For the topic of our documentary, we will be studying if negative social media posts towards Hillary Clinton/women in general are considered acceptable because of how Donald Trump/other male politicians speak disrespectfully towards …show more content…
said recipients.
This is a significant study because it brings to light the difference of respect in politics, especially that men have over women. The study will also bring awareness to the public as to how their social media posts may be influenced by disrespectful statements and that they should monitor what they are saying. The 2016 political campaign is extremely valuable to study as the differences between the candidates are so abundant. Bluntly, Donald Trump as the sexist and Hillary Clinton as the bitch. The communication theory that will be applied to our research is the Feminist theory of Communication, more specifically third wave feminism. This theory will be helpful when exploring the use of keywords that are used in the media when referring to Hillary Clinton in a negative manner. Feminist theory will also be used when analyzing the “back and forth” on Twitter when Donald Trump is talking about her. By examining this topic with third wave feminist theory, hopefully the word “bitch” that has been used to describe Clinton in a negative manner will be embraced and transformed into a positive label that women everywhere can adopt.
The key concepts our documentary will cover include social media, or more specifically, twitter, gender, and political campaigns.
While America has made significant strides in the right direction since the days of fighting for women’s suffrage, gender inequality still proves to be a big issue as we are currently in the midst of a presidential campaign that the NY Times calls “indelibly colored by gender and sexism” (Zeisler, 2016).
A 2016 study by Romaniuk looked at the impact that gender had on public discourse as well as the ways the media talked about Hillary Clinton during her failed attempt at winning the 2008 presidential democratic bid. The study examined the words, and the connotations of those words, used to describe her, such as her laugh being commonly described as a “cackle” by the media. This study is clearly relevant as Hillary Clinton is the topic of our study in the now 2016 presidential campaign, and her gender is still a point of contention in public discourse today, eight years …show more content…
later.
Over the years, social media has become increasingly important in the campaigns of politicians. Today, Twitter has become a crucial method of communication for candidates, giving them the opportunity to communicate with their audience not one, but a couple of times per day. Findings of a study by Lee (2014) show that exposure to the Twitter of a high profile candidate does produce more favorable impressions and a stronger desire to vote for him. An increased social media presence also directs those supporting him/her to agree more strongly with his/her policies. This shows that exposure to Twitter has strong effects on audiences. Another study by Lee (2012) consisted of two experiments that investigated how and when the communication of politicians on Twitter affects the cognitive, affective, and behavioral reactions of the public. This is important because both presidential candidates might be targeting a specific audience and trying to send them personalized messages. Findings show that the personalized messages do cause recognition and recall to be improved, but they only create a perceived intimacy among the individuals who are affiliative. For those who are less affiliative, it decreases their desire to vote for the candidate. These studies, along with others suggest that Twitter has a strong impact on the candidate’s audience and on what the candidates communicate to the audience. This information is relevant to our project, as we will use it to show the importance of a candidate’s Twitter presence, and then we will look at the role that gender plays on the Twitter messages of the candidates.
The nature of the presidential campaigns from the past few elections have become increasingly uncivil especially with the rise of social media use.
“Going negative” is one political strategy that has been utilized for many past elections and recent research scrutinizes the role social media plays in negative as well as defensive campaign strategies. According to some researchers, candidates have more freedom to speak about issues that are important to their political platform with the use of social media than if they had to wait for an ad on the television or radio. By using social media to advertise for their platform they have more access to younger potential voters who have historically been absent from the polls on election day. In fact, Straus, et al. (2013 and Serazio (2014) found in their research that social media allows the politicians to speak directly to their constituents and discuss issues that are important to their potential
voters.
There has been some research conducted recently on the 2016 presidential election that exposes the negative practice of social media in the campaign. According to Beato (2013), Meltzer (2014), and Reader (2012), the anonymity granted to social media users allows them to be disrespectful to other users without consequences. The present political candidates are obviously not anonymous but their use of negative social media use through Twitter enables their followers to also be negative to others who may not agree with their beliefs. Donald Trump’s use of Twitter has especially proven this to be true when he disrespectfully “tweets” to his rival “Crooked Hillary”. As stated before, “going negative” has been a political strategy since before the use of social media in campaigns. However, considering the popularity of social media, negative campaign strategies can become more detrimental since everyone, including the voters, are willing participants and have the freedom to speak uncivilly directly to a candidate or fellow social media users.
We would like to proceed with the creative thesis by producing a “talking head” documentary. We believe this is the best way to present our thesis because by there will be a plethora of media coverage of the upcoming 2016 presidential election between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump which should bring about plenty of footage for us to be able to use. In our technologically inundated world, where most information is consumed through media such as videos, a documentary would be a good way to present our findings and motivate the audience to be aware of their own postings and the discourse in the media.
Our research methods will include both a content analysis of the twitter feeds of the presidential candidates, as well as interviewing. Interviewing will be crucial to this project because it will yield results and information from our prospective experts better than any other method available. Resources will include professors knowledgeable about the subject of communication in political campaigns through social media and the role that gender has when engaged. We will also explore professors from other universities or colleges within Villanova that are well versed in “politics” and “gender issues” who are willing to be interviewed. We will also have various archival material from public news sources to supplement the experts in the documentary as “b-roll”.
Our potential audience may not even be aware that there is a discrepancy between how males and females are presented in the media, especially through social media. How male political candidates “seem” to be able to get away with more derogatory or aggressive speech. Our documentary will be useful when presenting our findings because we can reach more people about this issue with a short video rather than a long paper. In our fast paced, more technologically minded world, people, especially the younger generation, are more willing to watch something rather than read it.
As our first research question, we will look at the role that gender is playing in the Twitter campaigns of Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. Our second research question will be more general, as we are looking to find how gender is framed in political campaigns.
RQ 1: What role is gender playing in the Twitter campaigns of Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton?
RQ 2: How is gender framed in the media of the political campaign?