By Tess Lesesne
How Social Media Has Changed the Highest Office in the Land
Since declaring his candidacy for presidency, Donald Trump’s twitter profile has absolutely exploded in popularity. Currently boasting 52.9 million followers, Trump is the first president to use Twitter as one of his main outlets through which he posts his thoughts and opinion on current events. The tweets posted by Trump are often aggressive, incoherent, sometimes even containing information that is simply untrue. However, when Trump tweets, the people listen; whether they support him or not.
Modern Day Presidential
Trump has often said that he feels like Twitter is the most effective way to communicate with the American public, a news outlet he can trust. In this era of “fake news”, Trump feels like the only source he can trust is content he produces on his own. However, do these tweets count as official Presidential statements, or just the ramblings of a man who happens to be president? According to White House Press Secretary, Trump’s tweets are indeed official statements of the White House. While on one hand this represents a positive modernization of the office of the president, the use of Twitter as an official press outlet of the White House presents issues as well. The instant nature of Twitter posts make fact checking difficult, an issue outlined in the Bennett News Model. Therefore, when Trump fires off a tweet containing false information, it is instantly broadcast to over 50 million people who view his tweet as an official Presidential statement.
The Perfect Platform
Throughout the time since his campaign for the presidency started, Trump has developed a widely known reputation for being volatile and reckless. This reputation has only been fueled by his use of Twitter. Even though White House staff has said that Trump rarely uses other forms of technology such as computers or email, he has become infatuated with Twitter. The platform lends itself perfectly to Trump’s seemingly erratic thoughts. It takes less than a minute for Trump to bring the media spotlight back to himself by firing off a controversial tweet, and it seems that he has fallen in love with this ego boosting technology. By commanding Twitter as “his” social media platform, Trump has changed the way that the people, both at home and abroad, view both the media platform and, more importantly, the office of the President.
Sources
Politics in Mass Media 
Your tone is great! You did a good job of switching off the “student” voice and writing in a more casual and appealing way. I would love to see where Trump talks about how he “feels like the only source he can trust is content he produces on his own.” and also where he calls Twitter “his” platform. These are really interesting and effective points, but since they seem to be quotes from somewhere it might be a good idea to have the sources linked. I liked how you related Trump’s tweets to the Bennett News Model since we have been talking about that in class and about how it is not as common anymore. I would be interested to see the difference between how Trump tweeted before he ran for president and after he was elected, and if politics played a role in his now consistent tweeting. That may be something interesting to analyze in the future- how politics affect politicians’ use of social media.
LikeLike
I enjoyed reading this section–you really convey a lot of the thoughts and feelings that people have on this subject quite well. This is a good example of how social media is a catalyst for information and how people are inclined to believe what they hear because of the opinion leader theory. While there is a lot of controversy about his presidency in general, some people still take what he says and believe it without any second thoughts. I think it would be interesting, like Rachel said, if you focus on before and after presidency Trump tweets ad do a comparison of his activity levels!!
LikeLike