Extra Credit Blog 11: Civic Engagement

Hair me out people, Donald Trump is the mane for you!

Make America great again! Give now to his campaign because he is a man who is severely struggling for money, being a rich billionaire heiress who is a television celebrity has really hit his pocket book hard. It is a promise made by him that his hair looks thick because it is where he hides all of his leadership qualities that will make him an excellent candidate for the US presidential office. He hides those qualities so well that the American people cannot even recognize any redeemable qualities of his character or moral compass. Don't worry he can hold his own among those foreign leaders who have adult sized hands. His small hands are respected among his peers and it also doesn’t hurt that he makes up for the hand issue with his huge pen…t house apartment. Many people are envious of his apartment and the wonderful food Trump Towers serves. If you donate today Trump will give all of his guests dining at Trump Towers complimentary tap water! (*ice is not included)

Donald is a man of the people, all people. He knows how to recognize the inequitable hurdles some may face due to their minority and intersecting identities. He is able to bring groups together. He is culturally respectful to each diverse community and he holds the utmost appreciation for immigration within the tossed salad that is the United States.

Donald Trump is humble. He is someone that does not gloat or brag about his successes. He would especially never do this after a sensitive situation where it would seem disrespectful and crude. Donald Trump acknowledges other opinions differing from his own and is able to have educated and tolerant discussions with others on his disagreements.

Donald Trump has a sense of humor. He understands that he will never have everyone like him as a candidate. He allows there to be funny remarks made about him in hopes of seeming likeable. Trump loves to laugh at himself and he whole knowingly understands that jokes are used for public entertainment. Trump looks up to those stars that bring humor to politics and celebrates in their creativity in trying to engage the public in political satire.

Donald Trump has a knack for knowing the latest celebrity gossip makes him really stand out as a candidate. No one really cares about universal healthcare, the economy, or foreign policy. They really want to know where Kim Kardashian vacationed and why Ryan Gosling drinks kale smoothies after his workouts. Our future in America is dependent upon being educated on the important matters and having a president that also promotes the importance of those issues really emphasizes his character as a leader of this nation.

So please do your civic duty and give any money you can to this campaign because as you know money is power and this already affluent old white man needs more power in modern day America. #OrangeLivesMatter

Blog 10: Press Coverage

The media is where the public learns about the government happenings. Going to government sources or doing research to find information first hand is time consuming and difficult so that is why news outlets are used because of accessibility and timeliness of pieces. However all news sources are not created equal, many sources have a clear and direct political opinion that will most likely influence the material they put on display. Depending on who is in control of the political party is dependent on what news will be seen or generated. Currently with Donald Trump in office it is highly anticipated that the news negatively picking at his every action will be more liberal leaning while news that inaccurately displays his successes will be more conservatively based. With Trump being such a polarizing character in politics he is talked about on most news sources I looked at regardless of political leanings, but again what is most recognized in differences across party lines is the content that is being displayed.

The more liberal left wing media source I used to seek out a news story from was Buzzfeed. This website is your typical trash news outlet that is more used for entertainment, but you also may be able to come to some semblance of understanding on a specific issue. The story on Buzzfeed was talking about the New England Patriot’s recent trip to the White House, but the greater emphasis was put on how starting quarterback Tom Brady was not in attendance. The story discussed that Brady was Trump’s favorite player  and good friend, which was attacked by Buzzfeed as to why he would be a no show if they were ‘buds’. Brady told the media he had a family commitment he needed to be in attendance for but this news article jumped to conclusions and depicted that the reasoning was due to Brady’s lack of support for the 45^th US president.

The more extremist conservative news outlet story I got was from the infamous train wreck that is Breitbart news. Breitbart is known for intolerant right winged rhetoric that usually speaks little to no truth. The story I saw was about how the US president Donald Trump and his chief strategist Steve Bannon made Time magazine’s top 100 most influential people. This is a typical fluff piece that is put on Breitbart in order to make Trump and his administration look good among the public. The story shares how much of an honor this is and how he is the one to change the status quo in DC like no other president has done before him.

The news outlet that I chose to gather a news story with the least amount of bias was from the Wall Street Journal. The news article found was discussing how Trump just signed legislation to extend a private care program for veterans. This story was very direct in displaying the facts with as little frill as possible. I also noticed that veteran care is a bipartisan issue that most if not all Americans fully support.

          From what I can tell, the media is setting the agenda and generating the news. Trump does not most likely particularly care that a member of the Patriot’s team did not attend on a visit to the White House. The media wants to portray the president and his administration in a light that is most beneficial to them gaining greater viewership from assessing the ideologies of their followers. The media has such a strong influence on what people think that it is to their benefit to set the agenda and put across material that reflects the position and direction of the news outlets intended purpose. The public is also very concerned with political image and news pieces that are more entertainment based so that really reflects in the framing of news and what is showed and what isn’t. Not all news stories can have prominent attention because of the large amount of news that is generated daily, so with the US being a public that is generally concerned with issues not as hard hitting it is common to see a many stories that deserve attention not get it. If I were advertising Trump I would of course want the pieces like Breitbart where it shows that Trump does no evil because it would help his tarnished image as a candidate and show his potential as a candidate. However showing this news would only be done to cover up the stories I would not want shared about Trump, which would not be a fair or an honest representation to the naïve and sometimes-gullible public.

https://www.buzzfeed.com/davidmack/patriots-white-house-visit?utm_term=.xiBR1RVvK#.jcpgzgXZD

https://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-signs-legislation-extending-private-care-program-for-veterans-1492644471

http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2017/04/20/donald-trump-steve-bannon-among-times-top-100-most-influential/

Blog 9: Agenda Setting

Donald Trump was a candidate within the Republican Party that was extremely controversial during the early stages of the race. It was confusing to many within the party if he was a true conservative that held those ideals and some of his recent actions in office are bringing those qualms to the surface.

Trump made many blanketed promises during the campaign that made him an attractive candidate to many conservatives that wanted change in DC. However, Trump has promised and said things that he wishes to do that he has fallen short of in the current time.

One of Trumps huge campaign draws was his immigration policy. Trump wanted a wall but there has not been much movement on that issue. There were also promises of repealing Obama Care on his first day in office, but rather than getting rid of it Trump prolong its existence. Trump also exclaimed that he would become better acquainted with the Russian president Vladmir Putin, this is not currently the status of the tense relationship we currently hold.

Trump comparatively speaking to his other running mates in the 2016 republican primary were mostly compatible on issues. I chose to contrast Trump and his best friend (jk) Jeb Bush. Trump and Bush sparred with each other during the campaign. Some glaring differences in their platforms were that Jeb refused to sign a pledge to oppose all tax increases, which was not taken well by conservatives. He also is a big proponent of the common core, which is an education system that is highly contested among the Republican Party. I think these two candidates differed on some aspects of their platforms because Jeb was pinned as someone who was more moderate and Trump really geared his campaign to those who were on the far right. I think Trump tried to spark interest in voters by spewing rhetoric that was charged and at some times intolerant of others.

Currently the top issues being discussed in the news are about foreign defense, healthcare, and the economy. These issues are what is effecting the country at this time which causes them to be top news stories, but they are also stories that are being set by the media. The media sets the agenda and frames what the public talks about. Most of the media is run by a small handful of people, with so much of the viewing material being controlled by so few it really causes a lot of the material to be framed in a way that doesn’t conflict with the fortune 500 companies or the special interest groups that have ‘skin in the game’.  

Trump sparked a lot of interest on the campaign trail. He said some things that really drove home the idea of his conservative values but his past actions echoed different leftist ideals. The American public trusted him with the presidency to do things that they wanted accomplished while he is in office and that is yet to be seen. I am personally still confused as to what his platform is and it seems that his time in office will be quite unpredictable.

http://www.cbsnews.com/media/jeb-bush-what-does-he-stand-for/4/

https://web.archive.org/web/20161101083815/https://www.donaldjtrump.com/policies/education/

https://news.google.com/news?cf=all&pz=1&ned=us&siidp=39944d844ffc7abbb02ec158a6d7441af0f7&ict=ln&ar=1492230060

Blog 8: Pop Culture and Politics

Pop culture and satire media really can have a large impact on the way people view others, especially those who are in politics. The pop culture that the public is exposed to is another way for someone to push more campaign material without the public really being aware that they are being exposed to such material. Since the media in the current age is more liberal it was evident that the republican presidential candidate Donald Trump would be the topic of many late night and SNL jokes.

The artifact from pop culture that I used was a skit from a Saturday Night Live episode. This was an opening skit that portrayed Trump’s first presidential elect press conference. The

ever so funny Alec Baldwin played Donald Trump. Alec really embodies Trump and emphasizes some of his characteristics in order to really make the audience aware of these exaggerations when observing Trump’s actions in reality throughout the campaign and his political career.

This SNL video and many other SNL skits with Alec Baldwin playing Trump all have a pattern of how Trump is portrayed. Alec has the orange skin and the fluffed up hair that looks like a wig but is apparently not a wig while he wears the red power tie and navy blue suit. Image may be viewed as unimportant, however his image and other candidate’s images are what they are identified by. Trump’s get-up was the tagline for many jokes, which was something that took away from his and Hillary Clinton’s platform. The emphasis and importance placed upon a candidate’s image is extremely superficial, but it is a facet that the audience and media gravitate towards for placing judgment.

In this clip from SNL they recreate a moment that is crucial to the president elect’s political timeline. This is the moment that he is being asked to represent all Americans while being able to articulate reasoning for some of his early actions that were taken. In the address itself Baldwin tries to convey to the audience Trump’s use of short charged phrases and his ability to get questions from the media and completely spin what he would talk about to fit his agenda. Baldwin takes on Trumps facial expressions and hand gestures.The SNL skit also emphasizes Trumps inability to speak in eloquent phrases, his rhetoric is more common to lower educated individuals.

This SNL satire piece takes away from the image Trump would assume want to protect. Throughout the entirety of the presidential campaign Trump definitely had some not so great media coverage. The SNL skit I think mostly shows Trump as a caricature figure that doesn’t seem real. He is like the cockroach that never died within the campaign and I think his success as a candidate was underestimated because of how he was represented in the media prior to running. I don’t think that pieces like this SNL one really severely hurt him however. After all of the media and pop culture out there he was still victorious which I think goes to show how the public uses these outlets for entertainment but know better than to judge a candidates legitimacy from this type of media.

This clip does effectively change the way people perceive Donald Trump. Alec Baldwin does do things within his characterization that Trump does as well, but by focusing on the lesser important nuances of Trumps characterization and making his press conferences and speeches a joke it takes away from any validity that his points he made may have had. Exaggerations in media on political figures in some ways are like a magic trick. The magician leads the audience to something he wants the audience to look at while with a slight of hand hiding the facets of a characterization that may be a positive attribute.

Blog 7: Advertising Strategy

Advertisements really persuade the audience in ways that are unexpected. Political advertisements hit the public with what should be focused on in a campaign and how they should feel about issues. Donald trump used many forms of political advertising. He had ads on the web, the radio, and most popularly on television. Obviously television ads are most popular because of the wide reach so I will analyze 3 separate advertisements that have very different meanings and make you view the Trump campaign in a different way. 

The first television ad was an attack ad on Hilary Clinton. This ad of course had domineering music with a theatrical narrator’s voice behind it to add more drama. This ad really focused on the comment Clinton made about how those who supported Trump were deplorable. This ad would instill anger in the audience, it was a grave error made by Clinton and Trump used that to his advantage. The ad called into question Clinton’s lack of compassion towards others and if she was a person that would be able to be a president of all people. This ad sparked a fire in those who supported Trump by really catapulting their passion to campaign for him and only him.

The next ad I saw was a very strategic move played by the Trump campaign, it was an ad narrated by Trump’s daughter Ivanka Trump. This ad was about Ivanka being the womanly face of his campaign in order to het more of that demographics’ vote. This ad was an inviting and softer tone than most ads the trump campaign had put out. Ivanka spoke about her fathers plans on certain women’s issues such as paid maternity leave, tax credits for childcare, and dependent care saving accounts. This ad made the Trump campaign much more relatable for many woman because they were able to find similarities in Ivanka Trump being a mother and a wife.

http://www.livingroomcandidate.org/commercials/2016/united

The last ad I looked at was what I would describe as an issue and an image ad. This ad really tried to help his image by promoting that he was anti establishment, and he would change the status quo of the complacency currently in DC. The add also touched on certain issues such as tax cuts, a more balanced and fair justice system, and being a stronger and having a more respected dominance in foreign affairs. The smart thing I also noticed about the commercial was the use of issues that are bipartisan. The issue he spoke on I’m assuming most people want change in, people always want to pay less in taxes people should want a justice system that is fair and we always want to be a nation that is respected internationally. This was a smart move strategically because it would draw in those people who are maybe on the fence as to who to cast their vote for. This ad was simple up beat and to the point.

All of these ads have an underlying desire, but they all achieve the same goal, which is to support Donald Trump’s campaign. Advertisements take a facet of the individual candidates and blow them up to receive pinpointed focus and attention on what the campaign wants to show the voters. Trump had many other advertisements that I looked at that overall just tried to undercut Clinton’s capability as the president. This campaign was widely viewed as ‘voting for the less sucky candidate’ so trump strategically used that fact to provide perspective to the voters on how he was the better choice and with the results ending how they did it seemed to have worked.

http://www.livingroomcandidate.org/commercials/2016

Blog 6: Online Presence

Donald Trump’s use of social media was unlike anything the public was used to during a presidential campaign. He used social media as a soapbox to rile up his followers as well as give those who did not support him something to talk about.

During the election Donald Trump had a campaign website, a Facebook, and an extremely active Twitter account.  Donald did a really good job of making him and his platform easily accessible regardless of the content he decided to distribute. He had email lists, text messages sent out, and his website had tons of information on his mission as a candidate. In regards to his social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter it was extremely prevalent that these platforms were most likely regulated by him and only him. His Facebook and more so his Twitter account was off the cusp and lacking in formal tone.

Some things that were positively seen in Trump’s social media usage were his ability to get strong reactions from the public and his relatable and informal tone. His tweets were largely talked about during the election, he would post emotionally charged accusations that riled up the nation all within only 140 characters. The tweets that produced the most attention were outlandish and in most cases boldfaced accusations. The public, whether in support or against his candidacy, paid attention to what Trump tweeted. He tweets magnetized all party followers just because of the sheer entertainment, which helped him dominate the conversation during the political season. Trump lacked a formal tone especially for a candidate for the presidency, but I think this actually worked to his advantage. By producing tweets that used words and phrases that were more common he was able to attract a voting block of the population because they understood and comprehended the arguments he made

When researching Donald Trump’s media I stumbled across a page, citizensfortrump.com. This page was created entirely by concerned citizens as a grassroots movement to elect Trump as the 45^th president. They refer to the need to create a ‘volunteer army’, which personally caused some concern in the verbiage they used. There are also many other pages and Facebook groups showing support for Donald. The campaign did not put out the citizens for Trump page or any of the other pages for that matter, but it was somewhat effective in gaining and attracting support for Trump, some of the group pages had hundreds of thousands of followers.

Things that could have been more effective for Trump to do on social media were he could have been more formal and less accusatory. Doing these things did attract a certain type of voter, but it also took away from his legitimacy as a candidate. He was represented as a candidate that didn’t care for others and as someone who was aggressively rude. He tweeted about Meryl Streep being a terrible actress because she criticized and undermined him, this was not an appropriate action taken by the president. He should have also checked his sources and facts before posting, he expounds rhetoric of the media putting out fake news but in reality he does the same by jumping to conclusion and posting it for all of his followers to see. As a presidential candidate I held him to higher standards to accurately report happenings and that was not the case.

Social media is something that has been slowly making more of an appearance as a relied upon source for constituents during elections. Social media has been expanding and will continue to do so. The way candidates utilize social media will be an integral piece of their campaign. Social media presence catapulted the attention Trump received from the media and he used this platform to his advantage in the 2016 presidential election. He set the pace and molded what citizens expectations are for candidates on social media. Trump forever changed future political races and went against the normalized grain which caused his success.

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump

http://citizensfortrump.com/about/

http://www.journalism.org/2016/07/18/candidates-differ-in-their-use-of-social-media-to-connect-with-the-public/