The 2016 American Presidential Campaign and the News: Implications for American Democracy and the Republic

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Description

This book examines perhaps the most contentious election in modern US historythe 2016 United States presidential election. It is unique in its discussion of a wide range of issues affecting the news media coverage of the election, coming from an equally diverse range of intellectual perspectives including the rhetorical, social-scientific, communication studies, and media studies. With eleven chapters grounded in hard evidence and communication theory, The 2016 American Presidential Campaign and the News: Implications for American Democracy and the Republic examines significant topics such as fake news, media construction of Hillary Clintons and Donald Trumps campaign personalities, media bias, visual meme depictions of the candidates, identity politics in the news, Trumps Twitter use, entertainment news, and social media as news. These chapters individually and collectively provide a direct commentary on the implications of the 2016 campaign news coverage for the future of the American Republic and political communication in the media.

Reviews

Probably since the earliest days of campaigns and elections in the United States, no one with the claim to be an expert has gotten more wrong than during the 2016 presidential election. This is why we need scholars who have the time to drill deeply into the data to let us know what really happened and why. The 2016 American Presidential Campaign and the News: Implications for American Democracy and the Republic is, thus, extremely timely. The broad range of essays covers almost every aspect of the campaign, especially its communications tactics, technology, and innovations. Journalists, political commentators, scholars, and students will be equally enlightened by its revelations. Moreover, the wisdom of the book applies to post-election discourse, which is vital to understand before the next election. -- David D. Perlmutter, Dean and Professor of the College of Media & Communication, Texas Tech University, and author of Blogwars: The New Political Battleground
The 2016 American Presidential Campaign and the News: Implications for American Democracy and the Republic is concerned with the role the American media played in the highly contested political slugfest that was the 2016 American presidential election. It is a multifaceted collection of very readable essays written by a diverse group of scholars who thoughtfully describe, analyze, and explain the role of the American media in the elections from a variety of theoretical, methodological, and disciplinary perspectives. Taken together, the essays constitute a rich assemblage of incisive analyses that illuminate political events and phenomena that have become part of the language of American and global politics. -- Lyombe Eko, Texas Tech University

Author Bio

Jim A. Kuypers is professor of rhetoric and political communication at Virginia Tech.