Since taking office, Donald Trump has repeatedly attacked the media, calling them “fake news” and “the enemy of the people.” Polymita Bora takes a closer look at Trump’s relationship with the media, writing that despite his adversarial stance, Trump has captured, and continues to capture, the news cycle. The media played a major role in his election victory, with coverage during his campaign amounting to essentially $2 billion in free advertising.
The 2016 US presidential election was the subject of much controversy. From Hillary Clinton’s emails to Donald Trump’s promise to build a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border, there was plenty of news to keep the media active from the primaries to the general election. One of the most controversial issues that began during the campaign and continues into the second month of Donald Trump’s presidency is Trump’s relationship with the media. In his first press conference as president, President Trump said, “I’ve never seen media so dishonest…The news is fake because so much of the news is fake.” President Trump’s first press conference was in stark contrast to the usual rituals of presidential news conferences. The day after his first press conference, President Trump tweeted that the press was “the enemy of the people.” His critics didn’t like this. In addition to liberals and Democrats, two prominent Republicans also strongly opposed President Trump’s attempts to insult the media. Sen. John McCain said dictators “start by suppressing the freedom of the press.” Former President George W. Bush criticized President Trump’s comments in an interview with NBC, saying that without an independent press in the United States, the nation cannot direct other countries to encourage and foster free press. He pointed out that he was deaf.
While debate continues over Trump’s relationship with the media, political communication scholars and journalists alike are focusing on how the media played a key role in Trump’s presidential success. are collecting. Scholars at the University of Wisconsin-Madison have been conducting research on this topic since the primaries. A recent study included multiple datasets collected from Republican primary debates, public events, media events, media appearances, Trump’s own tweets and retweets, news articles, blog posts, Trump’s delegate count, and more. dataset was used. They conducted multiple data analyzes including data visualization, causality tests, and time series models to examine how Trump increased media coverage and led to his nomination. Their findings show that retweets of Trump’s posts positively predicted news articles and blog posts. Additionally, President Trump’s tweet volume was a negative predictor of news coverage, implying that Trump utilized “tweet storms” when media coverage was low. The authors also show that staged media events predicted simultaneous media coverage. President Trump’s unscheduled media appearances also predicted media coverage.
Researchers also showed that Trump successfully used staged events, unscheduled interactions, and social media to gain coverage during the primary campaign. During the primary campaign, Mr. Trump received more media exposure than other candidates through rallies, press conferences, interviews, news programs, and talk radio shows. An important development in the emerging media landscape is that news about Trump generated massive amounts of clicks online. This is a new metric used to measure audience reach. As a result, Trump received an increasingly negative media coverage, although he benefited from an estimated $2 billion in “free media” during the first nine months of his campaign. Trump also used social media, especially Twitter, to his advantage. Trump used Twitter even before announcing his candidacy, and the social media tool expressed his message. Fans loved his message and didn’t fail to defend him online. Trump’s messages on social media were also amplified by his followers. One of the most important dynamics of Trump’s use of Twitter was that he was always trending, and that journalists covered these trending stories.
Although empirical research on the relationship between President Trump and the media is just beginning, journalists have long debated the relationship between Trump and the media. A BBC report in November 2016 claimed that Donald Trump was created by the media. Some have written that Trump had a unique way of taking over the media cycle. There are also competing theories as to his motives behind his battle with the media. President Trump’s attacks on the media are either impulsive and ego-based, or the result of a manipulated and calculated strategy. For example, media reported that the crowd size for President Trump’s inauguration in January 2017 was smaller than for President Obama’s inauguration in 2009. These reports infuriated President Trump, who slammed the media. He appeals to his base by constantly bashing “fake news.” Trump also uses Twitter to avoid media filters, which resonates with his fans. He doesn’t need “fake news” to reach his fans. Twitter does the work for him.
Donald Trump’s use of the media during and after the primaries is unique. He combined a hostile attitude toward the media and promoted practices that circumvented the traditional media model as a buffer between news sources and viewers. This combination has allowed Trump to control key parts of the news cycle and amass valuable media capital. The researchers further explore whether the dominant myth of Trump’s relationship with the media as “adversarial” needs to be recalibrated in terms of how the media and the 24-hour news cycle require constant drama. I might investigate. It’s a little difficult to predict what the future holds for Trump’s relationship with the media. But this relationship gives him two important points. First, this is a special time for political communication scholars conducting empirical research to understand the situation. Second, the media needs to take the time to reflect on its role in President Trump’s rise to power and devise new strategies for navigating its relationship with a president who could become a true fourth estate for news organizations. be.
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Note: This article gives the views of the author and does not represent the position of USAPP (American Politics and Policy) or the London School of Economics.
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About the author
Polymita Bora – washington state university
Porismita Borah is an assistant professor in the Edward R. Murrow College of Communication at Washington State University. Porismita’s main research area is new communication technologies related to politics and health. Porismita’s research has been published in many prestigious journals, including the Journal of Communication, Communication Research, Journal of Computer Mediated Communication, and New Media and Society. If you would like to learn more about Porismita’s work, please visit her website.
