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The Rise of Trumpism via Tweets and Journalistic Coverage: A Historical and Collective Memory Approach

Sun, May 27, 12:30 to 13:45, Hilton Prague, Floor: LL, Congress Hall II - Exhibit Hall/Posters

Abstract

Following Donald Trump’s surprise electoral victory in November 2016, journalists and media organizations, pundits, and pollsters have been scratching their heads trying to figure out how they got the anticipated electoral result so wrong. Since then, journalists have sought to report on an unpredictable president in an increasingly fractured, foggy, and “fake news” infused news landscape filled with frenetic tweets. This paper will examine how Donald Trump’s tweets and journalistic coverage of these tweets facilitated the rise of Trumpism. It will also evaluate how journalists discursively rely on past events to bolster their cultural authority and to establish themselves as interpretive communities in their coverage of Trumpism. Drawing from 150 Lexis-Nexis articles from leading U.S. media between June 2015 and October 2017 I will identify key historical analogies journalists invoke to make sense of Trumpism. Using critical discourse analysis on select newspaper articles I will evaluate the nominalization and passivization associated with Trumpism. Lastly, I will use CDA to examine Donald Trump’s tweets leading up to and immediately after “critical incidents” to show how these tweets strategically redirected journalists from their watchdog role.

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