Trump, Twitter, and the American Democracy

This book takes a social science approach to address two related questions: (1) what does Donald Trump say on Twitter? and (2) why? Since entering the 2016 Presidential Election, Donald Trump's tweets have been a major part of his communications strategy with the public. While the popular media has devoted considerable attention to selected tweets, it is less clear what those selected tweets tell us about Trump the businessman, the political candidate, and, finally, the President of the United States. We argue that to fully understand Trump, we must take a more comprehensive approach to examining all of his activities on Twitter. Overall, our analysis presents a strikingly complex picture of Trump and how he uses Twitter. Not only has his pattern of tweets changed over time, we find that Trump's use of Twitter is more deliberate than he has been given credit. Like most other politicians, Trump is strategically-minded about his presence on social media.

Includes a comprehensive dataset of all of Trump's tweets since he first joined Twitter, from 2009 to 2019 Provides a compare-and-contrast of Trump's behavior on Twitter before the 2016 Presidential Election, during the transition period, and after inauguration Examines the strategic uses of Twitter by Trump

Autorentext

Yu Ouyang is Assistant Professor of Political Science at Purdue University Northwest, USA. His research on the U.S.presidency and quantitative methods has appeared in Congress & the Presidency, Presidential Studies Quarterly, and Social Science Quarterly.

• *Richard W. Waterman is Professor of Political Science at the University of Kentucky, USA. He has published numerous journal articles and books on bureaucratic politics and the presidency.

  Inhalt

  1. Social Media, Politics, and Donald Trump.- 2. Trump Tweets: A Desire for Attention.- 3. Trump Tweets: How Often and on What Topics.- 4. Trump Tweets: A Text Sentiment Analysis.- 5. Trump, Twitter, and the American Democracy.