2016 US presidential elections: Communication trends and lessons for communicators
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.24310/tsn.3.2017.19286Keywords:
2016 US Presidential Elections, Twitter, Entertainment values, Emotional responses, PopulismAbstract
The article examines the increasing role of social media in US electoral communications. During the 2016 cycle, the use of Twitter by one of the main candidates, Donald Trump as its platform of choice, has modified public conversation, including media coverage and analysis. Although Twitter can be seen as a convenient tool to attract younger generations such as millennials into the political process, it can also limit political debate. The 140-characters Twitter parameter fosters over-simplification of complex issues and emotional enunciations in lieu of more informed and rationalized debates. US elections have global repercussions and also are trend-setters in both technological and discursive sense. As such, this article ponders if this election cycle in the US constitutes a breakthrough moment for political communication world-wide. The article main conclusion is that the use of Twitter caters to emotional communication, discursive populism, to entertainment values and the exaltation of simulacra as substitute for «the social» and «the real»
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