{"id":87,"date":"2016-11-18T00:24:09","date_gmt":"2016-11-18T00:24:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.electionanalysis2016.us\/?page_id=87"},"modified":"2016-11-22T10:15:30","modified_gmt":"2016-11-22T10:15:30","slug":"did-the-media-create-trump","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.electionanalysis.ws\/us\/president2016\/us-election-analysis-2016\/section-1-media\/did-the-media-create-trump\/","title":{"rendered":"Did the media create Trump?"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"row \"><\/p>\n<p><div class=\"col-lg-3 col-md-3 col-xs-12 col-sm-3\">\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-322\" src=\"http:\/\/www.electionanalysis2016.us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/Gianpetro_Mazzoleni-bw-300x300.png\" alt=\"gianpetro_mazzoleni-bw\" width=\"227\" height=\"227\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.electionanalysis.ws\/us\/president2016\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/Gianpetro_Mazzoleni-bw-300x300.png 300w, https:\/\/www.electionanalysis.ws\/us\/president2016\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/Gianpetro_Mazzoleni-bw-150x150.png 150w, https:\/\/www.electionanalysis.ws\/us\/president2016\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/Gianpetro_Mazzoleni-bw-60x60.png 60w, https:\/\/www.electionanalysis.ws\/us\/president2016\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/Gianpetro_Mazzoleni-bw.png 453w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 227px) 100vw, 227px\" \/><\/p>\n<div class=\"ProfileText1\">\n<p class=\"BIO\"><strong><span class=\"CharOverride-35\">Prof Gianpietro Mazzoleni<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"BIO\"><em>Professor of Political Communication at University of Milan (Italy). He has research interests in the intersection of media and politics. His most recent publication (as editor-in-chief) is The International Encyclopedia of Political Communication (Wiley, 2016), and he is the president of the Italian Association of Political Communication.<\/em><\/p>\n<p class=\"BIO\"><span class=\"EMAIL\">Email:\u00a0<\/span><span class=\"EMAIL\">gianpietro.mazzoleni@unimi.it<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-261 size-medium\" src=\"http:\/\/www.electionanalysis2016.us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/US2016-Section-1-300x283.png\" alt=\"US2016 - Section 1\" width=\"300\" height=\"283\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.electionanalysis.ws\/us\/president2016\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/US2016-Section-1-300x283.png 300w, https:\/\/www.electionanalysis.ws\/us\/president2016\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/US2016-Section-1-768x725.png 768w, https:\/\/www.electionanalysis.ws\/us\/president2016\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/US2016-Section-1-1024x966.png 1024w, https:\/\/www.electionanalysis.ws\/us\/president2016\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/US2016-Section-1.png 1098w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/p>\n<h5 class=\"CampaignQuote1\">Section 1: Media<\/h5>\n<div class=\"page-list\"><ul class=\"list-group-item\"><li class=\"page_item page-item-69\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.electionanalysis.ws\/us\/president2016\/us-election-analysis-2016\/section-1-media\/the-question-of-objectivity-in-the-2016-presidential-election\/\">The question of objectivity in the 2016 Presidential Election<\/a><\/li>\n<li class=\"page_item page-item-71\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.electionanalysis.ws\/us\/president2016\/us-election-analysis-2016\/section-1-media\/after-objectivity\/\">After Objectivity?<\/a><\/li>\n<li class=\"page_item page-item-73\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.electionanalysis.ws\/us\/president2016\/us-election-analysis-2016\/section-1-media\/journalism-and-the-illusion-of-innocence\/\">Journalism and the illusion of innocence<\/a><\/li>\n<li class=\"page_item page-item-75\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.electionanalysis.ws\/us\/president2016\/us-election-analysis-2016\/section-1-media\/did-election-results-trump-frames-of-newspaper-endorsements\/\">Did election results trump frames of newspaper endorsements?<\/a><\/li>\n<li class=\"page_item page-item-77\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.electionanalysis.ws\/us\/president2016\/us-election-analysis-2016\/section-1-media\/trump-and-mediatization\/\">Trump and mediatization<\/a><\/li>\n<li class=\"page_item page-item-79\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.electionanalysis.ws\/us\/president2016\/us-election-analysis-2016\/section-1-media\/the-2016-election-and-the-success-of-fact-free-politics\/\">The 2016 election and the success of fact free politics<\/a><\/li>\n<li class=\"page_item page-item-81\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.electionanalysis.ws\/us\/president2016\/us-election-analysis-2016\/section-1-media\/trump-truth-and-the-media\/\">Trump, truth and the media<\/a><\/li>\n<li class=\"page_item page-item-83\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.electionanalysis.ws\/us\/president2016\/us-election-analysis-2016\/section-1-media\/rise-of-donald-trump-media-as-a-voter-decision-accelerator\/\">Rise of Donald Trump: media as a voter-decision accelerator<\/a><\/li>\n<li class=\"page_item page-item-85\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.electionanalysis.ws\/us\/president2016\/us-election-analysis-2016\/section-1-media\/the-new-normal-campaigns-elections-in-the-contemporary-media-environment\/\">The new normal? Campaigns and elections in the contemporary media environment<\/a><\/li>\n<li class=\"page_item page-item-89\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.electionanalysis.ws\/us\/president2016\/us-election-analysis-2016\/section-1-media\/trump-media-and-the-oxygen-of-publicity\/\">Trump, Media, and the \u2018oxygen of publicity\u2019<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul><\/div>\n<p><\/div><\/p>\n<p><div class=\"col-lg-9 col-md-9 col-xs-12 col-sm-9\"><\/p>\n<p class=\"FIRST-PARA\">\u201cTrump\u2019s victory is no surprise. He was never a joke. Treating him as one only strengthened him. He is both a creature and a creation of the media and the media will never own that\u201d, claimed filmmaker\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/mmflint\/posts\/10153913074756857\"><span class=\"Hyperlink\">Michael Moore<\/span><\/a>\u00a0in his Facebook post, minutes after Trump had won the presidential race.\u00a0<span class=\"REGULAR\">Indeed, one of the most recurring questions before and after Trump\u2019s election was whether the media were to be blamed for his sweeping successes during the long campaign and, especially, for the shocking finale. The debate engaged mostly the liberal media outlets, where influential pundits, academics, and bloggers tried to come to grips with the widely shared feeling that the media\u2019s coverage of Trump was actually drawing him more popular support.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"Basic-Paragraph-US\"><span class=\"REGULAR\">Donald Trump, to be true, helped the media to help him. The candidate was a celebrity on his own, a flamboyant tycoon, a controversial outsider in the GOP camp. He crisscrossed the country rallying crowds with intemperate speeches against blacks, muslims, Mexicans; raised hell worldwide with outrageous comments on females, tweeted insults to politicians and stars, he was a newsmaker and an agenda-setter all the way through. How could the media ignore such a bizarre presidential hopeful? That\u2019s the point. They just couldn\u2019t! So, they covered his triumphant march toward the nomination, using the horse race frame, the one that they are long accustomed to. The coverage willy-nilly ended up in boosting Trump\u2019s public image, in donating him billions worth of free publicity and, more importantly, in legitimizing his standing as presidential frontrunner, months before the Republican Convention in Cleveland. All not overtly partisan media outlets implemented both the typical journalistic production norms, and the commercial imperatives that scholars identify with the \u2018media logic\u2019. It\u2019s the unusual, the sensational that draws the attention of the media, and Trump was both, and sensational stories \u2018sell well\u2019, and bring in a lot of money. That was honestly acknowledged by CBS CEO<\/span><span class=\"Emphasis\">\u00a0<\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/news\/leslie-moonves-donald-trump-may-871464\"><span class=\"Hyperlink\">Leslie Moonves<\/span><\/a><span class=\"Emphasis\">:\u00a0<\/span>\u201cIt may not be good for America, but it\u2019s damn good for CBS.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"Basic-Paragraph-US\"><span class=\"REGULAR\">What happened with the media after Trump won the GOP nomination in July is something that will need further academic investigation. The news media suddenly realized that they had contributed to the process of \u2018king-making\u2019, a traditional power in the hands of the US media, but in this case it turned out to be a frightening burden. All the major (as well as several minor) media, even those traditionally aligned with the conservatives endorsed Hillary Clinton sort of felt remorseful, and started to strike a different chord. The liberal media stopped pretending to be unbiased observers of the political fray, and initiated an escalating, overt \u2018anti-Trump\u2019 campaign that lasted until the eve of Election Day. To what extent this media war helped again, of course in a quite different way, Trump to get elected as 45th President of the United States remains to be assessed. But some \u2018mea culpa\u2019 for failing to predict Trump\u2019s victory are starting to be heard in the defeated anti-Trump camp, like from the\u00a0<\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2016\/11\/09\/business\/media\/media-trump-clinton.html?smid=tw-nytvideo&amp;smtyp=cur\"><span class=\"Hyperlink CharOverride-34\">New York Times<\/span><\/a><span class=\"Emphasis\">\u00a0<\/span><span class=\"REGULAR\">and the<\/span><span class=\"Emphasis\">\u00a0<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/lifestyle\/style\/the-media-didnt-want-to-believe-trump-could-win-so-they-looked-the-other-way\/2016\/11\/09\/d2ea1436-a623-11e6-8042-f4d111c862d1_story.html?wpisrc=nl_headlines&amp;wpmm=1\"><span class=\"Hyperlink CharOverride-34\">Washington Post<\/span><\/a><span class=\"Emphasis\">.\u00a0<\/span>Anna Palmer and Jake Sherman in\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.politico.com\/tipsheets\/playbook\/2016\/11\/we-were-all-wrong-what-dc-should-expect-trump-to-clinton-i-respect-you-new-power-players-in-all-red-washington-bday-john-harris-217304\"><span class=\"Hyperlink\">Politico\u2019s Playbook newsletter<\/span><\/a>\u00a0sum up marvelously the new certitude: \u201cWe were all wrong. That seems obvious, right? But we were more than wrong. We were laughably oblivious. The entire Washington political-media complex completely missed the mark. Not by inches or feet, but by miles.\u201d Let alone that by bombarding Trump on a daily basis, the media might also have fueled an \u201cunderdog effect\u201d that prompted many undecided voters to support the \u201chated\u201d candidate.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Basic-Paragraph-US\"><span class=\"REGULAR\">Did the media then \u2018create\u2019 Trump? They clearly did not create the personage, who was already to some extent a media darling, but contributed, unintentionally at first, and regretfully later, to the build up of his political persona, if negative. At the end the media may have been complicit in the defeat of Hillary Clinton, a candidate who was all but advantaged by a (too) favorable media frenzy.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":21,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-87","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Did the media create Trump? - US Election Analysis 2016<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.electionanalysis.ws\/us\/president2016\/us-election-analysis-2016\/section-1-media\/did-the-media-create-trump\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Did the media create Trump? 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