The tweet regarding Hillary Clinton said “Hillary Clinton and the DNC paid for information from the Russian government to use against her government – there’s no doubt about that!” In both of these tweets, President Trump tagged Tucker Carlson at the ends of them.
As always, President Trump has more of a neutral tone in his tweets, or if anything when he speaks in caps or adds lots of exclamation points to his tweets, it’s really just him putting more of an emphasis on these things. I don’t think that you can really grasp the tone of something through social media, Twitter especially. I feel that President Trump uses Twitter as his diary (that I’m really not sure he realizes is public), rather than professionally getting his point across or relaying facts. In more than half of President Trump’s tweets, even from just that week, President Trump mentions the term ‘fake news’, making sure that his followers and/or supporters are following and believing what he is saying over anyone else, or at least are aware of his side.
When compared to previous presidents or other politicians in general, Trump definitely uses social media platforms way more to voice his opinion, especially Twitter. Although both Trump and Obama were active on social media, both presidents used social media in completely different ways. During Obama’s political campaign in 2008, he focused on social media more than anything else, he said he specifically used social media to emphasize with the candidate’s youth and optimism. Meanwhile, President Trump uses social media to put an emphasis on topics every day. Twitter allows Trump to express himself in his own ways without being filtered out by other people for giving his own true opinions.
Works Cited:
Wagner, John. "‘THANK GOD FOR TRUMP’: Trump Elevates a Tweet Offering Praise for Himself." Washington Post, 10 Sept. 2018.
Farnsworth, Stephen J. Presidential Communication and Character: The Social Media Presidency of Barack Obama. New York: Routledge, 2018.
Sophia Toppo
ReplyDeleteBlog 3
My birthday is December 31st, New Years Eve, so I was curious to see what Trump had to say around the Holidays. From Christmas Eve to New Years Eve, Trump had posted 25 tweets in six days. Of course these tweets demonstrated his loud, obnoxious, and passive-aggressive personality. His tweets had to do with a lot of his usual points he makes at his rallies about the economy and more jobs, the wall, and fake news, along with some other topics discussed in the media like global warming and religion. He tweeted directly at how he is proud to be saying Merry Christmas again after the apparent war against Christmas in the White House. He also tweeted about how the retail sales are at high numbers and our economy is thriving. Then in all caps he emphasized how more “JOBS” are available and the stock market is at another year of “SUCCESS”. And finally, the last tweet that caught my eye was about global warming. On New Years Eve he tweeted about how it was the “coldest New Years on record” and we could “use a lot of that global warming that our country…was going to pay TRILLIONS OF DOLLARS to protect against.”
His tweets are constantly trying to reinforce how he is Making America Great Again by being so “in our face” on social media. His use of exclamation points and all caps words demonstrates how he wants the public to know that his presidency is only leading to better things. According to an article in the Washington Post, he retweeted a photo of himself that stated, “Thank God for Trump!!”
Compared to Obama, Trump used twitter to set his political agenda. As described in Presidential Communication and Character, “His angry campaign messages belittled political opponents with personal put-downs and he attacked the policy status quo on trade, immigration…”(Farnsworth 125-126). On the other hand, Obama was the beginning of a social media era in political campaigns, and his use of social media differs greatly from trump. Obama really presented a Presidential character on social media. He used the platform to, “…maximize policy success…”(Farnsworth 122). While he made sure to publicize his policies during his presidency, Obama made his social media presence very relatable and like he was just a regular person. He achieved this by appearing on ESPN and late night talk shows in order to, “…connect with the people who are not necessarily political junkies”(Farnsworth 123).
DeleteWhile Hilary Clinton was campaigning against Trump, her media team created content that was, “…glowing, inspirational, and ready-made for social media…”(Denton 126). This was in efforts to make her seem more personal to the people she is reaching out to. Trump abused social media and utilized it as a campaign strategy while also attacking people who disagreed with him. Although Trump’s social media strategies may be seen as unconventional in many ways, it most likely contributed to him winning the election.
Denton, Robert E. The 2016 US Presidential Campaign Political Communication and Practice. Switzerland, Springer International Publishing, 2017.
Farnsworth, Stephen J. Presidential Communication and Character: White House News Management from Clinton and Cable to Twitter and Trump. New York: Routledge, 2018.
Wagner, John. "‘THANK GOD FOR TRUMP’: Trump Elevates a Tweet Offering Praise for Himself." Washington Post, 10 Sept. 2018.
Kaycie Romanello
ReplyDeletePresident Donald Trump is constantly tweeting, but the week of June 7, Trump had a variety of topics to discuss on Twitter. For example, unemployment rates, fake news, his wife and the Prime Minister of Japan were huge topics during the span of this week.
As for the topics discussed, much were his opinions that he did not use factual evidence to back up. One tweet stated, “Canada charges the U.S. a 270% tariff on Dairy Products! They didn’t tell you that, did they? Not fair to our farmers!” Using this massive percentage is awesome to exemplify on, if he used more information to show that it was true, but he did not.
Besides the statements that he discussed, much was about a variety of individuals. Jeff Flake, Chris Farrell and Prime Minister Tradeau were amongst the many people that Trump discussed. Throughout his tweets about these people, he really had a dark tone behind the tweets. For example, Trump tweeted, “Prime Minister Trudeau is being so indignant.” In my opinion, I do not like how he uses such words on twitter that really bring a negative look to him. Social media is a place where everyone can speak their mind, but with the tones that Trump uses, it gives a reputation of America to the entire world. Trump’s twitter page really is so diminishing because when Trump speaks about others, (that really are not Republicans) he makes them feel or look puny to the social media audience. On the other hand, his tweets can also be very arrogant. The Washington Post posted an article where Trump tweeted a picture of his face with the quote “Thank God For Trump” next to it. I really do not like this because it is one thing to be confident as a president, but you also should be humble. You cannot run a presidency term being pompous all the time, the only thing that will do is make your head grow bigger and our democracy grow smaller. Also, the one thing that I really liked about Trump’s twitter content from this week is his tweets about his wife. He explained how the news was very invasive on his wife’s surgery and how she was doing. Trump tweeted, “The Fake News Media has been so unfair, and vicious, to my wife and our great First Lady, Melania. During her recovery from surgery they reported everything from near death, to facelift, to left the W.H. (and me) for N.Y. or Virginia, to abuse. All Fake, she is doing really well!” I enjoyed seeing this through the mess of his other tweets because he stood up for his wife which we never think he actually does.
Furthermore, Trump’s tweets were used greatly in a communication tool during this week. Before he met with anyone, he did state who he was meeting with, where and what they would talk about. I agree with this tactic because the people of America do have a right to know what Trump is doing before he does it. Besides this communication tool, Trump also used a communication tool to compare and contrast between Republicans and Democrats. He was constantly tweeting about different Democrats during the Witch Hunt. Many people do not agree with how Trump talks about democrats, and I agree that some of the ways he talks about them is unfair. On the other hand, many people speak badly about Republicans, but he is our President and we voted him into office. If he wants to compare and contrast the views of the different parties, that is what our democracy should do in order to find a solution. Yes, Trump does not try to find a solution between the parties, but at least he is viewing different people’s views.
As for the differences between Trump’s social media and other politicians, he really does demonstrate more emotion than many others. For example, Hillary Clinton, in the week of June 7, did not tweet any emotional situations. The only tweet that Clinton posted was giving thanks to other people during a meeting they had to talk about public education. Yes, this is a good communication tool because she explained what she was talking about during the meeting, but there was nothing that grabbed my attention. In the book by Robert Denton entitled, “The 2016 US Presidential Campaign Political Communication and Practice,” Denton stated that Clinton “struggled to generate emotion and enthusiasm in both the primary and general election” (Denton 128). This stuck out to me because it is true in my mind. Although she expresses what she does, she never brings an emotion to the social media world. I think that this hurt her because she never had something on social media that truly stuck out to the public. Also, Denton explained how Clinton’s tweets were really about issues in our nation while Trump’s tweets were only generalizations. This is completely true in my opinion, but on the other hand, what differentiates a politician from others is how they grab the attention of the audience. Clinton and her team were not good at this because her tweets sounded boring, and I think that everyone can agree that Trump’s tweets are rarely boring.
DeleteYes, Trump does not tweet factual information that we need, but he is using emotions that attract people. This is how he will always be in the news because everyone is so interested by his social media language.
Works Cited
Wagner, John. “‘THANK GOD FOR TRUMP’: Trump elevates a tweet offering praise for
himself.” The Washington Post. 10 September 2018.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/thank-god-for-president-trump-trump-elevates-a-tweet-offering-praise-for-himself/2018/09/10/afc5f450-b4f6-11e8-a7b5-adaaa5b2a57f_story.html?utm_term=.a376d0755ee1. Accessed 17 September 2018.
Denton, Robert E. The 2016 US Presidential Campaign Political Communication and Practice.
Switzerland, Springer International Publishing, 2017.
Lindsey Guadagni 9/1718
ReplyDeleteBlog #3
The week of my birthday is February 12th-18th. My birthday is February 16th. During this week our President Donald Trump went on a rant like he usually does, but this time it was about Russia. CNN politics stated, “Trump has deployed all of the above as part of an effort to bolster a simple message: The real Russia conspiracy, the actual collision, is happening now -- and it's dedicated to delegitimizing my big accomplishment, my big 2016 election win.”(Kreig, 2018). President Trump tweeted about Barack Obama claiming that he did not do anything about Russian Meddling. President Donald Trump also tweeted about the Florida school shooting going on at the time. After one tweet about the Florida shooting President Donald Trump quickly goes back on his rants about the Russia Meddling scandals. President Donald Trump mostly goes on and on exclaiming how angry he is about how the whole Russian conspiracy theories and about them meddling into U.S. elections was going on since 2014, long before Donald Trump even knew he was going to run for president. President Donald Trump then went on to blame “fake news” for spreading these lies about him. President Donald Trump also tweeted about an interview he had with Kenn Starr and Maria Bartiromo. During the interview, Kenn Starr described the Mueller indictment. This indictment accuses 13 Russian nationals and three companies of conspiring to defraud the US, of "aiming our guns, so to speak, where they should be aimed." Kenn Starr also stated "I think we should stop pointing fingers at one another in this country and realize who the real enemy is," Starr said. "It was an effort to pit us against one another, and Vladimir Putin has succeeded."(Krieg, 2018). President Donald trump then tweets about how the Democrats had to make up a story as to why they did not win the election inferring that they made up this Russia meddling scandal. Trump then blames yet again “FAKE NEWS” for spreading all these horrific “lies” about how he won the election. I feel like the week of my birthday really did represent how much President Donald Trump goes on twitter and his usage. Donald Trump loves communicating with his fans and followers and getting the information he wants to be known and his opinion out there for the world to see. Donald Trump is very aggressive with his tweeting. Other presidents such as Barack Obama tweeted for more of life events and not opinioned. Obama was very respectful and responsible for his social media usage, unlike Donald Trump. Donald Trump is very obnoxious with his tweeting and is constantly getting himself in trouble whereas Barack Obama has lots of control and only tweets when needed does not share a personal opinion. I find that our president should be more respectful and show a classy side for the world to see especially on social media because of today’s technology, but that is just my opinion.
Krieg, Gregory. “Trump's Russia Tweets, Translated.” CNN, Cable News Network, 19 Feb. 2018, www.cnn.com/2018/02/19/politics/trump-russia-tweets-election-interfere-investigation/index.html
Trump, Donald J. “The Democrats Had to Come up with a Story as to Why They Lost the Election, and so Badly (306), so They Made up a Story - RUSSIA. Fake News!” Twitter, Twitter, 16 Feb. 2017, twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/832238070460186625?lang=en.
Farnsworth, Stephen J. Presidential Communication and Character: White House News
Management from Clinton and Cable to Twitter and Trump. New York: Routledge, 2018.
As per usual, President Donald Trump’s tweets during the week of May 2nd to May 10th, were all over the place. Sometimes Trump would tweet about the media, sometimes he would tweet about Obama, sometimes he would tweet out polls and sometimes he would tweet about the ongoing investigation. However, most of his tweets were surrounding his negotiations with North Korea as that was the week they released the three hostages. That turned out to be a big win for the administration and the president wouldn’t let his followers forget it. By my count he tweeted about North Korea and the hostages a total of five times during the week before.
ReplyDeleteTrump mentioned a lot of individuals during this week. He singled out John Kerry a lot, talking about how terrible the Iran deal that he negotiated was. He talked about the Fake News media a couple of times and how terrible and unfair their coverage was of him. He mentioned and praised his Secretary of State Mike Pompeo a lot for his dealings with North Korea. He mentioned Gina Haspel a few times in tweets because she came under fire from the democrats for which he called as being too harsh on terrorists. Lastly, he mentioned Michael Cohen once and tried to distance himself from Cohen, saying that he had nothing to do with the campaign.
Trump’s tweets are all over the place and it is amazing that his base is able to follow him. It is also amazing to follow his train of thought and I think it would be interesting to study. On May seventh Trump tweeted multiple times about the investigations into him before going into tweeted about his CIA director. Some of his tweets were positive, like the ones about the hostages being returned, but most of them are negative and some are full of misinformation.
The nice part of twitter is that the President can use it as a microphone and talk directly to his base. No pundits, on either side of the isle, can twist his message. What he says is exactly what he means. That doesn’t mean that he should be tweeting every thought that goes into his head without fact checking, but if you are a supporter of the sitting president if must be nice to be able to hear directly from him at all times of the day.
The textbook, written by Robert. E Denton, states that Hillary Clinton had a “staff of dozens producing original content managed by an audience development team, followed the model of digital media startups like Vox and Buzzfeed.” The textbook later goes on to state that the often tried to use social media to make Hillary likeable, especially when most people disliked her. However, the same textbook states that the, “humanization strategy was not entirely successful and Clinton’s digital staff took some time to get their footing.” I think we saw a lot of that in the election, as social media really didn’t do much to help soften Clinton up and make her more relatable. It didn’t feel as genuine as Trump’s social media. The crazy parts about Trump’s tweets are that the spelling mistakes and weird grammatical errors are so genuine that people can relate to them. I know that I have sent some tweets that weren’t perfect so when the President does it, it makes him seem like just another guy. A New York Post article written by Yaron Steinbuch describes that his staffers try to do the same, “President Trump’s oft-tweeted typos and upper-case gaffes are sometimes the deliberate handiwork of his staffers, who want to mirror his error-ridden style when they draft his messages, according to a report.” Social media and candidates for public office are such a forced mix, but can change the outcome of an election.
E., Denton Jr Robert. The 2016 US Presidential Campaign Political Communication and Practice. Springer International Publishing, 2017.
Steinbuch, Yaron. “Aides Purposely Add Typos to Trump Tweets to Mimic His 'Style'.” New York Post, New York Post, 22 May 2018, nypost.com/2018/05/22/aides-purposely-add-typos-to-trump- tweets-to-mimic-his-style/.
Cali Kees
ReplyDeleteProfessor Burns
Blog Post #3
19, September 2018
My birthday was August 27th, so the week I covered was August 26th-September 1st and there was plenty that was discussed on Trumps twitter. The most frequent topic covered was the “fake news media.” In fact, every day, at least twice a day Trump tweeted about the media—from accusing the Washington Post to rewriting history to calling all journalists the enemy of the people. I noticed that Trump frequently quotes Fox correspondents as well. He brought the economy a lot—everything from NASDAQ, consumer spending reports, etc.
Trump brought up Clinton in a couple tweets and how supposed reports had surfaced that China had hacked into Clinton’s emails. He said the next move better be by the FBI and DOJ after all their past missteps. Trump tweeted that not to his surprise, Americans think that John Brennan and James Comey should have their national security clearances revokes. This week he really went off about Bruce Ohr who worked for the Department of Justice and according to Trump, his wife is a Russia expert who is fluent in Russian. Trump said that this was collusion and this he thinks it is unbelievable Ohr is still working at the DOJ. Last, because of an article posted by CNN co-authored by Carl Bernstein he called Carl Bernstein, one of the most renowned journalists of recent, a sloppy man who lives in the past, thinks like a degenerate fool and makes up stories.
I would say this week like most weeks on Trumps twitter things go up and down. He positively promotes himself so frequently and then degrades anyone and everyone that gets in his way. Examining this week has shown me that Trump uses twitter to either positively promote or degrade anything that is said about him or our country. A positive consumer spending report comes out and he is praising himself and American, a negative CNN article is posted about him and he is calling every journalist the enemy of the people. He uses twitter to vent, praise himself but most importantly to stay relevant. He tweets ridiculous things so people talk about that and him. I don’t think there has been a day in his presidency that Trump hasn’t been some sort of headline. As noted in the Chapter 5 of “The 2016 US Presidential Campaign Political Communication” the Trump campaign did not put much money into TV instead much of his campaign was sourced through social media. This was how he spoke and appealed to his supporters so it makes sense that this use of twitter and social media has continued although uncommon for a President. As written in the article “Trump Appealing Ruling that Bars Blocking of Twitter Critics,” “Trump built his campaign on early morning tweet storms and hashtag-worthy slogans,” (Sisak 1). Since people support and commend him on his usage of twitter he is going to continue using twitter as his personal and “virtual megaphone,” as Sisak describes.
While Trump and his political team throughout the 2016 Campaign allowed his social media presence to be seen as powerful man that isn’t afraid to call people out, Hillary’s team took a different approach. “Clinton’s team attempted to humanize the candidate and use humor and personal stories to soften a candidate who was disliked by many,” (Denton 127). This strategy did not work to her favor and according to Denton Clinton was actually most successful when she used social media to attack. President Obama on the other hand had a completely different approach to both social media and media. As his presidency began at only the beginning of when social media was becoming very popular. He showed up on late night talk shows and was more low-key on sites like twitter. He would send out “invitations to participate in Twitter events promoting Obamacare and other administration priorities,” (Fansworth 121). He used social media to forward his legislative agenda rather than to attack those that wronged him.
DeleteWorks Cited
Farnsworth, S. J. (2018). Presidential communication and character: White House news management from Clinton and cable to Twitter and Trump. New York, NY: Routledge.
E., Denton Jr Robert. The 2016 US Presidential Campaign Political Communication and Practice. Springer International Publishing, 2017.
Sisak, Michael. "Trump Appealing Ruling that Bars Blocking of Twitter Critics." Yahoo! News, Yahoo!, 5 June 2018. https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-appealing-ruling-bars-blocking-twitter-critics-154821788--politics.html
Jeffrey Evans
ReplyDeleteAfter looking through Presidents Trumps tweets, I was not surprised with the results that I found. Trump has been known for his use of twitter throughout his presidency, usually tweeting on issues he feels are controversial. My birthday falls on May 21st and throughout that week there where many tweets on an overlapping topic. This overlapping topic is how many suspected and accused Donald Trump of having ties with Russia to help win his campaign. He believed they were trying to spy on him which he thought was very wrong and he demonstrated that in many of his tweets. Like mentioned before, his tweets were directed to many people including Hilary Clinton, a spy, the FBI, the news media, and Russia. I believe these tweets had a serious as well as a negative tone, which made me think he was actually upset about what they were saying about him. However, this is not something new, Trump has always seemed to turn to twitter to express his feelings on issues and I think this demonstrates exactly how he uses twitter. Most of the time when I hear about President Trump tweeting, it usually has a very negative tone with President Trump strongly expressing his dislike for someone or something. For an example one of his tweets read “Things are really getting ridiculous. The Failing and Crooked (but not as Crooked as Hillary Clinton) @nytimes has done a long & boring story indicating that the World’s most expensive Witch Hunt has found nothing on Russia & me so now they are looking at the rest of the World!”. This basically reflects how Trump tweets about most issues, he uses insults as a way to degrade whoever he feels is “wrong” in a situation. In this tweet he said “Crooked (but not as Crooked as Hilary Clinton” which is an insult to Hilary Clinton and a consistent trend. Compared to many other Politicians like Obama, they usually do not use twitter or social media to “stir the pot” or even talk about topics that might start controversy. Recently, Trump tweeted out a picture with a caption that read “THANK GOD FOR TRUMP” (Wagner 2018). This is an example of a tweet that started controversy and this is just one of many of his controversial tweets. This is what makes Trump so unique because we have not seen a president or politician really use social media like this before. I believe that this is all part of Trumps tactics, his supports seem to feed off of his use of twitter. In one of our readings it states ““Twitter’s users say that hearing directly from candidates allows citizens to get news faster and feel more personally connected to their favored candidates” (Farnsworth, 2018). This shows that there is a new connection that is created when politicians use social media as a platform to talk to the public.
Work Cited
Farnsworth, S. J. (2018). Presidential communication and character: White House news management from Clinton and cable to Twitter and Trump. New York, NY: Routledge.
Wagner, John. "‘THANK GOD FOR TRUMP’: Trump Elevates a Tweet Offering Praise for Himself." Washington Post, 10 Sept. 2018.
ReplyDeleteDuring the time between February 18th and the 24th, Trump’s tweets split between topical matters, self-defense, and general tweets reflecting either American of Trumpian ideology. This week was not long after Parkland, so many of the tweets address bipartisan gun control effort, particularly one tweet that received the most engagement out of all tweets covered in the time frame. “Raise age to 21 and end sale of Bump Stocks!” he cried out at 8 in the morning much to the chagrin of his base, which comprises many gun rights activists. He did not leave that base unattended, giving a twitter eulogy to prolific evangelical pastor and homophobe Billy Graham. In general, it would be easier to find a topic he didn’t address: he shares some positive economic news, calls out MS-13 again, drops a few MAGA’s here and there, bucks some shots at WashPo, NBC and CNN, and gives a special shout-out to the pals at Fox News – a regular week in the office. It is specifically either his controversial gun control tweets or incendiary attacks on fake news when defending himself from “Russian meddling” allegations that sent off his Twitter fingers at 7:30 AM, where he gets the most interaction and can most effectively promote, maintain, and defend the brand he has established himself on. Some of his tweets were Retweets from “regular Americans”, and as John Wagner remarks on Trump’s tactic of promoting the views of “relatively fringe accounts with messages he endorses, a practice that has drawn controversy in some cases”(Wagner).
I honestly can’t help but agree with his sentiments on the latter. It ought to be the duty and privilege of reporters and the organizations they represent to maintain a high pedigree of credibility as a service to the free, democratic societies that are lucky enough to have a free press to inform them. However, finding a culprit to pin the loss of the 2016 election on is one of most powerful desires for readers of mainstream media today and has effectively overridden journalistic integrity. Reporting on Russia, especially in relation to the alleged Russian interference, hacking or collusion that helped Trump seize the presidency of the United States is frequently paranoid and insidious in tone, with sources unverifiable and dubious. At the worst, many of the widely circulating reports have been revealed to be purposefully misleading or downright false after millions of eyes had already seen them, only endowing Donald Trump with more ammunition in his indiscriminate firefight against fake news that he wages on social media like Twitter, even during my birthday week.
If people want their culprit, may they look no further than Hillary Clinton. Clinton’s team attempted to market her as a cool mom who... carries hot sauce around in her purse... and is “just chillin’ in Cedar Rapids!...” Hillary Clinton’s social media campaign felt, like many other parts of her campaign, synthetic and plasticky, not to mention her despicably problematic history. Denton remarked on the top-notch production of her personal social media content that, coupled with her doing the ‘dab’ on the Ellen Degeneres Show, still catastrophically failed to “generate emotion and enthusiasm”(Denton). While the DNC artificially propelled Clinton to the nomination, Trump interactively spoke to Americans throughout the day in his own language, personalizing his message to his constituency.
Wagner, John. "‘THANK GOD FOR TRUMP’: Trump Elevates a Tweet Offering Praise for Himself." Washington Post, 10 Sept. 2018.
DeleteDenton, Robert E. The 2016 US Presidential Campaign Political Communication and Practice. Switzerland, Springer International Publishing, 2017.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteKevin G. Slattery
ReplyDeleteProfessor Lisa Burns
Strategic Communication in the Trump Era
17 September 2018
Blog Post #3
During the week of my birthday, August 23rd, President Donald Trump discussed a wide range of topics on his Twitter account. He discussed the 2016 Presidential election, the Mueller investigation, and the false news story about white farmers have their land seized in South Africa. He posted an interview he had with Fox News during the week and advocated for Senate candidate Cindy Hyde-Smith from Mississippi. President Trump also discussed how his odds for the presidency are greater than any other 2020 hopeful and how the Paul Manafort Trial is part of witch hunt against his presidency. Many individuals were mentioned in President Trump’s tweets. He mentioned Congressional candidate Cindy Hyde-Smith, Paul Manafort, and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. President Trump also mentioned Michael Cohen, Hillary Clinton, and former President Barack Obama by name. Most of the tweets were negative in nature with only a few being positive in any way. It was even harder to find neutral tweets on his Twitter. The positive tweets were directed to Cindy Hyde-Smith, Paul Manafort, and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. However, sometimes President Trump would discuss a negative topic and bring up a person he liked in the same tweet. For example, he discussed a false claim about how white farmers were having their land taken away in South Africa and requested Mike Pompeo to investigate the false accusations. In another tweet, President Trump commended Paul Manafort while bashing the justice system and claiming it was all part of a
large witch hunt against his presidency. His more negative tweets consisted of bashing Hillary Clinton for losing her chance at the presidency. President Trump also bashed the accusations of violating campaign finance laws, citing that former President Barack Obama had similar accusations against him that were not brought up. Again, this statement made by President Trump regarding former President Barack Obama is incorrect. The accusations against then candidate Barack Obama were not the same or as serious as the accusations against current President Donald Trump. For the most part, President Trump’s tweets during my birthday week very accurately represented the content on his twitter. President Trump’s account is mostly critical with hints of positivity sprinkled throughout it. President Trump’s content on his Twitter account is very different from most politicians’ Twitter accounts, specifically former President Barack Obama. However, there is a similarity in how Presidents Trump and Obama have utilized social media. For example, “The 2008 campaign was notable for the high level of online public activity, far greater than that seen in previous elections. That increased use of social media may have been a result of the particular enthusiasm Obama generated among young people and in using online media to participate in political discussions.” (Denton 94). Presidents Obama and Trump were both able to utilize social media to their advantages when they were campaigning. With that being said, President Trump is still different from his predecessor. For example, “But Trump himself was found to have distorted the truth multiple times Friday…” (Knowles 1). This was in reference to a Trump tweet about Democrats separating children from their parents at the Border, which was proven to be false. President Obama never dealt with issues about his credibility like this.
ReplyDeleteWorks Cited
“Chapterr 4.” Presidential Communication and Character White House News Management from Clinton and Cable to Twitter and Trump, by Stephen J. Farnsworth, Routledge, 2018, pp. 94–94.
Knowles, David. “Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines.” Yahoo! News, Yahoo!, 15 June 2018, www.yahoo.com/news/
Rick Lessard
ReplyDelete9/18/18
Donald Trump likes to tweet. That could be an understatement because it seems like the President tweets at least 10 times a day, covering anything that pops into his mind. On my birthday week – April 15th to 21st – President Trump tweeted about everything from giving his condolences to the Bush family on Barbara Bush’s passing, to tweeting about California’s sanctuary cities. He also attacked former FBI director James Comey and how “slippery” he was as a director. President’s Trumps tone changed drastically from the somber remembrance of former first lady Barbara Bush to the excitement of meeting the Japanese Prime Minster and finally arriving to disgust of James Comey.
The overall “theme” of Trump’s tweets is how unpredictable they can be. Which is really astonishing when one examines the seemingly random order of thoughts of the President. In many ways, that is the kind of appeal that Donald Trump has with his base and a reason why he won the election. Trump was being Trump. On the other side of the election, Hillary Clinton’s social media team struggled to fins a voice. According to John Allen Hendricks and Dan Schill, “Clinton’s team attempted to humanize the candidate and use humor and personal stories to soften a candidate that was disliked by many.” (Hendricks and Schill 127) Clinton’s social media campaign was calculated by some of the best minds for social media. It came off that way and did not draw a good response. A good example would be the fine of how Clinton was, “just chilling” vine that created more parody’s than new voters. While Trump tweets seem organic and representative of him, Hillary’s social media presence seemed forced.
Rick Lessard Part II
DeleteWhat is also very interesting is how Hillary Clinton and before her, President Obama tried to really humanize themselves to the public. Stephen Farnsworth writes, “Obama’s ‘March Madness’ college basketball post season picks on ESPN, hyped by the White House on social media, is an effective example of how one can help build support – or at least reduce opposition – to a president by reaching citizens where they are in today’s very decentralized media environment.” (Farnsworth 122) Obama was attempting to reach a larger audience with “hey I am just like you” approach but Trump seems to not even care. To a certain degree, Trump’s strategy works and is effective. President Trump rarely shows you that he is the everyman. Through his social media presence, one knows that Trump is rich. His base doesn’t care because they see him as someone who speaks his mind while throwing all couth out the window.
President Trump likes to go after people and he did multiple times throughout my birthday week. Instead of trying to be the everyman, Trump just does his own thing and if he relates to you, then his strategy is working perfectly. If I remember correctly the week of April 15th was a big week because of Trump going after former FBI director Comey. Trump referred to Comey, as slippery and the worst FBI director ever. He also denied any collusion with Russia. In context, this was the same day he met with Japanese Prime Minster Abe and talked very loudly about government secrets around the waiting staff. Donald Trump is effective with his tweet barrages and his personal attacks on people. One really waits every week to see who will get in the crosshairs of Donald Trump’s twitter.
Works Cited
Farnsworth, Stephen J. Presidential Communication and Character: White House News Management from Clinton and Cable to Twitter and Trump. New York, Routledge, 2018.
Denton, Robert E. The 2016 US Presidential Campaign Political Communication and Practice. Switzerland, Springer International Publishing, 2017.
It is safe to say that social media has opened up an entirely new avenue for political candidates during the election season. Used strategically, social media can punch a candidate’s ticket into office or into the White House. Looking back to last November 30, my birthday, President Trump was tweeting about a multitude of topics, but twice about the “failing” New York Time coverage of him. At the same time of this is when Trump had implemented Tax cuts and how the newspaper had reported inaccurately on it. Trump’s tone is pretty negative about the New York Times, and even after a year, we’re all still hearing his distaste for the newspaper and I don’t think his opinion will change any time soon. Trump’s tweets are frequent and sporadic, almost seemingly impulsively typed up as if he’s typing whatever comes to his mind. Trump’s use of Twitter is very much of a “spray and pray” method: he shoots out tweets frequently knowing that his sometimes outlandish statements will always be in the news in some sort of way. This doesn’t come without consequence either: Trump wild west approach to twitter has landed him criticism, opening up a new can of worms to whether or not the president can block his critics (Sisak, 1). Trump’s previous background as a reality star clearly taught him that any press is good press, and his tweets are always (in some form or another) the subject of discussion on news channels. In his campaign, Trump’s son in law Jared Kushner played a significant role in his social media strategy. Kushner’s strategy is described as “unschooled in traditional campaigning”, but he looked at the campaign the same way he did with his businesses: generating a large return on investment. The Trump campaign utilized Facebook and Twitter heavily, and would generate data so that Trump could run a more targeted campaign (Denton, 29). Looking at Hillary Clinton’s use of social media in the election, Clinton was very strategic in who she had run her social media and how it was presented. Clinton’s team described themselves as a “Production company” and that “[we] are producing our own content and we are thinking about how to make it viral, how to make it successful” (Denton, 126). Clinton recruited her team from media companies such as Facebook, Google, and Twitter to help her get to the White House. Knowing that she had a substantial millennial voting base, she utilized platforms such as Pinterest and made Buzzfeed-esque sites of her own. Likewise, to President Obama’s campaign, Obama cashed in on the fact that social media was still very new during the time of his 2008 election. The news media environment in 2008 had “evolved into a hybrid arrangement where traditional and new sources co-exist, complement, compete, and conflict with each other (Farnsworth, 94). Similarly, with the Kennedy-Nixon 1960 campaign, Obama utilized new media and came out successful.
ReplyDelete^John McMahon
DeleteWorks Cited
SISAK, MICHAEL R. “Trump Appealing Ruling That Bars Blocking of Twitter Critics.” Yahoo! News, Yahoo!, 5 June 2018, www.yahoo.com/news/trump-appealing-ruling-bars-blocking-twitter-critics-154821788--politics.html.
Denton, Robert E. Political Campaign Communication: Theory, Method, and Practice. Lexington Books, an Imprint of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc., 2017.
Farnsworth, Stephen J. Presidential Communication and Character White House News Management from Clinton and Cable to Twitter and Trump. Routledge, 2018.
PART 1 Charlotte Gardner
ReplyDeleteDuring the week of my birthday, Trump concerned himself with a round of elections that had just taken place. He also had a large focus on stating how much better the U.S has been since his presidency, defending himself among a variety of unknown assailants. In his earlier tweets, he references republican candidates and their wins across the country. He tweets about Jeff Johnson’s win specifically, writing: “Jeff Johnson of Minnesota had a big night in winning the Republican nomination for Governor against a very strong and well known opponent! Thanks for all of the support you showed me. You have my complete and total Endorsement. You will win in November!” (@realDonaldTrump). Another candidate mentioned was Scott Walker, “Scott Walker is very special and will have another great win in November. He has done a fantastic job as Governor of Wisconsin and will always have my full support and Endorsement!” (@realDonaldTrump). The last two candidates mentioned were Leah Vukmir and Bryan Stell. Trump then changed the topic to how successful the economy has been since he took over for Obama: “Our Economy is doing better than ever. Money is pouring into our cherished DOLLAR like rarely before, companies earnings are higher than ever, inflation is low & business optimism is higher than it has ever been. For the first time in many decades, we are protecting our workers!” (@realDonaldTrump). This change in Twitter content came without any clear transitions and came without reference to any person in particular. What makes the tweets shared on my birthday even better, was how he ended the day. He ended his Twitter spontaneity by commemorating the life and death of Aretha Franklin: “The Queen of Soul, Aretha Franklin, is dead. She was a great woman, with a wonderful gift from God, her voice. She will be missed!” (@realDonald Trump). I think it’s very interesting that the president was able to tweet this amount and tweet about such a broad range of topics that have no link to one another.These tweets go back and forth between quite a negative tone and a very positive tone. When praising the republican candidates, Trump seemed very supportive and encouraging whereas he completely flipped when he was defending himself. He seems like he tweets without thinking the action through, becoming infatuated with another topic before fully discussing what he had to say before.
PART 2 Charlotte Gardner
DeleteHe also seems to use Twitter as his main way of starting discussion, eliminating the need for press conferences since he tweets so many times in one period. And for Trump, this has been effective. He garners at least ninety-thousand likes on any one of his tweets, meaning that they are getting attention and support. This tactic is similar to the tactics used by Hillary Clinton’s campaign, “Clinton’s team saw themselves as a media production company. In the words of Clinton’s strategist Dowd: ‘I definitely think we are a production company. We are producing our own content and we are thinking about how to make it viral, how to make it successful’” (Dowd 26). It’s also interesting that the president is using strategies made for campaigning when he has already won. Although I can see the appeal of having a president that is willing to share their thoughts more often on a large platform, these posts serve no purpose to inform, but instead to either praise or denounce other people’s words. But these random tweets could be used as a distraction method-- Trump’s tweets could be distracting from problems or accusations against him: “With Trump’s tweets and statements to reporters being challenged over their truthfulness, the president directed the nation’s attention back to North Korea on Friday” (Knowles). This example shows how rapidly he deflects attention from one subject because he doesn’t want to become involved. Trump’s twitter behavior is outlandish for a president, but maybe he is making it the new norm.
^ Charlotte Gardner
DeleteDenton, Robert E. The 2016 US Presidential Campaign Political Communication and
Practice.
Knowles, David. “'Very Unfair!': Trump Tweets Cap Another Tumultuous Week.” Yahoo!
News, Yahoo!, 15 June 2018
www.yahoo.com/news/unfair-trump-tweets-cap-another-tumultuous-week-19331
9813.html.
(The second citation's formatting keeps getting messed up I apologize)
Blog #3 July 9th-13th
ReplyDeletePresident Trump’s twitter feed seems to vary in direction on a daily basis, and this pattern was no different during the week of July 9th, 2018. He starts the week off with threatening tweets towards Kim Jong Un, claiming that he hopes Kim will remain loyal to their denuclearization agreement. All in the same day, the president goes on to call out the “failing New York Times” over a breast feeding story, and nominate Judge Brett Kavanaugh to the United States Supreme Court.
It is evident that the president is sporadic with his tweets, but with a specific message to his base containing a positive undertone implying that he is doing the right thing. Throughout the rest of the week, President Trump will tweet primarily about economic growth, trade deals with regards to NATO and the ongoing denuclearization battle with North Korea. The tweets during this week did not surprise me because they seem to be completely different every single day. The overall purpose of Trump’s twitter is for it to be strategically used as a noncom formative outlet next to the mainstream media.
Trump’s consistent bashing of the “fake news” media explains his thoughts and opinions on major news outlets. Instead of having them report the news, he can surpass all media outlets with just a click of a button on Twitter. The article entitled, ‘Very unfair! Trump tweets cap another tumultuous week’ by David Knowles states, “The president capped a week that might have been remembered for a history-making summit with North Korea by blasting developments sure to leave a less favorable impression.” The author of this article points out the inconsistency in Trump’s tweets, in this example stemming off of the North Korea summit to talk about the left’s hypocrisy.
President Trump’s use of Twitter is shockingly different compared to other politicians such as former President Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton. On Twitter, Trump has wiggle room to say whatever he wants to the 54.5 million people that follow his account. In chapter five of the book, ‘The 2016 US Presidential Campaign’ by Robert E. Denton he states, “If Trump was a verb in 2016, Clinton was most definitely a noun. Her social media feeds attempted to create a warm-and-fuzzy image with descriptions of her background and fitness for office.” It seemed as though Hillary Clinton took to the professional LinkedIn-style type of Twitter feed, while Trump used the platform to communicate directly with his supporters.
Supporters of the president claim to enjoy his use of Twitter because it separates him from the other politicians in Washington, D.C. He has no filter when it comes to detailing his version of news, and his base loves him for it. Overall, the week of July 9th, 2018 contained important news, and Trump’s twitter feed contained mixed messages per usual. People can definitely expect Trump to continue tweeting, and the world will continue to watch.
Works Cited
Knowles, David. “'Very Unfair!': Trump Tweets Cap Another Tumultuous Week.” Yahoo! News, Yahoo!, 15 June 2018, www.yahoo.com/news/unfair-trump-tweets-cap-another-tumultuous-week-193319813.html.
E., Denton Jr Robert. The 2016 US Presidential Campaign Political Communication and Practice. Springer International Publishing, 2017.
My birthday during the first week of March. International Women’s Day is always a big deal and people are already putting up their St. Patrick’s Day decorations while praying there will not be anymore snow storms. There will be. International Women’s Day did not escape Trump’s tweets this past year. It was very brief, but he wished his wife a happy day and she presented the International Women of Courage Award. This message was very positive on March 8, 2018 and he continued to be positive. International Women’s Day was the same day that Trump had a “great meeting” with the cabinet and Kim Jong Un was talking about denuclearizing (something that Trump would take responsibility for).
ReplyDeleteMy favorite tweet of my birthday week was on March 6th. Trump wrote: “Lowest rated Oscars in HISTORY. Problem is, we don’t have Stars anymore - except your President (just kidding, of course)!” I do not think that he has ever stated how highly he thinks of himself so clearly in a tweet since this. Donald Trump uses his twitter page to log how important that he is and how no one could do this job like he can. To some extent, he is right.
President Obama’s hip social media edge kept him ahead of his opponents during his first presidential election and his reelection. “Mitt Romney’s team consistently struggled to keep up with the Obama organization online, ad the McCain team did four years earlier” (Farnsworth). Obama’s social media usage during campaigning was obviously a work of himself and his staffers. The same applies to Trump. The difference is, when posts went up for Obama, they were proof read and checked for grammatical errors. Now, staffers intentionally add errors. “Some of his staffers even enjoy the elitist criticisms leveled at their boss for his shocking Trumpisms — which are so endearing to his base” (Steinbuch). I think that it is incredible that his staffers have made a fame of all of this and they have managed to engage their target audience and base so well. I think that this speaks volumes on how well Trump has mastered Twitter as a communication tool.
Works Cited
Farnsworth, Stephen J. Presidential Communication and Character White House News Management from Clinton and Cable to Twitter and Trump. Routledge, 2018.
Steinbuch, Yaron. “Aides Purposely Add Typos to Trump Tweets to Mimic His 'Style'.” New York Post, New York Post, 22 May 2018, nypost.com/2018/05/22/aides-purposely-add-typos-to-trump-tweets-to-mimic-his-style/.
Trump, Donald (@realdonaldtrump). “Lowest rated Oscars in HISTORY. Problem is, we don’t have Stars anymore - except your President (just kidding, of course)!” 6 March 2018, 5:25 AM. Tweet
Trump seems to be quite all over the place in his tweets during the week of my birthday this year on May 2nd. Touching on topics anywhere from immigration to unemployment, but the reason I mention immigration first is because it would appear that immigration was a main focus of Trump during that week. The tweets mentioning immigration were certainly negative, as were most of the tweets throughout the week aside from a few tweets that I wouldn’t even consider positive. Trump boasted success in the unemployment rate, but in a very Trump way. It appears that Trump is more happy that he is responsible for the low unemployment rate rather than the rate itself being low. Trump is also pointing out witch-hunts and more fake news throughout the weak to no surprise. This is behavior that I have pretty much become desensitized to at this point. Those tweets are mere humble brags compared to what Trump had retweeted recently. “On Monday morning, the president retweeted an image of his head, draped with an American flag, with the words, “THANK GOD FOR TRUMP.” This retweet could be seen in a few ways. One way could be just trump being appreciative to someone showing support from Trump, but to retweet that is a bit excessive. Another way to look at this retweet is that Trump truly feels that he is god’s gift to the world. And while it may be true that you need some sort of an ego to become president, Trump seems to be the first president so far to put the ego on full display on this type of magnitude. Obama was in many ways our first president to use social media heavily, so we do not have much to compare Trump to in terms of social media use, but it is safe to say the differences in use between the two presidents are night and day. Trump uses twitter as a pulpit to perpetrate his agenda even further, and it is arguably the largest platform Trump could use to get his thoughts out as millions upon millions of people have access to his tweets. And you don’t even have to be following Trump (although 54.5 million people are) to see his tweets. I myself do not follow President Trump yet I see his tweets regularly on my timeline. I did not follow President Obama during his presidency and I can say honestly that I do not recall seeing a single tweet from Obama on my timeline during his 8 years in office. Granted Obama had access to a platform that no other president before him had, it allowed him to grow in publicity, but not with outlandish claims like Trump uses to grow. Obama would use it in a more traditional way, but “That increased use of social media may have been a result of the particular enthusiasm Obama generated among young people and in using online media to participate in political discussions” (Farnsworth, 2018)
ReplyDelete“'THANK GOD FOR TRUMP': Trump Elevates a Tweet Offering Praise for Himself.” The Washington Post, WP Company, 10 Sept. 2018, www.washingtonpost.com/politics/thank-god-for-president-trump-trump-elevates-a-tweet-offering-praise-for-himself/2018/09/10/afc5f450-b4f6-11e8-a7b5-adaaa5b2a57f_story.html?utm_term=.b94f2397415b&wpisrc=nl_politics-pm&wpmm=1.
Farnsworth, Stephen J. Presidential Communication and Character White House News Management from Clinton and Cable to Twitter and Trump. Routledge, 2018.
On April 20th of this year, the day of my birthday, President Trump tweeted a total of 10 times. Topics ranged from attacking Democrats, James Comey, Nancy Pelosi, North Korea promising to suspend their nuclear tests, and of course fake news. These topics are a pretty good representation for the “theme” of that week’s tweets. A lot about relations with North Korea, attacks on the Democrats, and calling out the “fake news media.”
ReplyDeleteIn general, the tweets during the week of my birthday were in line with Trump’s typical use of Twitter. He uses Twitter a lot to speak his mind in a very free and open way. Other politicians use Twitter to share their opinions, but in a much more thought out and planned way. President Trump seems to simply pick up his phone and say whatever is on his mind. It almost feels a bit like one of his rallies. At his rallies he kind of knows what he wants to say, but he basically just gets up and says whatever comes to mind and a lot of what he says is to get a reaction out of the crowd. Think about just how much media coverage a simple tweet gets. You never see any other politician’s tweets on the news unless it’s something highly controversial. Almost every day on CNN Trump’s most recent tweets are shown on screen as they discuss what he said. I don’t think I’ve ever seen any other politician’s tweets shown on TV like that, unless of course they are replying to Trump.
His tweets have such a specific style, very similar to the way he speaks. One other thing to note is the various, and somewhat frequent, spelling and grammar mistakes he makes which further my point about other politician’s tweets being more calculated. We all remember how the internet blew up after Trump tweeted “covfefe” instead of “coverage.” The memes never ended. He has such a unique style and makes so many spelling and grammatical errors that the New York Post reported two sources in the White House told them they purposefully make errors when tweeting in place of Trump to make sure no one catches on. Not to mention that WIRED wrote an entire article on how to spot when Trump himself is tweeting or if it’s a member of his staff. They suggested looking at whether the tweet includes an @ mention, because if so it probably isn’t Trump, rarely does he ever call someone out by specifically mentioning them on Twitter. Additionally, it is more likely that his tweets from very early in the morning are from him and those later in the day are more likely to be from a staffer. Apparently he does his best thinking first thing in the morning.
We may not know for sure why Trump tweets when and how he does but we do know that his use of twitter has completely changed how presidents communicate with the public and I’m interested to see whether or not future presidents follow his model.
Work Cited
ReplyDeleteFeinberg, Ashley. "How To Tell When Someone Else Tweets From @realDonaldTrump." Wired. August 29, 2018. Accessed September 18, 2018. https://www.wired.com/story/tell-when-someone-else-tweets-from-realdonaldtrump/.
Steinbuch, Yaron. "Aides Purposely Add Typos to Trump Tweets to Mimic His 'style'." New York Post. May 22, 2018. Accessed September 18, 2018. https://nypost.com/2018/05/22/aides-purposely-add-typos-to-trump-tweets-to-mimic-his-style/.
Sophie Rodgers
ReplyDeleteMSS 349-01
Dr. Burns
18 September, 2018
My last birthday was July 2, 2018, two days before the Fourth of July. It was a busy week for President Trump, who tweeted 37 times from Sunday, July 1st, to Saturday, July 7th. Unsurprisingly, a major theme of these was patriotism: on Independence Day itself, he wished the country a “Happy Fourth of July…. Our Country is doing GREAT!”. This was followed up on July 5th with an insistence that “Thanks to REPUBLICAN LEADERSHIP, America is WINNING AGAIN - and America is being RESPECTED again all over the world. Because we are finally putting AMERICA FIRST!”.
That week also saw the President speak up about the hot topic of immigration. “Congress - FIX OUR INSANE IMMIGRATION LAWS NOW!” was another message of his on July 5th. Earlier in the week, he had declared that “The Liberal Left, also known as the Democrats, want to get rid of ICE, who do a fantastic job, and want Open Borders. Crime would be rampant and uncontrollable! Make America Great Again”. He continued to come after Democrats throughout the week, with claims such as “A vote for Democrats in November is a vote to let MS-13 run wild in our communities, to let drugs pour into our cities, and to take jobs and benefits away from hard working Americans. Democrats want anarchy, amnesty and chaos - Republicans want LAW, ORDER and JUSTICE!”, and “Just won lawsuit filed by the DNC and a bunch of Democrat crazies trying to claim the Trump Campaign (and others), colluded with Russia. They haven’t figured out this was an excuse for them losing the election!”. The one tweet that perhaps stood out to me most was posted on July 6th. Trump quoted a tweet from Secretary Acosta’s account, which stated that 3.7 million jobs had been created since the 2016 election. His message was simple: “JOBS, JOBS, JOBS!”.
My takeaway from all this? Trump’s tweeting style is characterized by broad generalizations, outlandish claims, and verbal attacks. He is big on hyperbole and throws out statements and judgements without much explanation or support. He uses social media to brag about his accomplishments and discredit those who try to challenge him. Some of his tweets read almost as if he is talking to himself, sort of like an online diary. In fact, author Marc Fisher made the point that Trump was able to relate to many voters by turning “himself into a human vent, blasting the country with a stream of frustration and anger” (Denton).
While reading all of these, I was surprised that I didn’t recognize any of them. Many of the tweets were over-the-top and intense in the way that makes many of his messages go viral online. I then realized that Trump tweets out so many messages like that that it was impossible for all of them to stick out to the public. Senior analyst Alex Conant describes this phenomenon as a “mass amnesia”, explaining that Trump realized that “if you’re the one regularly feeding the stream, you can forever move past your latest trouble” (Denton).
(part 2)
DeleteIf we compare this style to that of Hillary Clinton, it’s a very different story. In the same week in the July, Clinton tweeted only twice. Once was for the fourth of July, with the message “242 years ago, we set out to build a more perfect union. We’re not finished yet. Happy Fourth of July”. Clearly this is different from Trump’s independence day tweet: it is much more serious, more realistic, and more critical. This aligns well with Clinton’s typically social media style, which has always been described as more focused on the issues than the President’s. An analysis of both candidate’s accounts by Jennifer Stromer-Galley found that “Clinton posted three times as many messages as Trump about issues, such as the economy, education, and women’s issues. While Clinton’s posts provided facts and backing for her positions, Trump’s posts were characterized as broad generalizations or generic claims with little evidence” (Denton). In general, Clinton’s tweets just read as much more polished. She uses eloquent language, proper sentence structure, and statements that were clearly planned out beforehand. Trump’s on the other hand, often read as if the President had an idea pop into his head, wrote it down as quickly as possible, then pressed “send”. In fact, two White House sources told the Boston Globe last May that “when West Wing aides compose [Trump’s tweets], they purposely include grammatical errors. They capitalize random words, overuse exclamation points and mimic his freewheeling rhetoric” (Steinbuch). Trump’s social media style, while confusing to many, certainly seems to work for him. I believe that for his voter base, these tweets are a refreshing change from the scripted messages of almost all other politicians. After all, Trump ran on a platform of being a Washington outsider; why wouldn’t the way he communicates reflect that? My biggest concern is that he doesn’t appear to focus too much on fact-checking many of the things he says. For people who primarily get their news from Twitter and social media, this is a big opportunity for misinformation. Scholar Michael X. Delli Carpini described that effect as “ ‘hyperral’ (i.e., in which the mediated representation of reality becomes more important than the facts underlying it)” (Denton). If people are willing to accept what the President says without much question, the political climate in the United States becomes that much more complicated.
Works Cited
Hendricks, John Allen, and Dan Schill. “The Social Media Election of 2016 .” The 2016 US Presidential Campaign Political Communication and Practice, by Denton Jr Robert E., Springer International Publishing, 2017, pp. 121–150.
Steinbuch, Yaron. “Aides Purposely Add Typos to Trump Tweets to Mimic His 'Style'.” New York Post, New York Post, 22 May 2018, nypost.com/2018/05/22/aides-purposely-add-typos-to-trump-tweets-to-mimic-his-style/.
“Twitter Advanced Search.” Twitter, Twitter, twitter.com/search-advanced.
Dana Vogt
ReplyDelete(T/Th 12:30 Class)
Trump’s Tweet on February 27th, 2018
“Big legal win today. U.S. judge sided with the Trump Administration and rejected the attempt to stop the government from building a great Border Wall on the Southern Border. Now this important project can go forward!”
President Trump tweeted this on my 21st birthday, February 27th, 2018. The tweet is about one of Trump’s biggest selling points to his supporters: the installation of a huge wall along the Mexican-American border. Trump is clearly writing in a positive tone, immediately apparent by his use of the word “win”. Trump is known to be competitive and to use such decisive language like “win” and “important”. I noticed that he did not name which judge had “sided with the Trump Administration”, which is unusual for a name-dropper like Trump. Normally, Trump says exactly who is complimenting him and for what reasons. I am assuming that he was so caught up in the excitement of getting the official support of a U.S. judge that he saw such details as unimportant.
On March 2nd, Trump tweeted “We must protect our country and our workers. Our steel industry is in bad shape. IF YOU DON’T HAVE STEEL, YOU DON’T HAVE A COUNTRY!” His excessive use of capital letters and tendency to use exclamation points only furthers my point that he is excitable through Twitter and does not hesitate in sharing that. These two tweets were very honestly reflective of Twitter as a communications tool because what President Trump does is no different than the average user; Twitter is a place to air grievances, yell into the abyss, and say ridiculous things about people you like or dislike. The only difference is that President Trump holds the highest position of political office possible and is expected to restrain himself a bit more than the average Joe. Compared to other politicians, President Trump started as an outlier. He was one of the most publicly extreme social media users in a position of power, though others have followed suit and grown more comfortable doing so as well. His supporters often defend Trump on Twitter, which only adds to his narrative of polarizing public statements.
Trump’s Twitter presence is very robust compared to that of Obama’s when he was in office, who mainly posted pictures and light-hearted messages updating the nation. Hillary Clinton focused her tweets mainly on empowering women and delivering impassioned statements of humanity. Clinton clearly targeted the morality of her audience while Trump targeted the inner extremist in his audiences. Clinton speaks on feminism in a much different light than Trump, even serving as his direct opposition on women’s rights, one of Clinton’s most popular Twitter topics.
(I posted this in the OneDrive before the time it was due, but just realized it did not upload to here correctly, so here it is again.)
On the week of my birthday of 8/26/18, Donald Trump was heavily focused on Hillary’s email scandal, the booming stock market, the lying media, and his outstanding approval ratings. He made many references to Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, all disparaging them and boosting himself. He references a ton of statistics and facts that all make Trump seem like the greatest president in history, while Obama simultaneously is one of the worst presidents in history. It makes me wonder how this can be possible. Here is an example: Aug 26, 2018 05:01:33 PM “Mainstream Media tries to rewrite history to credit Obama for Trump accomplishments. Since President Trump took office, the economy is booming. The stronger the economy gets, the more desperate his critics are. O had weakest recovery since Great Depression.” The fact that he references the Great Depression seems only as a means of comparing Obama with one of the worst economic crisis in the history of America. Evaluating the week of tweets as a whole, it was a mix of attack, defense, support, and analysis of everything that has to do with him and the candidates he supports. But mainly himself. This is incredibly characteristic of Donald Trump’s use of Twitter as a communication tool, as it seems consistent with his tweets during the 2016 election. Trump’s social media use compared to other politicians is quite striking. From chapter 4, Obama’s political campaign in 2008 was a first in politics due to its strategic use of internet platforms and social media to gain public awareness and attention, around the rise of the smartphone. Donald Trump takes this to the next level as he uses the weaknesses of social media to gain incredible traction and awareness from the people. Donald Trump seeks to maintain his grip on social media and the news cycle by polluting his own alternate facts into the newsfeed and twitter timeline. I think the biggest consequence is now handling presidential social media on a legal and constitutional level. From the article “Trump Appealing Ruling that Bars Blocking of Twitter Critics” by Michael R. Sisak, blocking users from the presidential twitter account may be a violation of the first amendment. How do we interpret social media interaction through the constitution, and how much does online communication differ from written or verbal communication? These are the modern problems we face in 2018.
ReplyDeleteWorks cited
Denton, Robert E. The 2016 US Presidential Campaign Political Communication and Practice. Switzerland, Springer International Publishing, 2017.
Sisak, Michael R. “Trump Appealing Ruling That Bars Blocking of Twitter Critics.” Yahoo! News, Yahoo!, 5 June 2018, www.yahoo.com/news/trump-appealing-ruling-bars-blocking-twitter-critics-154821788--politics.html.