Roderick P. Hart - Trump and Us: What He Says and Why People Listen (Communication, Society and Politics)

Politics and relations among individuals in societies across the world are being transformed by new technologies for targeting individuals and sophisticated methods for shaping personalized messages. The new technologies challenge boundaries of many kinds between news, information, entertainment, and advertising; between media, with the arrival of the World Wide Web; and even between nations. Communication, Society and Politics probes the political and social impacts of these new communication systems in national, comparative, and global perspective.

Trump and Us

What He Says and Why People Listen

Roderick P. Hart

University of Texas at Austin

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Cambridge University Press 2020

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To the Dealey, Denius, Moody, and Strauss families of Texas

For their wisdom, generosity, and friendship

On the morning of November 9, 2016, I found myself in a crowded hotel lobby in Philadelphia as the annual meeting of the National Communication Association (NCA) got underway. The convention attracts some 5,000 attendees each year, most of whom hold faculty appointments at the nations colleges and universities. On that Wednesday morning, however, it attracted only lacrimation. Sans credentials, I found myself playing the role of grief counselor, as friend after friend complained about the election. Like most academics, NCA attendees largely vote Democratic and, because the field of communication attracts so many women, the outcome of the 2016 campaign hit them particularly hard. Searching for a sliver of optimism, I told the bereaved that the next four years would be a boon to scholarship, helping us unravel mysteries about language, politics, and media in the United States. From what I could tell, my brave pronouncements buoyed up not a single spirit in the City of Brotherly Love on that crisp fall morning.