In the present era of digital revolution when social media has become the focus of all communication even political parties use social media for their communication and marketing purposes. Politicians and political parties need to be present on these platforms to promote their image and maintain interactive, real-time communication with their supporters and potential voters. With the increase in popularity and growth in the use of social media, the purpose of this thesis is to identify the characteristics of Donald Trump's communication in regard to the COVID-19 epidemic when he was the President of the United States of America. The pandemic was an unprecedent event that should require an effective political communication strategy. As a result, the decision to study Donald Trump's communication as a leader and political actor will contribute key findings, that may be important for Media and Communication studies. After explaining how people find, watch and discuss the news and after providing a literature review on propaganda, the thesis wants to study which is the role of communication – specifically – news production by social media in the exercise of power. This goal is achieved by a rigorous empirical analysis carried out with text analysis. The data consists of tweets manually collected from Trump’s personal account across the year 2020 and analyzed thanks to RStudio, an integrated development environment used for statistical computing. The analysis demonstrates that he faulted China for its role in the spread of the disease and he blamed the left leaning media for the reaction of people to COVID-19 across the U.S. and the world. Furthermore, he was using the pandemic as a tool for reaching his political goals, thus attacking his opponents – the Democratic party – while praising himself.
Grazie alla rivoluzione digitale, i social media sono diventati il centro di ogni comunicazione e persino i partiti politici li utilizzano come mezzo per pubblicizzarsi. Per promuovere l’immagine e mantenere una comunicazione interattiva e in tempo reale con i sostenitori o potenziali elettori, è necessaria la presenza costante di politici e di partiti politici su piattaforme social. Con l'aumento della popolarità e dell’utilizzo dei social media, lo scopo della presente tesi è quello di identificare le caratteristiche della comunicazione dell’ex presidente degli Stati Uniti d’America, Donald Trump, nel corso della pandemia di COVID-19. Poiché si è trattato di un evento significativo, è necessaria una strategia di comunicazione politica efficace. Di conseguenza, studiare la comunicazione di Donald Trump come leader e attore politico potrebbe svelare quali sono le caratteristiche chiave di una comunicazione social efficace e potrebbe costituire un modello importante per gli studi sui media e sulla comunicazione. Dopo aver mostrato dove le persone prendono le notizie e dopo una breve revisione della letteratura sulla propaganda, l’obiettivo della presente tesi è di studiare quale sia il ruolo della comunicazione e, nello specifico, la diffusione di notizie sui social. I tweet di Trump dell’anno 2020 sono stati raccolti manualmente e analizzati grazie a RStudio, un linguaggio di programmazione utilizzato per il calcolo statistico. L’analisi dimostra che Trump ha affermato che la pandemia sia stata causata dalla Cina e ha incolpato i media di area democratica per la reazione che il COVID-19 ha causato negli Stati Uniti e nel mondo. Inoltre, ha utilizzato la pandemia come strumento per raggiungere i suoi obiettivi politici attaccando il partito democratico, ma continuando ad elogiare se stesso.
Social media e politica: un’analisi empirica dei tweet di Trump durante la pandemia COVID-19
MICUCCI, MAURA
2020/2021
Abstract
In the present era of digital revolution when social media has become the focus of all communication even political parties use social media for their communication and marketing purposes. Politicians and political parties need to be present on these platforms to promote their image and maintain interactive, real-time communication with their supporters and potential voters. With the increase in popularity and growth in the use of social media, the purpose of this thesis is to identify the characteristics of Donald Trump's communication in regard to the COVID-19 epidemic when he was the President of the United States of America. The pandemic was an unprecedent event that should require an effective political communication strategy. As a result, the decision to study Donald Trump's communication as a leader and political actor will contribute key findings, that may be important for Media and Communication studies. After explaining how people find, watch and discuss the news and after providing a literature review on propaganda, the thesis wants to study which is the role of communication – specifically – news production by social media in the exercise of power. This goal is achieved by a rigorous empirical analysis carried out with text analysis. The data consists of tweets manually collected from Trump’s personal account across the year 2020 and analyzed thanks to RStudio, an integrated development environment used for statistical computing. The analysis demonstrates that he faulted China for its role in the spread of the disease and he blamed the left leaning media for the reaction of people to COVID-19 across the U.S. and the world. Furthermore, he was using the pandemic as a tool for reaching his political goals, thus attacking his opponents – the Democratic party – while praising himself.| File | Dimensione | Formato | |
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TESI_ MAURA MICUCCI.pdf
Open Access dal 19/03/2024
Descrizione: Documento di tesi in PDF/a di Maura Micucci
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2.62 MB
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Adobe PDF
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2.62 MB | Adobe PDF | Visualizza/Apri |
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https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12075/8433