Framing Trump: How Do the Trump Administration, the Guardian and Greenpeace USA Frame Issues on Twitter During the First 100 Days of the Trump Presidency?

• Framing Trump: How do The Trump Administration, The Guardian and Greenpeace USA frame issues on Twitter during the first 100 days of the Trump Presidency?

Abstract:

This paper analyses four Twitter users - @RealDonaldTrump, @POTUS, @Greenpeaceusa, and @GuardianUS - during the first 100 days of Donald Trump’s Presidency, and highlights the methods used by each user to frame contemporary political and social issues to their followers. It is found that each user frames issues differently to other users in the study, with contrasts most clearly observed between @Greenpeaceusa and @GuardianUS, on one side, and @RealDonaldTrump and @POTUS, on the other. These findings are supplemented with humanities scholars such as Marres, Scheufele, Tewksbury, and more. The paper relies on the Digital Methods Initiative Twitter Capture and Analysis Tool (DMI-TCAT) for data accumulation and subsequent research investigations.

Key Words:

Donald Trump, POTUS, The Guardian, Greenpeace USA, Framing, Agenda Setting, Twitter, US Politics.

Table of Contents

Section 1: Introduction ...... 5 1.1 Introduction and Research Question ...... 5 1.2 Clarification of Research Question and Research Limits ...... 5 1.3 Definition of Platform ...... 6 1.4 Intro to Twitter as a platform of study ...... 6

Section 2: Academic Literature Review ...... 8 2.1 Definition of Framing and Agenda-Setting ...... 8 2.2 Marres’ Issue Networks and Further Research Justification ...... 10 2.3 Description of Twitter Specificities ...... 11 2.4 Description of some wider issues in US Politics and Society ...... 12 2.5 Description of Users and Pre-Research Expectations ...... 15 2.5.0 Introduction to Users ...... 15 2.5.1 Greenpeace description and original expectations ...... 17 2.5.2 The Guardian description and original expectations ...... 17 2.5.3 President Trump description and original expectations ...... 18 2.5.4 Summary of Pre-Research Expectations ...... 19

Section 3: Methodology...... 20 3.1 Key research features to guide Methods ...... 20 3.2 Creation of Manual List of Concrete Events ...... 21 3.3 Creation of 10-day groups ...... 22 3.4 Specific Methods of Capture ...... 23 3.5 ‘Masterlist’ Creation ...... 24 3.6 Creation of Tweet Categories ...... 25 3.7 Methodology Problematics ...... 28 3.8 Methodology Conclusion ...... 29

Section 4: Findings ...... 30 4.1 Findings Introduction ...... 30 4.2 Basic Stats Overview ...... 30 4.3 Category Findings ...... 33 4.3.0 Summary of Created Categories ...... 33 4.3.1 Category Findings @RealDonaldTrump ...... 34

4.3.2 Category Findings @POTUS ...... 35 4.3.3 Category Findings @Greenpeaceusa ...... 36 4.3.4 Category Findings @guardianUS ...... 37 4.4 Word Repetition investigations ...... 38

Section 5: Discussion and Conclusion ...... 41 5.1 Discussion Intro ...... 41 5.2 Discussion of Framing and Agenda-Setting efforts during 10-day Group Periods ...... 41 5.3 Summary of Discussion; Connection to Literature ...... 66 5.5 Thesis Conclusion ...... 68

Section 6: Works Cited ...... 70

Section 7: Appendices...... 75 7.1 Appendix 1 of 2 ...... 75 7.2 Appendix 2 of 2 ...... 81

Section 1: Introduction

1.1 Introduction and Research Question

In his recent book, Insane Clown President, authored during the most recent US Primary and Presidential elections, journalist Matt Taibbi offers a fascinating, behind-the-scenes insight into one of the most polarising democratic processes in recent memory. Donald J. Trump, once of reality television fame, has become The Leader of the Free WorldTM, and is in the process of leaving his indelible Trumpian stamp on the role. Taibbi, whose views are at times almost aggressively liberal, combines furious self-searching and disappointment with a clear narrative of events, in the process providing many starting points for a thesis such as this. For instance, his claim that “Trump will one day be in the Twitter Hall of Fame. His fortune-cookie mind … is perfectly engineered for the medium” (28), although disparaging in the extreme, has at its centre a degree of truth. Although the implications are not fully clear yet, social media has been widely attributed great importance in the 2016 US elections, with many voters utilizing platforms such as Twitter and Facebook, both as sounding-boards for their own opinions, and for unverified - in the traditional sense - sources of news and election coverage (The Verge). New Media academics have recognised the growing importance of social media to current events, and have begun to research in detail the ways in which social media have changed the landscape for national debates (Bruns and Burgess, 2012).

Therefore, the following research question is posed:

- How do The Trump Administration, The Guardian, and Greenpeace USA frame issues on Twitter during the first 100 days of the Trump Presidency?

1.2 Clarification of Research Question and Research Limits

Frames, framing theory and the discussion of wider agendas, all of which will be defined in the opening sections of this paper, are the key focus of this study. Twitter offers many avenues of exploration to researchers; however, this paper is concerned with the frames themselves, and trying to identify the key framing techniques used by the users studied over President Trump’s opening 100 days in office. By extension, it is not concerned with other potential explorations made possible by the Twitter platform. Therefore, a successful paper will; identify the key characteristics of each user’s tweets; discuss how these characteristics compare and contrast to other users in the study; and discuss the impact of such efforts with relation to the ideas of academics in the wider field of Twitter studies. This will culminate with some descriptions of opportunities for future research.

1.3 Definition of Platform

The Research Question detailed above requires some framing of its own, as well as some explanation of its origins. The mention of Twitter in the research question implies a platform-specific analysis is to be conducted. Therefore, a solid working definition of the term ‘platform’ is needed. Here, Tarleton Gillespie is useful. In his text, Politics of Platforms, Gillespie outlines a four-pointed understanding of the concept, and thus highlights the intricacies and connotations of such a loaded term. Gillespie’s four ‘platform’ definitions - Computational, Architectural, Political, and Figurative - point readers to the complications that abound when using the term (349-351). Gillespie makes the point that “In any of ‘platform’s’ senses, being raised, level and accessible are ideological features as much as physical ones” (351). This is an important argument; Platforms such as Twitter are recognized as areas which are theoretically extremely accessible, for those with an internet connection, and thus seem like fruitful places to research political engagement (Fridkin & Kenney, 572). Although it should be kept in mind that other scholars have pointed out the limitations of Platform Studies, in the sense that it is necessary to recognize that platforms’ importance can be limited by their specificities (Rieder; Reaction Chamber; 1), Gillespie’s arguments point to the usefulness of studying platform-specific content.

1.4 Intro to Twitter as a platform of study

Many academics have argued that Twitter is an important research area, and that Tweets, hashtag networks and linked content are all useful avenues of exploration that add value to the platform as an area of study. Richard Rogers, for example, states that “Twitter has become an emergency communication channel in times of disaster”, a statement which may be hyperbolic if applied literally (the 2016 US election results cannot be compared to the recent Japanese earthquake, for example), but nonetheless “a state of emergency” seems an apt description for those in America who are made more vulnerable by legislation changes enacted by the Trump administration, for example; proposals to repeal the Obamacare health system have worried a large portion of the lower economic classes (Salon). Bernhard Rieder agrees that Twitter is a particularly useful area of research, arguing that the platform “allows for communication and coordination in significant social movements. For this reason, but also due to its relative openness in terms of data collection, Twitter has quickly become a favoured research object for scholars from various fields” (Rieder Reaction

Chamber, 2). Rieder, this time with Erik Borra, goes further on the matter, stating that “The proliferation of actors involved in the analysis of online data … has led to an epistemological battlefield where different paradigms, methods, styles, and objectives struggle for interpretive agency” (Borra & Rieder, 264). This battlefield metaphor seems suitable when describing the current debates raging in the USA, both in traditional print media and within the “walled gardens” - limited access to information due to ‘friend’ or follower settings (Rogers) - of more recently established social networks (Digital Commerce). Borra & Rieder also warn us as to the problems associated with creating reliable tweet datasets and establishing a sound methodology, issues that will be returned to later.

Bruns and Burgess, when discussing the popularity of social media platforms, state that a “key driver here is the ease with which additional materials (links, photos, video, audio) can also be shared” (Bruns & Burgess, 1). Twitter quite obviously exhibits this feature; the platform easily incorporates media link sharing and thus is an excellent propagator of multimedia virality. However, platform specificities and strict API rules mean that platforms cannot be treated as open books of infinite data, as pointed out most usefully by Rogers (3).

Having established that Twitter can be an important area of research, despite the platform’s limitations and “walled gardens” - limited access to information due to ‘friend’ or follower settings (Rogers) - it is then important to discuss how the platform is utilized for political debates. Bruns and Burgess, having stated that Twitter is used for “ongoing discussion – and instant evaluation – of newsworthy events”, offer insight when they argue “One important aspect of news discussion practices on Twitter is the curating of information related to specific stories” (2). This implies that, like a museum or exhibition, news and information sent and received online has an element of selection, and therefore agency, involved. Such activities lead to conversations being created, as opposed to objectively coming into existence, and emphasize the need for caution when studying Tweets and Twitter users. This brings us to discussions surrounding Framing and Agenda Setting, with emphasis on how these activities are carried out online.

Section 2: Academic Literature Review

2.1 Definition of Framing and Agenda-Setting

Framing and Agenda Setting are contentious areas of study, with many academics offering differing definitions of the terms. Scheufele and Tewksbury usefully summarize the main points of contention in these areas, suggesting that theories of Framing and Agenda Setting first became prevalent during the Mass Media age in mid-20th century America and, once established, became hugely important terms within the context of political discourse (10-13). Although they summarize, through others, a variety of interpretations of the terms Framing and Agenda Setting, the crucial aspects of each term are clear: “Agenda setting refers to the idea that there is a strong correlation between the emphases that mass media place on certain issues … and the importance attributed to these issues by mass audiences. Framing … is based on the assumption that how an issue is presented in news reports can have an influence on how it is understood by audiences. Framing is often traced back to roots in both psychology and sociology” (11).

Having said this, many academics offer competing definitions of both ‘agenda-setting’ and ‘framing’, definitions that often disagree with one another explicitly. The fields of framing and agenda- setting research are thus highly fractured, with many slight variations of term definitions offered throughout the decades, to the point that the wider view is somewhat obscured by academics’ determination to disagree. Cacciatore makes a useful point when he states that sub-definitions of these terms are crucial, for the purposes of clarity: “Unless these studies are able to conceptually and operationally disentangle (different variations of Framing definitions) … most of the effects they identify are likely confounded and tap different effects models at the same time without being able to disentangle their unique contribution to the criterion available.” (Cacciatore, 14) One thing that does seem clear to academics, however, is that New Media platforms, especially social media platforms such as Twitter, offer many challenges to interpretative definitions of ‘framing’ and ‘agenda- setting’ previously offered by academics, and indeed these platforms may require total redefinition as a result (Cacciatore, 19).

Skogerbø et al. make a useful intervention at this juncture, bridging as they do the gap between mass-media and online framing and agenda-setting attempts. Firstly, they echo claims by Cacciatore that social media platforms require a re-analysis of established theories: “Over the past decades, the continuous tug of war between journalists and their sources for the power to define and

8 frame news has been described in terms of institutional practices such as Media Logics (Altheide 2013) and Mediatization (Hjarvard 2013, Mazzoleni and Schulz 1999). However, the relationship is currently being renegotiated because of the entrance of digital and social media” (Skogerbø et al., 191).

However, although renegotiations are taking place, and methods of communication have changed, political actors are still said to source power conventionally: “Sourcing from Twitter reinforces the power of the political elites to set the agenda of the news media – they are indeed still ‘leading the dance.’” Indeed, the group’s conclusion that “The agenda-setting hypothesis seems to remain robust and productive in an online environment” is one that allows for continuity between older definitions of agenda-setting and framing formulated during previous decades, and newer explorations and testing of these theories in the 21st century (Skogerbø et al., 190-195).

Therefore, informed by the above cited sources, framing is defined by this thesis as the ways in which individual pieces of specific news content are presented to the public sphere, in this case via Twitter. Discussions of online framing attempts require analysis of the language (tone, word choice) used to introduce each piece of news, as well as the format in which this news is presented (text-only, audio, static image, video or otherwise). Agenda Setting is defined as the wider issues that society – a combination of media, politicians, the public, and those looking from outside political borders – deem to be relevant, and thus refers to the issues which come to mind each time a ‘new’ piece of news is published or presented.

One way of conceptualizing this is to think of framing as individual acts of information- presentation, acts that are noticeable for how they read, what language they use and what type of media links they share. Agenda-setting is what happens when all these frames, and the messages they imply, are considered as a larger whole, like bricks in a wall. Due to repetition of frames, this wider message is then more likely to come to mind each time a new frame is presented. In this way, a cycle of communication and understanding is established, one determined by traditionally powerful political and journalistic actors, and engaged with by individuals generally and online users of platforms specifically. When considered as a whole, this cycle of Framing and Agenda-setting allows us to engage with content published by political actors and news media sources on platforms like Twitter both on a micro and macroscopic level, without becoming embroiled in overly-pedantic academic re-definitions.

Further, framing of content is unavoidable, insofar that issues need to be explained, and the limits of linguistics force individuals to explain issues in a relatively brief fashion. Therefore, how content is framed each time it is presented for discussion and debate is crucial to how it is originally engaged with by others. This thesis claims that an accumulation of frames, and repetition of particular

9 stances or viewpoints by an individual or group, over time leads to the ability to better recognize said group or individual’s broader aims and political/social beliefs, otherwise known as their agenda. Thus, the creation and accumulation of frames leads to the setting of wider agendas. Therefore, while researchers often try to ascertain group’s key agendas through analysis and accumulation of individual frames, those creating frames already have an idea of their own agendas, and so analysis of specific frames can be potentially of huge use for researchers and ‘outsiders’. These arguments, although adapted for online research purposes and rephrased for clarity, follow those of Scheufele, Tewksbury and others cited above. Twitter is an ideal platform through which to conduct such framing discussions, due mainly to the 140 characters allowed by the platform per tweet, as well as the ability to include multimedia links with each individual frame.

2.2 Marres’ Issue Networks and Further Research Justification

Although there have been some debates surrounding the suitability of Social Media platforms as sites of political debate, there seems little doubt today that both the established press and the public see such platforms as useful places to find news information and engage in debates surrounding this information (Manjoo). Noortje Marres, when outlining her concepts of Issue Networks, offers useful clarification here:

“During the last decade we have witnessed the proliferation of new Information and Communications Technologies (ICTs) and the exponential growth of Civil Society Organizations (CSOs). The ‘network’ is one of the prime conceptual, practical, and technical sites where these two developments come together. Arguably the most important features of ICTs – of which the internet is a fundamental component, both discursively and logistically – is that they facilitate networked forms of organization.” (Marres, 3)

This claimed organization grounds later arguments in the realm of importance, suggesting that platforms (or ICTs as Marres calls them) are organized and interconnected entities, ones that allow both individual frames and wider agendas to pass through networks of online users and therefore to become relevant to societal debates. Further, Marres claims that “to account for civil society politics in terms of issue networks is to attempt to take seriously the specificity of networks as sites of politics. It is also an attempt to understand civil society politics as a practise in which substantial and technological considerations are closely intertwined” (4). Therefore, an ICT such as Twitter, one favoured by Civil Society Organizations such as Greenpeace and The Guardian, is a useful area of

10 research because it allows politically-motivated users to engage with the key agendas and frames of the still-strong political elite, in a manner less encumbered by geographical or economic limitations.

Continuing this theme, another of Marres’ key contributions to this thesis lies in three assertions. Firstly, “the issue network proposes that participants in such a network are connected to one another by way of the particular issue with which it is concerned.” This could be rephrased as ‘Content is connection’, or ‘issue instigates all’. This allows for the combined discussion of tweets from all user accounts, even if they do not explicitly tag (through the @ symbol) or engage with other users. Secondly, Marres states that “formatting issues (is) a crucial dimension of the politics of civil society”, a point that runs central to the idea that framing of events online is of importance and requires attention from researchers. Thirdly, she draws attention to “Extended configurations of actors and issues that are marked by antagonism”, thus echoing the political differences between the Trump administration on one side, and groups such as The Guardian and Greenpeace on the other (10-14). It is the disagreements, both explicit and implicit, that take place between these groups that places them within the same network, and even necessitates investigations into their framing and agenda-setting attempts.

2.3 Description of Twitter Specificities

“Our mission: To give everyone the power to create and share ideas and information instantly, without barriers” – Twitter ‘About’ Section

With 313 million unique visitors per month as per June 2016, Twitter is one of the largest Social Media sites in the world (Twitter.com; ‘About’). Its features include; a limit of 140 characters per Tweet; the use of unique usernames or ‘handles’ prefaced with the @ symbol; followers and following features, which can limit the other users that one pays attention to and interacts with; the use of hashtags to coordinate and include users in discussions, and; an allowance for the sharing of external media links within tweets. This combination of characteristics is particular to Twitter, and serves to both order and limit users’ actions and interactions on the platform. The combination of a 140-character limit with the ability to share external media links is important to highlight at this point.

2.4 Description of some wider issues in US Politics and Society

This subsection will briefly describe some recent US political and societal concerns, concerns which were especially prevalent during the 2016 US elections. This exercise will help to guide the methods and findings sections of the paper, and some overlap is expected between the issues prioritized during both the 2016 election and the period studied by this thesis. However, it is highly likely that the following issues will be superseded by more pressing issues during the President’s first 100 days. Therefore, this sub section is considered as a helpful beginning that serves to ground later claims and arguments, but not as a blueprint for events to come.

Firstly, it is important to recognize the specifics of the American political system, which traditionally operates in binary code: if you want to be involved in political decision-making, your opinions fall under either the Democratic or Republican umbrella. In American politics, therefore, both the setting of wider agendas and the framing of individual news events have often traditionally been either ‘red’ or ‘blue’ in colour. Although these oppositions are of course less binary in reality, and should instead be thought of as a spectrum that is infinitely sub-dividable down to each individual’s political beliefs, the two colours are useful indicators of the obvious split in US society and politics (Washington Post).

However, these red/blue binary definitions and debates surrounding them are called into question when we consider how new forms of media have developed since the turn of the 21st century. The rise of platforms such as Twitter has coincided with a decline in print media revenue, and thus formerly authoritative mass media sources, ones loyal to the red-blue divide, are now forced to compete with newer sources of information for attention online, with priority given to revenue- generating clicks (Lu & Holcomb). These newer sources of information have not always adhered to the same journalistic standards as older media, and thus the phenomenon of Fake News emerged as a regular talking point over recent years (Posner & Neiwert). The 2016 US election was seen by many as a watershed moment in this regard, with many questioning the impact of algorithms, and whether or not Silicon Valley should be brought to account for the manner in which The Filter Bubble Effect caused users to become ‘surrounded’ by those who shared their political opinions (Borgesius et al., 1). The Oxford English Dictionary went as far as to make ‘Post-Truth’ their word of the year in 2016: “an adjective defined as ‘relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief’”. The famous case of Macedonian news ‘outlets’ offering unsubstantiated articles to willing Republican voters, combined with the publications of those such as Breitbart News, meant that American internet-using voters were

12 sometimes reading ‘news’ sources that vastly differed from each other in terms of factual content (Kirby). This avenue of discussion led to theories such as the Red Pill/Blue Pill divide, which involved algorithms prioritizing content ‘liked’ by users, and therefore implies that both platforms and users themselves have agency when deciding which ‘facts’ to pay attention to (Borgesius et al., 2).

This being said, social media platforms cannot solely account for the perceived decline in the quality of public debates, or for the disagreements that arose over basic factual content in 2016. Indeed, it has been claimed more recently that Facebook’s algorithm was an easy target that did not cause the damage many originally claimed. (The Verge) Matt Taibbi is perhaps most notable for his scathing critique of his own profession, as well as of the inherent problems in the US political system that allowed a campaign such as Trump’s to gain momentum (despite its inability to engage with social issues beyond seemingly shallow, grandiose claims). His book, written in chronological chapters during the party primaries and presidential election, undermines confidence in the pre-Trump political system as much as it criticizes the “Insane Clown President” himself. Therefore, for the sake of a broader understanding of the less quantifiable aspects of Trump’s success, a success that has led to some questioning America’s role as leader of the Western Hemisphere (Smith), it is necessary to engage in a closer reading of some of Taibbi’s claims and arguments, which are indicative of the issues that defined the build-up to President Trump’s inauguration.

Taibbi’s essential arguments are this: Due to the huge financial backing that influential companies and groups invest in political campaigns, any candidate elected to political office is and has been compromised by corporate interests, often to the detriment of the wider public who it is theoretically their job to represent. Although this is a complicated claim that paints vast swathes of honest individuals with a tarry brush, the key point remains important and is echoed by various others, The Guardian and The New York Times being notable examples. One of Trump’s key strengths, as the then-candidate was extremely aware of, was his relative autonomy from big business interests (besides his own). Taibbi spends much time and effort explaining how this was framed by the Trump campaign team to the ‘ordinary’ American voter, who for so long has had to watch as Washington’s political elite seemingly concerned itself only passingly with those outside of its spheres of influence.

This argument makes a lot of sense when trying to understand the harnessing of the wave of popular support Trump rode to power, a wave that consisted primarily of conservative voters and supporters from outside the inner circle of Washington (which Trump famously labelled ‘The Swamp’). This is especially true when they are correlated with the views of Bernie Sanders, whose campaign for the Democratic nomination centred around the same core message as Trump’s: Washington is self-

13 involved and over-reliant on corporate funding. Although this framing of events is the point of departure for Sanders and Trump, it is nonetheless an important similarity (Taibbi 58).

These, however, are just some of the key issues surrounding Trump’s election. If it is accepted that Hillary Clinton did not engage with or convince voters as she should have, then we must ask: what did Trump do that was so appealing? The answer, although layered and complicated perhaps beyond full comprehension, lies partly in his lack of outside funding, and therefore perceived lack of reliance on others. This was framed to voters as a huge positive, with polls suggesting that Trump would represent a “new beginning” for previously disenfranchised rural Americans in particular. The answer also lies partly in Trump’s relationship with the US media and their inability to originally recognize the threat he posed to their profession. Trump regularly framed Media and news outlets as “Fake”, “Bad” or “Liars”, frames that undermined any negative reports of Trump and his team in the eyes of some voters. Most obviously, it lies in Trump’s ability to create frames that resonated with various sections of US society.

The 2016 election, and the primaries before it, were notable for their lack of in-depth political debating (Patterson). Instead of speaking extensively about social reforms, or outlining detailed election promises, candidates were dragged into debates about hand-size, unreleased tax returns and fearmongering about dangerous minorities. It has been well-documented that Trump’s Fleisch-Kincaid scores (readability tests designed to indicate how difficult a passage in English is to understand) were the lowest for any presidential candidate, and that the Republican primary debates were notable for their lack of socially relevant debate (Sedivy). Although difficult to prove, it is tempting to state that this was - and is - an ephemeral period in US politics, with real issues being side-lined in favour of consumable, bite-sized quotables, which proliferated across all media, both social and otherwise (Strauss). Such quotables often spread virally on Social Media platforms such as Twitter, with recent studies suggesting the more serious aspects of ‘Meme Culture’ and its effects on the views of US voters (PepetheFrogFaith).

This all implies that New Media platforms such as Twitter are hugely important disseminators of framed ideas, which in turn can affect both the political beliefs and voting habits of individuals. This is recognized by and reflected in the anxiety and regret exhibited by liberal media outlets during and directly after the 2016 election results were announced. Various media outlets, such as The Guardian, The Huffington Post, The New York Times, and others, all published opinion pieces that agreed on one point: Trump’s election was an unmitigated disaster, one that they themselves had contributed to by refusing to recognize the dangers of applying old mass media journalistic standards and expectations to behaviours surrounding these newer, faster technologies.

Trump’s election also corresponds with global fears about the rise of populism and emotionally-driven politics. Dutch journalist Rob Wijnberg wrote a convincing piece in the wake of Trump’s election, in which he outlines the need to totally rethink how media outlets function in the 21st century, and specifically how they create economic value. Such pieces reflect the wider international community’s realization that social media platforms have hugely impacted the way that news, facts, and debates are presented to publics. Therefore, these arguments also reflect Mass Media’s anxieties surrounding frame building and agenda-setting processes currently occurring in the Western world. Such concerns allow us to view our research questions as worthwhile investigations; if New Media has the power to help realign journalistic standards, through content-heavy framing practices and the ready accessibility of ‘facts’ online, then an investigation of how and if some of these framing practices are carried through to 2017 on Twitter has potential to add worthwhile analyses to the conversation.

2.5 Description of Users and Pre-Research Expectations

2.5.0 Introduction to Users

It is now time to briefly introduce the groups studied in this paper, to gain preliminary insight into the issues each group may prioritize on Twitter during the first 100 days of Donald Trump’s presidency. As the research question and its justifications at the beginning of this paper makes clear, the Twitter accounts of three groups will be analysed; President Donald Trump, Greenpeace USA, and The Guardian USA. More specifically, the following Twitter handles will be investigated:

• @RealDonaldTrump • @POTUS • @GuardianUS • @greenpeaceusa

Choosing both the President’s official and personal Twitter accounts allows for investigation into the contrasts between how governmental authorities frame events, and how the individual in question does so. It is no secret that such prolific tweeting from the leader of America is unprecedented and perhaps unique amongst global leaders (Garun), and so it would be remiss not to discuss the ways in which each compare with the other. This is seen as how two parallel-yet-separated

15 elements of a President’s frame-making arsenal work together, to set agendas for public discourse. Further, much contemporary news analysis has highlighted the idiosyncratic nature of Donald Trump’s tweeting habits, and so contrasts are expected not just in content of posts, but also in the language and focus of each post. In other words, although Trump’s private and POTUS accounts are expected to contain the same agenda-setting attempts, insofar that they will focus on the same broader issues from the political perspective of Trump and his allies, the specific frames composed to carry out this agenda-setting is expected to contrast significantly between accounts.

Choosing The Guardian and Greenpeace were relatively straight-forward choices, insofar that both groups position themselves as opponents of Trump and his supporters’ political and social values. They both also post regularly to Social Media platforms, have significant follower bases, and are concerned with political developments, thus conforming to Marres’ assertions regarding the importance of “networked forms of organization” (3). The Guardian is a fair representation of the established left-leaning media, with all the labels and biases such a phrase naturally implies. Greenpeace has a long history of opposing perceived social injustices, something indicated in the name of the organization and a brief glance at the history of actions undertaken by its members (Greenpeace Website). The USA-specific accounts of both Greenpeace and The Guardian were chosen in order that as many tweets and posts as possible would be relevant to the conversation.

Inclusion of the POTUS’ first 100 days in our research question(s) came about for multiple reasons: Historically, the first 100 days of each US President’s time in office is viewed as critical. It is when election promises are prioritized and platforms are laid for the remainder of a President’s term in office (Watkins). This dates back to Franklin D Roosevelt, who used his first 100 days to pass sweeping legislative reform to combat the economic depression of the late 1920s and early 30s. Since this time, the 100 days has become a key feature of each presidency (Harvard Business Review).

Trump’s 100 days are no exception to this rule, and indeed may perhaps come under more scrutiny due to the seemingly unique nature of his election campaign. Directly after his inauguration, the new US President began to implement a series of controversial changes, such as changing the White House’s website content and rhetorically committing to following up on his pre-election promises to “build a wall”. These initial actions have caused fierce debate amongst American citizens, as well as in the international media (Taylor). If Trump’s first 100 days culminate on 29 April 2017, this allows for a Master’s thesis paper that closely analyses the framing characteristics of social media content published during this time.

2.5.1 Greenpeace description and original expectations

Greenpeace USA offer a lot of information on their website, with the ‘About’ page a useful point of reference:

“Our mission: Greenpeace is the leading independent campaigning organization that uses peaceful protest and creative communication to expose global environmental problems and promote solutions that are essential to a green and peaceful future.” – Greenpeace ‘About’ page.

“We ‘bear witness’ to environmental destruction in a peaceful, non-violent manner. We use non-violent confrontation to raise the level and quality of public debate. In exposing threats to the environment and finding solutions we have no permanent allies or adversaries. We ensure our financial independence from political or commercial interests.” - Annie Leonard, Greenpeace USA Executive Director, quote taken from Greenpeace ‘About’ page

“Our fight to save the planet has grown more serious — the threat of global warming, destruction of ancient forests, deterioration of our oceans, and the threat of a nuclear disaster loom large.” – Greenpeace ‘About’ page

Regarding agendas the Greenpeace USA Twitter account will attempt to promote; quotes like the ones above suggest that Greenpeace is true to its name, prioritizing issues such as environmental protection, climate conservation, limiting pollution, and other similar agendas. Their claim to “creative communication” is of interest here; later sections of this paper will discuss this creativity as seen through the groups’ Twitter account. Indeed, a glance at said account’s ‘Bio’ section offers further important details: “Fighting for a greener, healthier world, no matter what forces stand in our way. #resistoften #lovetrumpshate”. Such references to ‘resistance’ and using the president’s name as a pun suggest that this group will oppose vociferously any attempts by the POTUS to alter environmental legislation. It is not expected that the group will engage with other aspects of the President’s decision making, aspects such as Foreign Policy decisions, unless they directly engage with and affect Greenpeace’s environmental concerns.

2.5.2 The Guardian description and original expectations

In contrast to @Greenpeaceusa, @GuardianUS is expected to take a much wider view of events in the United States, and therefore should report on almost every detail of the new President’s

17 time in office. As a branch of the wider Guardian Media network, @GuardianUS shares the aims and values of its affiliates, except with a focus on events in America. Although not among the studied Twitter handles for this paper, the Bio of @Guardian is instructive at this point: “The need for independent journalism has never been greater.” Such a claim, when combined with the Bio of @GuardianUS - “The @Guardian's US coverage, conversations and reporters. Share stories with us securely and confidentially at https://securedrop.theguardian.com/” – suggest that this news outlet feels its role to be of utmost importance in the current US political climate. It can be inferred from these Bios, and from a glance at The Guardian’s website, that the Trump Administration is deemed to be in opposition to the priorities held by The Guardian and its journalists. Although these values are not explicitly stated on their website, the organization goes as far as to call itself “the world’s leading liberal voice” in the ‘About’ section of its US website. This implies it will have far more in common with Greenpeace than with President Trump and those who support him, an implication that becomes obvious having read even a small number of @GuardianUS tweets.

2.5.3 President Trump description and original expectations

Donald J. Trump was the Republican nomination for President in the 2016 US Presidential Elections. Notable for his brazen personality, wide business portfolio, and lack of previous political experience, Trump defeated Democratic candidate Hilary Clinton and was thus elected the 45th President of the United States, taking office in early 2017 (Donaldjtrump.com). Having gained wide coverage for his use of Twitter, through the handle @RealDonaldTrump, the new president became associated with the handle @POTUS once he came to office in January 2017. Both these handles therefore theoretically represent the same individual, with an expectation that @POTUS will concern itself with less personal issues and opinions than those presented by @RealDonaldTrump in the past.

Of course, it would be of huge surprise should either @POTUS or @RealDonaldTrump not subscribe wholly to the ideologies, priorities and rhetorical devices of President Trump and his wider administration. It is expected that both these users will Tweet frames that forward the agendas of Trump, his family, the Republican Party, and those associated with it. It is expected that the platform will be used to offer positive accounts of legislative changes and events participated in by the President over the first 100 days of his time in office. The other side of this coin should also be mentioned here; it is expected that both the President’s accounts will use the platform to negatively

18 frame the actions of others, and to criticize those who oppose the President, whether that be political opponents such as Hilary Clinton, outgoing President Barack Obama, or those news outlets who choose not to praise the actions of the new administration. The exact nature of these frames remains to be seen, but concepts such as ‘Fake News’ and the labelling of ‘Liars’ are expected to carry over from the 2016 Election, considering the President’s much-discussed idiosyncratic Tweeting habits.

2.5.4 Summary of Pre-Research Expectations

Therefore, this paper expects two vociferously ‘pro-Trump’ groups (@RDT and @POTUS), and two defiantly ‘anti-Trump’ groups (@Greenpeaceusa and @GuardianUS) to emerge. Although the tweets of @RDT and @POTUS are expected to concur and overlap noticeably, both in style and content, the other two groups are not expected to share many priorities beyond being both ‘Anti-Trump’ and environmentally aware. This is because of @Greenpeaceusa’s relatively narrow focus on environmental issues, which contrast with @GuardianUS’ wider reporting obligations, which include climate and environmental concerns. These expectations will be discussed and compared with the actual findings in later sections of this thesis.

Finally it is clarified here that, during the following sections, shortened names will be used for each user. @RealDonaldTrump will be called @RDT, @POTUS will remain @POTUS, @Greenpeaceusa will be shortened to @Green, while @GuardianUS will be referred to as @Guard.

Section 3: Methodology

3.1 Key research features to guide Methods

This section will describe and justify the methods used to obtain data for the later Findings and Discussion sections of this paper. Before these methods are detailed, a brief explanation of some key research features will serve to ground and justify future explained methods. These key features are:

1. A focus on individual tweets as ‘standalone’ topics of research. If each post is considered as a piece of framed information, one that is intended to correspond to wider social and political agendas, it is necessary to analyse the methods used to create specific frames. As well as being a crucial discussion aspect in its own right, analyses of individual tweets allows for a discussion that eventually moves from micro to macro and back again. Again, the ‘bricks in a wall’ analogy is useful here. It is expected that each user, due to the different wider agenda it subscribes to, will frame events in a different manner to other users. Twitter’s platform informs this research choice - the combination of 140 characters with an ability to link external media offers an ideal setting to study the framing of issues by politically or socially motivated users. Similarly, it is expected that frames created by @POTUS, @Guard and @Green will conform with set ‘guidelines’ that are pre-determined by company or White House strategists. It is expected that @RDT, although perhaps conforming to an accidental style or template, is much more likely to offer frames that contain less external links, more personal opinions and to have an overall less ‘polished’ effect.

2. Examination of framing and re-framing attempts as part of a wider prioritization of certain off and online events. It is expected that President Trump’s accounts will proactively engage with concrete events in Twitter discussions, providing original tweets that positively frame his administration’s decisions, decisions that will be then contested by the other pages in this study. This cycle of framing and re-framing may perhaps obfuscate the portrayal of actual events in America by these users, with certain events prioritized and re-emphasized ahead of others. For example, should the White House sign controversial legislation, it is expected that social media will be used to appease concerned voters, but will be used by Trump’s opponents to highlight his perceived flaws and general unsuitability to lead. These legislation debates might conceivably overshadow the framing of visits or other decisions made by the Trump administration during the same time. This requires both knowledge of offline events during

the 100 days, as well as analysis of individual frames, and so can be said to be more macroscopic than the previous key feature detailed above.

3. The above two key research features will be supplemented by analyses of hashtags, retweets of other users, and other methods of communication creation that the Twitter platform allows for. These analyses will be conducted as supplements to the two points explained above, due to the necessary limits imposed by the research brief for this thesis and research question explained in previous sections. Therefore, although hashtag and link frequency investigations, for example, will be conducted according to the limits imposed by the tools used to gather Tweet data, conversations of such will not be prioritized unless they offer new conversational material that enriches discussions central to the research question.

All three of the above points are included here so that an audience may be reminded of the specific priorities of this paper before the following sections occur. In short, this paper is intent on discussing different tweet-creation methods, with the purpose of discussing how these methods contribute to the establishment of users’ wider priorities during President Trump’s first 100 days in office.

3.2 Creation of Manual List of Concrete Events

To best understand the main issues of the period, it was decided to establish a list of the main topics of discussion during each of these 100 days. Therefore, a list of each day’s developments, both in and outside the White House, was created, with the intention of comparing offline and online actions during the period with frames provided by the four studied users.

A variety of news outlets extensively documented Trump’s first 100 days, including; The Guardian, USA Today, Fox News, CNN, ABC, and others. Therefore, there is no shortage of reported sources to aid in the construction of a timeline of noteworthy or concrete events during the period 20th January 2017 until 29th April 2017. The following list of concrete or salient events was constructed, using online media sources The Guardian, and Fox News. To avoid any pre-existing journalistic biases, no one source was relied exclusively upon when creating this list. Although this cannot be called an ‘exhaustive’ list of all noteworthy events that occurred in and around the Trump Administration during the aforementioned dates, it is an extensive list and thus functions as a useful indicator of the most important events that occurred during each group period. Although attempts have been made to explain background details, some aspects of this list lack context, and may thus be lacking in

21 information for a reader unused to the US political circuit. This is unavoidable, as a thorough ‘beginners’ explanation of each individual mentioned would distract from the point of this list – to summarize all important ‘concrete’ events that may have been framed by the studied users on Twitter. This list can then function as a base from which to investigate how frames offered on Twitter relate to and interact with ongoing events in US politics during Trump’s first 100 days. The sources for this list are fully referenced in the Bibliography section of this thesis. It is noticeable that these 100 days are divided into ten groups of ten days in the following list. Explanations for this choice will occur directly after the list, and will then be linked to the further methods described in the following sections.

*Note – As the specific contents of the ‘Concrete Events’ list are not useful at this exact point in the paper, and to create space for a larger Discussion section, the list in its entirety can be seen in the appendices to this paper. Specifically, Appendix 1 provides the entire list of Concrete Events.

3.3 Creation of 10-day groups

Having established the list of salient or concrete events that could potentially be framed online by @RDT, @POTUS, @Green and @Guard, the entire 100-day period was divided into ten groups of ten days - labelled in chronological order and referenced from here on as Group 1, Group 2, and so on. This is considered an original method for this thesis, with no academic papers offered as justification. The benefits of this division were multiple: it limited the volume of tweet data studied at one time during the research phase, thus allowing for a clearer division of labour. This meant that a focus on daily events became easier, and so frames were prioritized. This division also meant that more regular ‘stops’ occurred, resulting in a discussion section that remained more focussed on the research question over the entire period studied. It also allowed for easier comparisons between user handles’ frames of specific events, insofar that each Group period was associated with less concrete events than the 100 days as a whole. Although dangers exist in such a fabrication of time-groups, such dangers are judged to be limited as long as the fabrication of these Group periods is kept in mind and inevitable overlapping of content is recognized as research progresses. For the exact date period of each ten-day group, see Figure 1.

Figure 1: Date range of each ten-day group period

Once each of the ten groups has been broadly defined according to the key or ‘concrete’ events that took place during its time, the next step is to analyse the Twitter content of all four users, using the DMI-TCAT tool.

3.4 Specific Methods of Capture

It is now necessary to describe the processes carried out to obtain data from Twitter for these discussions. The Digital Methods Initiative was crucial in this regard. Self-described as “one of Europe's leading Internet Studies research groups”, DMI is “comprised of new media researchers and PhD candidates, it designs methods and tools for repurposing online devices and platforms … for research into social and political issues” (DMI Website). Specifically, the DMI-TCAT tool was utilized for data accumulation for future discussions. This section will explain the methodologies behind the research carried out into all four mentioned Twitter handles, with the aim of establishing a clear guideline as to how the findings discussed in later chapters came about.

The creators of the Digital Methods Initiative Twitter Capture and Analysis Toolset (DMI-TCAT) state that the tool “allows users to retrieve and collect tweets from Twitter and to analyse them in various ways” (DMI Website). These tweets are not open to the public and require a password and username to access them, in line with Twitter’s terms of agreement. Having contacted DMI through my university, and having explained my thesis as well as my need for tweet data, I was provided with access to a dataset that consisted of all tweets from the four previously mentioned Twitter handles, dating from 1st January 2017 and continuing to the present day. This date-range incorporates each of Trump’s first 100 days and thus can be said to be an almost exhaustive tweet dataset. The term ‘almost’ is used here with good reason, as will be explained in the “Methodology Problematics” subsection.

In total, 9101 tweets were collected that fall within the 100 day-range. This full dataset was exported as .csv files and opened using Microsoft Excel Spreadsheet Software, as per the recommendations of Erik Borra in his TCAT explanation paper and corresponding YouTube explanation videos.

3.5 ‘Masterlist’ Creation

In order that all data could be referenced without hesitation, and to ensure full confidence in the dataset, a full selection of tweets from all Twitter handles (@RDT, @POTUS, @Greenpeaceusa, @GuardianUS) was downloaded using the TCAT tool and saved on both hard drive and Google Drive. This entire set was labelled ‘masterlist’ and was neither edited nor altered once the dataset had been created and downloaded. All research explorations subsequent to this took a copy of this ‘masterlist’ as their starting point. This copy was pasted into a new spreadsheet each time, and so the ‘masterlist’ remained unchanged throughout.

Having copied all tweet data from said ‘masterlist’ onto a new Excel spreadsheet, a few steps needed to be taken before further research investigations could be carried out. Firstly, all tweets from @RDT were separated from the rest, and copied into a new sheet. This was done by ordering all tweets according to their Twitter handle, then copy-pasting all 507 @RDT tweets into a new page. This list was saved as filename ‘@RDT All Tweets’. Then, this @RDT data was put into chronological order, from earliest to latest. This established a chronological list of all tweets from account @RDT, which could be then analysed, and later separated into Groups 1-10, again via copy-pasting tweets falling within each group into new Excel sheets. Once this was completed, the base was ready and research investigations could begin. The methodologies previously described for capturing and ordering the tweets of @RDT were replicated to capture data from @POTUS, @Guard, and @Green.

Having created four individual groups of tweets, which were further subdivided into ten subgroups, I was then reluctant to subdivide any more, in case the application of too many chronological borders affected in any way the framing discussion. Next, all tweets were manually perused, with the intention of creating Tweet categories that could direct and organize both the Findings and Discussion sections of this thesis. This category creation involved the use of precedents set by previous researchers, a thorough description of which can be found in the following subsection.

3.6 Creation of Tweet Categories

In their 2012 work ‘Information, Community, and Action: How Non-profit Organizations Use Social Media’, Saxton and Lovejoy analyse the tweets of 100 American Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs), with the aim of gaining insights into how such organizations use Twitter to engage with stakeholders and the public. Having categorized NGO tweets into three types - Information Tweets, Community tweets, and Action Tweets - they conclude that “the adoption of social media appears to have engendered new paradigms of public engagement” for these NGOs (337- 353).

These categorizations were persuasive and thus used as a basis for investigations conducted in this thesis. They applied most obviously to the tweets of @Greenpeaceusa, an NGO with many of the same characteristics as those described by Saxton and Lovejoy. Therefore, in line with this model, I categorized @Greenpeaceusa’s tweets according to three categories: Information, Community, and Action.

- Information Tweets are published to inform followers and do not ask for engagement beyond consuming the tweeted content. Such content includes any information that can be provided to users with the help of 140 characters and external links. - Community Tweets ask for online input, ask questions of followers or directly engage with followers through tags (@), and thus foster conversation and/or community spirit specifically on the Twitter platform. - Action tweets call for some type of involvement outside of the Twitter Platform, for example to download a template, sign a petition or to attend a rally offline. These actions can take place on different websites, or offline.

I then added a fourth category, ‘RT’. This category contains any tweet prefaced with the letters RT, which means that they are individual tweets created by other users and repeated by Greenpeace. This was done because ‘RT’ was found to be extremely common, making up 83 out of the top 100 most engaged-with @Green tweets. These are seen to be important because here Greenpeace functions as a carrier of others’ frames as well as a creator of original ones. @Green’s tweets were then sorted according to these four categories, the findings and wider discussion of which can be found in later sections.

Once the results from the above categories were analysed, this process was deemed worthwhile, and so Tweets from the other three handles were also broken down into categories. It became immediately apparent that, due to the unique nature of each of the three other users, new categories were needed. Due to a lack of obviously applicable academic guidance on this matter, the following categories were created:

@RealDonaldTrump: Community, Foreign Policy, Internal Affairs, Media & Opposition, Other

- ‘Community’ Tweets are intended to directly address the President’s followers and voters. Often featuring generalities and broad claims, these tweets regularly mention; Speeches, Rallies, Presidential ceremonies, Congratulations to assorted groups, “Thanks” and other such messages. - ‘Foreign Policy’ tweets are concerned with American foreign policy. Tweets in this category reference foreign nations, other world leaders, and comments on events outside of the United States. Tweets regarding foreign visitors to the White House were put in this category also. - ‘Internal Affairs’ tweets are those that referenced issues within the United States. This includes statements on policy, legislative actions, comments on movements and developments within the country. Tweets concerning the proposed Mexican Border Wall and the infamous travel ban from various Muslim countries were also included here, as both these issues involve limiting immigrants and their actions within the USA. - ‘Media & Opposition’ tweets were those that took aim at Trump’s opponents. This was a wide group, including; The New York Times, CNN, and other media outlets; Members of the Democratic Party; Former President Barack Obama; and many others. These tweets were almost always condemning or pessimistic in tone. - ‘Other’ tweets were those that did not fall comfortably into any of the above categories. The rarity of such tweets meant that creating specific sub-groups felt pedantic.

@POTUS: Plans & Positivity, Manufactured Quotes & Speeches, Media & Opposition, Visitors, Retweets, Other

- ‘Plans & Positivity’ tweets functioned similarly to Community Tweets in the @RDT and @Greenpeace categories, insofar that they addressed followers/voters and dealt with generalities. Declarations of administrative appointments and promises to “Make America Great Again” also fell into this category. - ‘Manufactured Quotes & Speeches’ tweets were those that on the surface seemed connected to President Trump, but did not match with the tweeting style established by @RDT, thus

suggesting that they were either polished by members of White House staff, or not seen by Trump at all. Tweets announcing planned appearances or offering media links to live speeches were also included here. Any tweet that did not offer anything except for polished advertisement was included here. - ‘Media & Opposition’ tweets were those dealing with Trump’s opposition, including; Media Outlets, Political opponents, and various others. The conceptual basis for this category was the same as the @RDT category of the same title. - ‘Visitors’ tweets were those detailing visits by foreign representatives to The White House. This included foreign elected leaders, royalty, and assorted diplomats. - ‘Retweets’ were those tweets prefaced with ‘RT’. Like the @greenpeaceusa category of the same name, these tweets were noticeable due to their high frequency and so needed a category of their own. - ‘Other’ Tweets were those that did not comfortably fall into those already described above.

@GuardianUS: Administration, Climate, Foreign Policy, Internal Affairs, Media Problematics, Societal Concerns, Russia, Anti-Trump, Other

- ‘Administration’ tweets were those that dealt with members of Trump’s team, cabinet, advisors, and others. Some of the individuals referenced were: Daughter and advisor Ivanka Trump, advisor Steve Bannon, Supreme Court Judge Neil Gorsuch, Press Officer Sean Spicer, and various others. - ‘Climate’ tweets were those concerned with the environment, the impact of climate change and other similar concerns. - ‘Foreign Policy’ tweets were those concerned with affairs outside of the United States, but still of potential concern to the United States. Examples include events in the Middle East, China, and North Korea. - ‘Internal Affairs’ tweets were those that concerned themselves directly with governmental and administrative actions within the United States, and thus mirrored quite closely the @RDT and @POTUS categories of the same name. - ‘Media Problematics’ tweets were those that dealt specifically with unreliable media reporting. Although there were few tweets that comfortably fell within this category, it was important to include in order to more directly engage with some of @RDT’s wider “Fake News” claims. - ‘Societal Concerns’ tweets were those that dealt with issues outside of the immediate political decision-making sphere in the USA. Examples include features on homelessness within the

country, and ‘state-of-the-nation’ style references. This category was created to allow a sharper definition of ‘Internal Affairs’ tweets across user-handles. - ‘Russia’ Tweets were those concerned with alleged Russian interference in the 2016 elections and investigations to possible links between the Trump administration and Russia. Tweets referencing Russian politics and society were also included here. References to former National Security Adviser Mike Flynn were included here also, due to the ongoing investigations by intelligence agencies into his alleged connections to Russia. - ‘Anti-Trump’ tweets concerned themselves with President Trump specifically, the political decisions enacted by him and claims made by him online and in the media. These tweets included both political and ad hominem attacks, by Guardian writers and those from various sections of American society. - ‘Other’ tweets were those that did not fall comfortably into any of the above categories, but still concerned themselves with various themes connected to this thesis.

3.7 Methodology Problematics

At this point it is important to note some specifics and problematics regarding the @GuardianUS account. Firstly, although 6158 Tweets were collected from this account, many were unconnected entirely from this thesis, because they concerned themselves with sporting issues, other nations’ environmental concerns or otherwise. Therefore, the original 6158 tweets were analysed and reduced to 2196 US-centric tweets, so that statistics and figures could be as accurate as possible. These 2196 tweets were then assigned to the categories described above.

Secondly, the DMI-TCAT tool did not collect all tweets from @Guard for the full 100-day period. Tweets collected and discussed began on the date 15th February 2017, which was day 27 of Donald Trump’s first 100 days. Therefore, any discussions about the period 20/01/17 – 14/02/17 will not be able to include @Guard. Although this is far from ideal, the volume and characteristics of the tweets available after 15/02/17 means that a discussion that recognizes its limitations can still incorporate the incomplete @Guard dataset.

3.8 Methodology Conclusion

This methodology was carried out with the intention that a reliable dataset could be created, one that was both ‘mappable’ and divided into groups small enough to identify intricate details, but nonetheless offered enough research opportunities to make the subgroups worthwhile and the analysis of framing attempts as open as possible.

Section 4: Findings

4.1 Findings Introduction

This section will present the original findings from the methods described in the previous section. Once all notable findings are presented, the following section will offer further discussion based on these findings. This section will mention a series of figures and statistics, with the intention of providing a base from which a meaningful discussion section can be created.

It is noted here that, although many research investigations were carried out, some were more fruitful than others. This findings section will outline the main investigations carried out into the datasets acquired via the DMI-TCAT tool, findings which can later contribute usefully to the Discussion section of this paper. The ‘Categories’ findings are of particular importance to later discussions, with the figures mentioned in sections 3.2 – 3.6 offering multiple opportunities for analysing the framing methods of the four users studied in this paper.

4.2 Basic Stats Overview To begin investigations, a Twitter Basic Stats Overview was conducted, based on information visualizations offered by the DMI-TCAT tool:

1. @GuardianUS:

Figure 2: Overview of @Guard’s overall tweet stats for 100-day period, courtesy of DMI-TCAT

As explained earlier, the dataset acquired for user @GuardianUS using the DMI-TCAT tool did not capture data for the entire 100-day set. Data for this user begins on 15/02/17, day 27 of the 100 days. From this day onwards, a total of 6158 tweets were published by @GuardianUS.

The Guardian USA tweeted 6158 times during the 84 days for which data was available, on average just over 73 times per day. This is the largest tweet volume over the four studied accounts. Figure 2 offers the following information:

- Highest daily Tweets: 137 Tweets on 27/02/17. - Lowest daily Tweets: 45 Tweets on 02/04/17. - Total Followers: 193,544 - 6016 Tweets of 6158 contained links to outside media sources, 97.7% of total tweets.

2. @Greenpeaceusa:

Figure 3: Overview of @Green’s overall tweet stats for 100-day period, courtesy of DMI-TCAT

Greenpeace USA tweeted 1934 times during the 100 days, on average just under 20 times per day. This is the second-largest tweet volume over the four studied accounts. Figure 3 offers the following information:

- Highest daily Tweets: 213 Tweets on 25/01/17.

- Lowest daily Tweets: 5 Tweets on both 04/03/17 and 23/04/17. - Total followers: 205,174 - 1017 Tweets of 1934 contained links to outside media sources, 52.6% of total tweets.

3. @RealDonaldTrump

Figure 4: Overview of @RDT’s overall tweet stats for 100-day period, courtesy of DMI-TCAT

@RealDonaldTrump tweeted 509 times during the 100 days, on average just over 5 times per day. This is the second-lowest tweet volume over the four studied accounts. Figure 4 offers the following information:

- Highest daily Tweets: 13 Tweets on 20/01/17. - Lowest daily Tweets: 0 Tweets on 15/04/17. - Total Followers: 32,676,700 - 112 Tweets of 507 contained links to outside media sources, 22% of total tweets.

4. @POTUS:

Figure 5: Overview of @POTUS’s overall tweet stats for 100-day period, courtesy of DMI-TCAT

@POTUS tweeted 500 times during the 100 days, on average 5 times per day. This is the lowest tweet volume over the four studied accounts. Figure 5 offers the following information:

- Highest daily Tweets: 39 Tweets on 01/03/17. - Lowest daily Tweets: 0 Tweets on multiple occasions. - Total Followers: 18,923,299 - 211 Tweets of 493 contained links to outside media sources, 42.2% of total tweets.

4.3 Category Findings

4.3.0 Summary of Created Categories

Next, as explained in the Methodology section, the tweets from each Twitter account were categorized according to their overarching message, with the intention of investigating how Tweets from each account attempt to frame issues across the first 100 days of Donald J. Trump’s presidency. Having originally modelled our methods on those of Saxton and Lovejoy, who analysed NGO tweets

33 by dividing them into three categories, these categories were then expanded according to the specific nature of each account studied in this dataset. As explained in detail earlier, these categories were:

- @RealDonaldTrump: Community, Foreign Policy, Internal Affairs, Media & Opposition, Other - @POTUS: Plans and Positivity, Echoed Quotes or Speeches, Visitors, Retweeted Content, Media & Opposition, Other - @greenpeaceusa: Information, Community, Action, Retweet - @guardianUS: Administration, Environment, Foreign Affairs, Internal Affairs, Media Problematics, Societal Concerns, Russia, Anti-Trump, Other

Once each tweet from each account was assigned to a category, this allowed for the following original findings.

4.3.1 Category Findings @RealDonaldTrump

@RDT tweets a total of 504 times across the 100-day period. These 504 Tweets were categorized into more specific sub-categories. The breakdown of each group can be seen in Figures 6 and 7:

Figure 6: Breakdown of @RDT’s Tweet categories over 100 days

RDT Tweets Overall 80 70 60 50 40 30

20 NumberTweets of 10 0 G1 G2 G3 G4 G5 G6 G7 G8 G9 G10 Groups

Community F. Policy Internal Affairs Media & Opposition Other Figure 7: Visualization of proportions of all @RealDonaldTrump tweets across 100 days

4.3.2 Category Findings @POTUS @POTUS tweets a total of 493 times across the 100-day period. These 493 Tweets were categorized into more specific sub-categories. The breakdown of each group can be seen in Figures 8 and 9:

Figure 8: Categorical breakdown of all @RealDonaldTrump tweets across 100 days

POTUS Tweets Overall 100

20 NumberTweets of 0 G1 G2 G3 G4 G5 G6 G7 G8 G9 G10 Groups

Plans/Positivity Quote or Speech Link Retweet Visitors Media & Opposition Trumpspeak/Other

Figure 9: Visualization of proportions of all @POTUS tweets across 100 days

4.3.3 Category Findings @Greenpeaceusa @Green tweets a total of 1926 times across the 100-day period. These 1926 Tweets were categorized into more specific sub-categories. The breakdown of each group can be seen in Figures 10 and 11:

Figure 10: Categorical breakdown of all @greenpeaceusa tweets across 100 days

Greenpeaceusa Tweets Overall 600

500

400

300

200

NumberTweets of 100

0 G1 G2 G3 G4 G5 G6 G7 G8 G9 G10 Groups

Info Community Action Retweet

Figure 11: Visualization of proportions of all @Greenpeaceusa tweets across 100 days

4.3.4 Category Findings @guardianUS As explained earlier, the dataset acquired for user @guardianUS using the DMI-TCAT tool did not capture data for the entire 100-day set. Data for this user begins on 15/02/17, day 27 of the 100 days. From this day onwards, a total of 6158 tweets were published by @guardianUS. These 6158 tweets were then analysed and reduced to a subset of 2196 tweets that deal with issues concerning American politics and society, the breakdown of which can be seen in Figures 12 and 13:

Figure 12: Categorical breakdown of all @guardianUS tweets across 100 days

Guardianus Tweets Overall 400 350 300 250 200 150

NumberTweets of 100 50 0 G3 (15th G4 G5 G6 G7 G8 G9 G10 Feb start) Groups

Admin Climate Foreign Internal Media Problems Societal Concerns Russia Anti-Trump Other

Figure 13: Visualization of proportions of all @Guardian tweets across 100 days

4.4 Word Repetition investigations

Again, using the DMI-TCAT tool, Word Repetition Investigations were conducted. As the name suggests, these investigations concern themselves with words that are replicated by users across the studied dataset. The tool allows for such investigations to be downloaded in a .csv file, which can then be opened using spreadsheet software. Notable findings:

- @GuardianUS mentions of ‘Trump’ overall decreased per 10-day group: Group 3 has 164 mentions of ‘Trump’ across @GuardianUS tweets. Group 7 has 121 mentions. Group 10 has 107 mentions. This cautiously implies that the POTUS has become less important (albeit still very important) in the overall focus of The Guardian’s content creation as the 100 days progresses. ‘Trump’ is mentioned at least five times every day by @Guard, with the 38 occurrences on 17/02, 36 occurrences on 16/03, and 32 occurrences on 01/03. See Figure 14, the precise statistics for which can be found in Appendix 2.

Figure 14: @Guard repetition of ‘Trump’ over the studied period. See App. 2 for full list of figures.

- Other notable highly-repeated words from @Guardian: ‘Homelessness’ (12 times on 16 Feb); ‘Congress’ (21 times on 01 March); ‘Women’ (12 times on 08 March); ‘Russia’ (16 times on 20 March); ‘Syria’ (34 times on 07 April, 11 times on 08 April). See figure 15.

Figure 15: @Guard Frequently Occurring (10 times or more) words each day during 100-day period

- @Greenpeace’s frames include far more repeated hashtags than any of the other handles, none of whom make regular attempts to contribute to discussions via hashtags. #resistoften, #nodapl, #womensmarch are all examples of @Green’s repeated hashtags. See Figure 16:

Figure 16: Most occurring @Greenpeaceusa hashtags over the 100-day period

Section 5: Discussion and Conclusion

5.1 Discussion Intro

This section will include discussion of specific findings, which will then be tied back to the literature mentioned in earlier sections. Section 4 of this thesis was created with the intention of providing readers with the stats and figures that are used as reference points in the Discussion section of this paper. As the following section will confirm, some of these investigations were more useful than others. The created categories detailed in subsections 3.6 and 4.3.2 were particularly important to this study, as they allowed for a semblance of order to be put on a large dataset, and thus enabled clearer and more precise discussion points to emerge. These discussion points will be dealt with in chronological order, with concrete events and ten-day group periods discussed in tandem. In this way, it is hoped that the Findings offered and visualized in Section 4 will be utilized in the best possible fashion. Although some of these discussion points may seem repetitive, especially during later Group periods, it is hoped that the ‘Discussion Summary’ subsection, which directly proceeds the larger Groups Discussion subsection, will clear up any unclear points, using appropriate academic references where necessary.

* As previously mentioned, Tweets for user @GuardianUS were not available via the DMI-TCAT tool for the dates 20/01/17 – 14/02/17, and thus discussion of this user’s activities will not occur until Group 3.

* For a detailed list of all ‘Concrete Events’ referenced, see Appendix 1.

5.2 Discussion of Framing efforts during 10-day Group Periods

Group 1 – Jan 20 to Jan 29:

Important concrete events during this period include; Trump’s Inauguration on 20/01; Women’s Marches occurring across the USA and abroad on 21/01; the proposed restarting of the Keystone XL and Dakota Access pipelines, and; the signing of an Executive Action that limits refugee admissions to the United States. This becomes known as ‘Muslim Ban’ or ‘Travel Ban’, and stops

41 entirely entry to US from seven countries. This Ban is regularly debated across the 100 days, with all four users spending time reframing the Ban according to their own priorities.

Each of the three users @RDT, @POTUS and @Greenpeaceusa were particularly active during the first 10 days of the studied period. @Green is notable for its volume of tweets, with 507 tweets during this period, the most produced by this handle in any group. This is not entirely unexpected, as the beginning of Trump’s time in office was heralded as the beginning of a new time in US political life (Garun). This coincided with Women’s’ Marches, a global series of protests aimed at the new president’s various controversial pre-election comments (Reuters). Each of the three users focusses originally on Trump’s inauguration, however @Green presents frames that hugely differ from @RDT and @POTUS in terms of focus and tone. While @RDT and @POTUS both offer many messages of thanks, support and optimism regarding the future to their followers, @Green is in less celebratory mood. This can be seen in the large proportion of ‘Community’ tweets, 36/61, sent by @RDT, and the 17 ‘Plans and Positivity’ tweets sent by @POTUS.

Although @RDT does recognize the right of individuals to march, thus offering the impression that he is open to democratic, peaceful protests: “Peaceful protests are a hallmark of our democracy. Even if I don't always agree, I recognize the rights of people to express their views.” (22/01, 14:23) He does not spend more time framing these marches and instead chooses to focus instead on his plans for his time in office. This focus, however, is a broad one during Group 1. @RDT does not offer specific details of the changes he will make going forward, but instead sticks to general positive messages and re-stating of election promises such as “The Wall”. Later in this Group, @RDT directly addresses the controversial signing of a ‘Travel Ban’, one that @Green chooses to describe as a ‘Muslim Ban’, thus signifying a clear difference in framing methods by the Trump Administration and Greenpeace. This Travel Ban/Muslim Ban rhetorical difference continues throughout the 100-day period.

@RDT’s tweets are of limited value during this discussion period, perhaps because of Trump’s real-life experiences of beginning his new job. This can be seen when we consider that 36/61 of @RDT’s tweets during this period are classed as ‘Community’ tweets, this being the least controversial category assigned to @RDT.

We can however see the much-discussed ‘Trumpian’ Tweeting style in this first group. Towards the end of this period, the ‘Travel/Muslim Ban’ is discussed in more detail by @RDT through a Tweet with external link, in which the President claims the ban to be similar to one undertaken by President Obama in 2011: “Statement Regarding Recent Executive Order Concerning Extreme Vetting: https://t.co/f6JO60I0Ul” (29/01, 23:28). This style of frame, in which the President offers external links to statements justifying legislative change proposals, occurs in each group period, albeit in small

42 quantities. Much more common from @RDT is a tweet without links, hashtags, or direct tagging (through the @ symbol) of other users: “Our country needs strong borders and extreme vetting, NOW. Look what is happening all over Europe and, indeed, the world - a horrible mess!” (29/01, 13:28). @RDT does not offer many media links in his tweets, with only 13% of tweets occurring in Group 1 containing links to outside sources. Therefore, it can be said that often, for @RDT, a 140-character tweet suffices and this user creates frames which do not need extra content to further the president’s aims. This implies that @RDT’s online communications feature both a restriction on language and lack of argumentation depth. Groups 2-10 will see if this implication can solidify as the 100 days progresses.

Both @POTUS and @Green engage in a particular style of frame creation in this group period, with proportionally large amounts of tweets being categorised as ‘Retweets’ by this thesis. These tweets, prefaced by the letters ‘RT’ and consisting of content originally created by other Twitter users, always conformed with the aims and priorities of @POTUS and @Green respectively. @POTUS publishes 33 Retweets during Group 1, while @Green publishes 134. This method of secondary content ‘creation’ was notable because it formed the impression that large amounts of other users agreed with @RDT and @Green, thus furthering their legitimacy in the eyes of those they attempt to influence. This habit of Retweeting the opinions of others was a standard technique used by both @Green and @POTUS throughout the 100 days, thus the inclusion of ‘RT’ categories in our Methodology section after conducting original investigations.

- @POTUS retweet example: “RT @RealDonaldTrump: Today, we remember the crew of the Space Shuttle Challenger, 31 years later. #NeverForget https://t.co/OhshQsFRfl” (28/01, 03:43). - @Green retweet example: “RT @hughmerwin: 'WE OUTNUMBER HIM! RESIST!' plane just flew over the harbor, past the Statue of Liberty https://t.co/R2lTM1DPp7” (20/01, 16:20).

However, although both @Green and @POTUS offer a similar style of ‘RT’ frame, the motivations behind this and the agendas that the frames contribute to are extremely different. @Green, as an NGO who focusses on environmental issues, does not share the optimistic tone that @POTUS uses during Group 1, instead stressing the problems faced by environmentally-concerned American citizens in this new era. This is supplemented by the regular use of #resistoften and similar hashtags, references to the explicit aim of opposing and resisting the new US president. For @Green and its followers, this is the beginning of a troubling period in American political decision-making, and this is reflected by the account’s attempts to organize protestors through large amounts of ‘Community’ and ‘RT’ tweets. @Green also makes 17 calls to Action in this period, including urging others to join

43 marches and #resistoften: “The sign says it all. In resistance at the #WomensMarch in Seattle! #ResistOften #WhyIMarch https://t.co/vzi7GSdMgo.” (21/01, 20:55).

Overall, the tweets studied during Group 1 suggest that this is a period of uncertainty and instability, with less attempts to influence followers on specific issues beyond being ‘Pro’ or ‘Anti’ the new presidency. All three users spend some of the first half of this period discussing marches and inauguration rallies, and so Foreign Policy and Legislative issues are of less priority. However, concrete events such as the ‘Travel/Muslim Ban’ and the approval of controversial pipeline construction begin to be referenced at the end of this period, and are debated intensely throughout the proceeding group periods. The absence of @GuardianUS’s tweets is noticeable here, as the news source would almost certainly have devoted much time to originally framing and reframing the ‘Travel/Muslim Ban’, thus offering counterpoints to @RDT’s claims.

Finally, it is important to note here the relationship between @RDT and @POTUS. As both accounts theoretically represent the views and actions of the same person, interactions between these accounts are important to this discussion. Although Group 1 is only the beginning of this discussion, the relationship between these accounts is originally described as follows: @RDT represents Trump himself, while @POTUS represents the president’s office. Although this may seem apparent considering the specific handle names, it is important to clarify. @POTUS often retweets the opinions of @RDT, and offers little in terms of debatable or controversial content during the first ten days. Instead, @POTUS focusses on retweeting the opinions of others, highlighting upcoming events that the president will attend, and offering congratulations and thanks to members of the Trump Administration. Therefore, although this statement does not apply to every single tweet sent by @POTUS, the account seems useful primarily as an echo-chamber for the views forwarded by @RDT, the GOP, White House staff and the wider Trump administration: “THANK YOU to my amazing family for their support since I announced my candidacy on 6/16/2015. -DJT https://t.co/Db6titMVtq” (24/01, 00:57) This topic will be discussed again as Groups 2-10 proceed.

Group 2 – Jan 30 to Feb 08:

Two events define this period: the proposed appointment of Neil Gorsuch to the US Supreme Court (commonly abbreviated to SCOTUS) and the ‘Travel/Muslim Ban’. Both events are ‘Internal’ events, and so it is no surprise that many @RDT’s tweets are concerned with this category - 24 of 63 to be precise. As is to be expected, @RDT strongly supports the Ban during this period. He offers a variety of opinionated tweets concerning “data” and poll numbers, thus alluding to having support

44 from large areas of the American population: “I call my own shots, largely based on an accumulation of data, and everyone knows it. Some FAKE NEWS media, in order to marginalize, lies!” (06/02, 18:27). However, he does not back these statements up with exterior links or reliable figures, and so we are left with little but his word. Avoiding negative figures, stats or polls is a regular tactic of Trump’s, online and offline, as detailed by many different media outlets during the 2016 election (Politico). Although he sometimes alludes to facts and figures, he rarely mentions them in his tweets, and so @RDT continues to offer frames consisting of 140 characters or less, with no referenced factual content to back up claims. Of the 63 tweets sent by @RDT during Group 2, only 8% contained links, all of which were propagandistic image-on-text that lacked extra information. @RDT often uses opinions and binary declarations instead, using simplistic language such as “FAKE”, “Liars”, “Bad” and “Sick”. Thus, a pattern becomes established, in which @RDT offers personal opinions to justify concrete actions, and labels those who disagree with these beliefs as unreliable, prejudiced, or ignorant.

This can be seen when we consider the @RDT category ‘Media & Opposition’, a category that contains 16 of the 63 Group 2 tweets for @RDT. This category was deemed necessary from the beginning of this study, due to the previously discussed idiosyncrasies of the POTUS’ rise to power, and especially his troubled history with the press during the 2016 election. In Group 2, @RDT takes aim at the “failing NY Times” and other media outlets, claiming that “The failing @nytimes writes total fiction concerning me. They have gotten it wrong for two years, and now are making up stories & sources!” (06/02, 16:32). Such a claim, although problematic from an outsider’s perspective, introduce us to a well-established framing tactic of Trump’s: denial of his critics’ factual accuracy and a shifting of perceived blame onto opposition politicians, the Obama Administration, and supposedly unreliable journalists. This is a tactic that, although present in Group 1, becomes more apparent in Group 2, due to the backlash to his proposed ban, and allegations of his administration’s connections to Russia, which emerge at the beginning of February.

@POTUS continues the trend observed in Group 1, in which it acts as support to @RDT while offering little in terms of original framing attempts. 62 of @POTUS’ 89 tweets during this period fall in the ‘Retweet’ category, 44 of which are retweets of @RDT. This meant that half the frames offered by @POTUS during Group 2 were simply repeated @RDT frames. Although this does not necessarily mean that these tweets were not worthwhile, as they attempt to reinforce the frames of @RDT and thus contribute to wider agenda-setting processes, it does limit the value of @POTUS’ discussion points for this section: “RT @RealDonaldTrump: Where was all the outrage from Democrats and the opposition party (the media) when our jobs were fleeing our country?” (30/01, 14:25). This, coupled with the 21 ‘Plans & Positivity’ tweets during this period, mean that the @POTUS account seems during this period to be little more than a cheerleader, one who chooses not to actively frame topics of discussion,

45 instead echoing the frames established by other accounts. This impression is strengthened by the ‘sugar-coated’ nature of ‘Plans & Positivity’ tweets throughout all ten groups. It can also be seen through the other 18 ‘Retweet’ tweets for this group, which all focus on praising the nomination of Gorsuch through retweeting users such as @VP (Vice President Pence) and @GorsuchFacts. However, although we can see here the limited nature of the @POTUS account, in the sense that it does not take the lead on frame creation, the repetition of other users’ content suggests consistency and unification amongst the Trump Administration.

@Green continues its anti-Trump framing attempts in this group period, focussing regularly on the appointments of Gorsuch, Attorney General Jeff Sessions, and proposed new Environmental Protection Agency head Scott Pruitt. Pruitt is a focus of @Green’s criticism, with #PollutingPruitt occurring 7 times across this period. It is unsurprising that the head of the EPA be closely scrutinized, considering Greenpeace’s stated focus on environmental issues. The negative framing of Pruitt, and the claims that he is wholly unsuited to his new role, are supplemented with links to detailed histories of Pruitt’s involvement with environmentally-harmful fossil fuel groups. Links are also provided to quotes from Pruitt that detail his ambiguous attitude to the verity of Global Warming and Climate Change: “RT @HumanImpacts: #PollutingPruitt took money from the oil and gas industry while suing the @EPA on their behalf? Incredible. https://t.co/jo8r6osI8X” (03/02, 15:46). Thus, @Greenpeace do a thorough job of criticizing Pruitt’s upcoming appointment, using external media links. This is carried out with the intention of influencing the public to oppose the nomination of Pruitt, and so is important framing attempts on behalf of @Green.

@Greenpeace also makes regular attempts to involve other users and build a community on Twitter. This can be seen through the 70/178 ‘Community’ tweets published by @Green during Group 2. These tweets often reference specific users, usually thanking them for their efforts and comments. Although many of these users are ‘unverified’, insofar that they lack a blue tick next to their handles, celebrities and politicians are also mentioned and thanked for their efforts. This is an effective tactic, as it leaves the impression that all individuals are equally deserving of praise and inclusion for enacting their anti-Trump sentiments on or offline. One noticeable tweet from @Green during this Group states “The most important story is you” (07/02, 19:43), therefore fostering a community spirit that is more likely to mobilize others into acting on behalf of Greenpeace’s various causes.

Just under 25% (46/178) of @Green’s tweets during this period fall into the ‘Retweet’ category. Like @POTUS, this involves the repetition of a large volume of other users’ frames. However, a key difference can be seen when further analysis is carried out of these Retweeting methods. Although @POTUS retweets 62 times during Group 2, these retweets come from only four other users

- @RDT, @Whitehouse, @GorsuchFacts, and @VP – with 44 alone originating from user @RDT. In contrast, @Green retweets content from dozens of distinct users, giving the impression of a much larger supporting community. Therefore, it can be said that the wider agendas discussed in Group 2 by @Green are much more of a group effort or community project, involving the input of many more users, as evidenced by the tweeting habits of both accounts during Trump’s first 100 days.

Group 3 – Feb 09 to Feb 18:

Three concrete events stand out during Group 3’s 10 days. On 09/02, Trump’s proposed Travel Ban was defeated in court, while on 14/02 The New York Times published allegations of Russian interference in the 2016 US elections. Then, on 17/02, the Associated Press published a supposed internal White House memo that detailed a plan to enlist 100,000 National guard Troops to round up undocumented migrants in the USA. Such events were potentially damaging to the Trump administration, and so it comes as no surprise that both @RDT and @POTUS directed a large proportion of their tweet content to tackling these issues.

@RDT devoted 22/64 tweets at perceived ‘Media & Opposition’ during this group. One of the President’s most famous tweets – “SEE YOU IN COURT, THE SECURITY OF OUR NATION IS AT STAKE!” – occurred during this period (09/02, 23:35). This tweet, delivered in classic Trump-style, was a direct response to the ban’s defeat, and exhibits characteristics that have by this point become typical of @RDT; sharp and to the point, with no links or media content associated. This tweet was also among the most popular of all from @RDT during the studied period, coming in 9th of 504 tweets in terms of retweet figures. Thus, as well as being an excellent example of @RDT’s rhetorical style on Twitter, it also shows how such a style is accepted and repeated by the president’s followers.

Similarly, @RDT’s response to the Russian Links is characteristic of the president, who counters these allegations with two observed tactics. The first tactic used is to deny everything, again blaming “biased fake news” sources such as The New York Times and CNN, as well as the Obama administration and the Democratic party, who he implies are sore losers: “This Russian connection non-sense is merely an attempt to cover-up the many mistakes made in Hillary Clinton's losing campaign.” (15/02, 12:08) This type of claim is repeated and repackaged many times throughout the 100 days, and thus is a clear tactic on the part of @RDT and the wider Trump Administration. This mirrors similar tactics employed both on and offline during the 2016 election, during which media accountability was regularly called into question by Trump and his supporters (Politico). This can be

47 said to be a key agenda of Trump’s; in his publicized opinion, various sections of the media are biased against him, and so any criticisms of his campaign are by default inauthentic and unfair.

The second tactic used by @RDT is to shift the focus of investigation from the Trump Administration onto other individuals. This can be seen shortly after the Russian Link allegations are made on 14/02; @RDT publishes a number of tweets during the second half of Group 3 suggesting that the public should focus less on “Fake News” and more on the “illegal leaks” from intelligence agencies in the USA: “Leaking, and even illegal classified leaking, has been a big problem in Washington for years. Failing @nytimes (and others) must apologize!” (16/02, 11:58). Such a manoeuvre involves reframing an initial issue so that it better reflects the character of the president, and so is seen to be of huge importance to our research question. This combination of tactics – claim that allegations are lies, then engage with and refocus the issue so that it better reflects your agenda – was used multiple times by @RDT and, to a lesser extent, @POTUS during the remainder of the 100-day period.

This being said, @POTUS is notable here for a lack of engagement with issues surrounding Russia and the National Guard, instead devoting 31 of its 39 tweets during Group 3 to Plans & Positivity, as well as the retweeting of compliments and praise for the incoming Attorney General Jeff Sessions. Having tentatively established during Groups 1 and 2 that @POTUS functioned as an echo- chamber of sorts for @RDT and other members of the GOP and Trump Administration, evidence from this group suggests that it has been reduced even in this role. Having said this, tweets from @POTUS during Group 3 are overwhelmingly positive and offer an entirely different perspective to those offered by the other three users studied here, suggesting the different framing methods utilized by both the president’s accounts, with the aim of establishing and solidifying wider agendas as prioritized by the Administration.

@Green continues the methods and tactics described in Groups 1 and 2, tweeting 182 times between 09/02 – 18/02. Of these 182 tweets, 45 are devoted to thanking other users for their contributions to the #resistoften cause. Similarly, analysis of the ‘Retweet’ category offers some useful discussion points. 38 retweets are published by @Green during this period, many of which are specifically aimed at opposing the POTUS, specifically his plans to deport illegal immigrants and his proposed Ban: “RT @votolatino: ⚡️ “Thousands protest immigration raids across the country” #HereToStay #NoBanNoWallNoRaids https://t.co/sktijFdGH2”. (12/02, 15:05) Here we can see the ‘creative communication’ tactics described on Greenpeace’s ‘About’ site page coming into effect. Through retweeting dozens of other users’ negative opinions on the POTUS, @Green frames the President’s proposals as inhumane, racist, and ignorant in the extreme. This tactic of retweeting individual members of the #resistance allows @Green to more powerfully forward its own agenda,

48 and to simultaneously call into question the legitimacy of the original frames presented by @RDT and, to a lesser extent, @POTUS.

@Guard, for whom data is available from 15/02 onwards, offers content-heavy opposition to President Trump from the beginning of the dataset. 47 of the 179 tweets sent by this user from the period 15/02 – 18/02 are explicitly ‘Anti-Trump’, with a variety of methods used by the news outlet to undermine and criticize the president. These methods include opinion pieces from Guardian writers, interviews with politicians and celebrities, as well as interviews with individuals negatively affected by the new Administration’s policies: “Donald Trump has turned evading responsibility into an art form | Austin Sarat https://t.co/Tj2jnYPqh0” (16/02, 15:57). 98% of @Guard’s tweets across the 100 days contained links to other sources, almost all of which were news articles hosted on The Guardian’s website.

It is clear from the beginning that there are clear contrasts to be drawn between the framing tactics of @RDT and @Guard. As a media organization with a large staff and an established reader- base, @Guard can produce far more content than @RDT during each Group period. This is clear from the larger variety of categories created for @Guard’s tweets, and the relatively large number of tweets devoted by @Guard to each category during each period. This content is presented in the form of external media links, with Twitter’s 140 characters used as a summary section for the larger shared article. Therefore, if the frames that the president shares on Twitter are notable for their limited size, lack of depth and loose grammar style, those shared by @Guard are often the opposite, insofar that they offer more content and are Grammarly more coherent. None of this is surprising considering the roles and characteristics of each account.

What is surprising, however, is the terms used by @Guard to describe the president and his wider administration. Adjectives such as “mad”, “racist”, “arrogant”, “scary”, and the like are often present in @Guard’s tweets, with regular ad hominem attacks featuring both in the 140 character tweets and the articles attached: “Donald Trump isn’t mad – he’s the arrogant boss we’ve all seen before | Phil McDuff https://t.co/2e4nR5CK1Z” (16/02, 09:58). Although the role of a media group such as The Guardian is often to report the opinions of members of the public, the regular and explicit criticism of Trump, his appearance and his intellectual capacities contributes to the creation of an obvious anti-Trump agenda on behalf of @Guard throughout the 100 days. This creates the impression that @Guard is intent on opposing Trump and the GOP no matter the issue, which then leads to the conclusion that the tone of tweeted frames is of huge importance when attempting to focus the public’s attention on wider agendas.

Overall, Group 3 is notable for the introduction of @Guard to this discussion section, as well as the repetition of framing techniques discussed in groups 1 and 2. The emergence of Russia as a topic to be framed and reframed is also notable, with more discussions to come on this matter as the 100 days progresses.

Group 4 – Feb 19 to Feb 28:

Group 4 sees the continued debate around topics that occurred during previous groups. Specifically, the new Administration’s immigration and deportation policies are the centre of attention among media and politicians during the first half of this group period. On 21/02, the Department of Homeland Security issued new directives to increase deportations among the USA’s 11 million undocumented immigrants. Then, between 24/02 and 27/02, President Trump enacted a series of moves against the Associated Press, including banning certain members from attending White House press conferences. On 25/02 the president announced that he would not attend the traditional White House Correspondents’ Dinner at the end of April. On 28/02, Trump addressed Congress for the first time, in a manner that was widely regarded as significantly more “presidential” (Altman & Miller, Time), thus suggesting to some that the 45th POTUS was adapting to his new role.

For @RDT, this is a period of reduced output, with 30 tweets from this account occurring during this 10 days. Of these 30 tweets, only 1 can be categorized as pertaining to Foreign Policy, therefore continuing @RDT’s focus on internal matters during the initial days of his presidency. Although priorities will change later in the studied period, with important Foreign Policy decisions prioritized by both the Trump Administration and the four user-handles studied, for now it seems that events within America take priority. Of the 30 @RDT tweets during this period, 7 are concerned with ‘Media & Opposition’, while 13 focus on ‘Internal Affairs’. @RDT offers little in terms of new framing practices during this period, with claims of “Fake News” and “dishonest press” again presented, theoretically backing up offline attempts to limit interactions with news outlets deemed to be unfair to the president.

Similarly, @POTUS engages with little issues of substance during this period, instead focussing on offering congratulations to some members of the GOP and Trump Administration. This period sees 6 ‘Retweet’ tweets, all of which are concerned with the hosting of diplomats and the signing of minor pieces of legislation. It is concluded that, aside from the repetition of previously mentioned tactics, neither @RDT nor @POTUS offer frames of note during this period.

In contrast to this lull from @RDT and @POTUS, both @Green and @Guard spend Group 4 actively engaging with the decisions and activities of Trump and his administration. @Green explicitly mentions ‘Trump’ 22 times during this 10-day period, choosing to negatively frame a series of legislative changes signed by the president during Groups 2 and 3: “According to a new study, Trump’s EPA policies would put more people at risk for Alzheimer’s. #ResistOften https://t.co/O9MBcwVhR1 https://t.co/cTv5hjzS28” (25/02, 22:01). Pruitt is again a repeated subject of ire, with multiple tweets devoted to his alleged unsuitability to the EPA. Like in previous groups, @Green again spends a lot of time cultivating community spirit, with the final 28 tweets of this period all consisting of ‘thank yous’ to specific users.

The hashtag #standupforscience occurs regularly during this group period, and is indicative of the anti-Trump, environmentally concerned agenda forwarded by @Green since day one. However, it is important to clarify here that @Green rarely offers ad hominem criticisms of the president, instead choosing to criticise his decisions and their consequences. Having said this, because the president is seen as such a danger to the environment, his actions and appointments are continually criticized, with the help of external links to facts, figures, and wider statements from Greenpeace representatives. Specifically, decisions concerning the reopening of the Keystone XL and Dakota Access pipelines are heavily criticized by @Green during this group period: “Trump wants more coal jobs, but the future of the energy sector is in #renewables. https://t.co/7T595kyAq4 #ResistOften https://t.co/7u8Eg3XIoW” (25/02, 14:07)

This is the first Group period for which all of @Guard’s data is available, and so is the first opportunity to engage with their full framing and agenda-setting methods. A large volume of tweets is devoted to criticizing Trump and members of the Trump Administration, and these tweets are created in the same manner as those described in the previous Group period. Features again include wide-ranging criticism of each aspect of the president’s appearance, decisions, and perceived mistakes, with phrases such as “Trump Slump” standing out (28/02, 13:21). Such critical frames continue throughout the 100 days period and so are not prioritized in this part of the discussion.

Some new aspects of @Guard’s agenda-setting tactics become apparent in this group. One such tactic can be seen in the ‘Other’ tweet category, in the form of the “Burst your Bubble” series: “Burst your bubble: five conservative articles examining Milo Yiannopoulos https://t.co/uJ7EvLDCm7” (23/02, 17:11). This is a recurring theme from @Guard throughout the 100 days, which on the surface aims to offer readers a more balanced view of Trump and his administration’s actions through attaching external media links to ‘pro-Trump’ and politically conservative news outlets. However, although framed as a method of balancing the hitherto fully anti-Trump agenda, the articles selected

51 and attached by @Guard are often poorly-written and lack substantial evidence to back up claims. This serves to further @Guard’s politically liberal, anti-Trump wider agendas and so is deemed an effective framing technique. However, it must be clarified that the “Burst your Bubble” series, although featuring across each of the Group periods 3-10, only occurs eight times in total – once per group period. Considering the vast quantity of tweets published by @Guard during the 100-day period, eight tweets of this type are considered a very small amount. This suggests that @Guard is not willing to offer their followers too many Conservatively-minded frames.

@Guard exhibits another new framing and agenda-setting tactic during this group period – the repetition of framed content. This involves the publishing of tweets that are exact copies of previously sent tweets, which results in the same topic being prioritized by @Guard multiple times in the exact same manner. Often, tweets are repeated word for word within days of each other, suggesting that @Guard is emphasizing the importance of specific topics to their audience. Repeated frames in Group 4 include a “case-by-case guide to the Trump distraction technique” (21/02, 08:47 and 12:42), which offers observations similar to the one made during discussion of the previous Group period: President Trump uses Twitter to distract the public and reframe issues according to his own prioritized agendas.

Other @Guard framing and agenda-setting methods seen in this Group period are; the publication of single individuals’ negative experiences due to Trump’s legislation changes; regular references to comedians and satirists such as John Oliver and the cast of Saturday Night Live, specifically their criticisms of Trump; the continuous linking of Trump and Russia. The third of these is explicitly singled out by @Guard as of specific importance during Group 4: “The story of the week is Trump, Russia and the FBI. The rest is a distraction” (25/02, 18:34). This topic will be discussed more fully during later Group periods.

Overall, @Guard dominates the discussion around this period, partly because it is the first 10- day group to fully incorporate all of @Guard’s tweets, but also because @POTUS and @RDT offer little in terms of new framing attempts. At this point, 40 out of 100 days have passed and users have largely established their primary ways of framing events, with each user engaging with concrete events in a manner relevant to their own priorities and agendas.

Group 5 – March 01 to Feb 10:

In terms of concrete events, Group 5 was a busy period. The last day of Group 4 saw the president’s first address to the US Congress, which was portrayed by some media outlets as a potential

52 turning point in his time in office (Altman & Miller). However, this was quickly moved past, both on and offline, when on 02/03 it was revealed that Attorney General Jeff Sessions lied about meeting a Russian ambassador in 2016. Sessions then recused himself from hearings on Russia. On 04/03, a ‘March 4 Trump’ took place in a number of US cities. This period also saw the recreation of the now infamous Travel Ban, and a Wikileaks CIA document leak.

@RDT begins this period with a number of ‘Community’ tweets, thanking in an unspecific manner those who congratulated him on his Congress address. He then directly engages with the debates surrounding Jeff Sessions, claiming that the Attorney General is “honest” and alleging a “Witch Hunt” led by the Democratic party against his administration (03/03, 02:38). This reframing of the debate surrounding Sessions and the Trump administrations’ Russian links are not entirely unexpected, and are similar in style and substance to previous ‘Media & Opposition’ tweets from earlier Group periods.

The most important tweets sent by @RDT during Group 5 are those in which he alleges that his predecessor, Barack Obama, authorized wiretaps on Trump during the 2016 election: “Terrible! Just found out that Obama had my "wires tapped" in Trump Tower just before the victory. Nothing found. This is McCarthyism!” (04/03, 11:35). These claims, which were originally made on Twitter, are of huge importance to this thesis. Although up until this point, the discussion has centred around the framing and reframing of concrete events that occurred originally offline, this is the first time during the time studied that @RDT has established a topic as worthy of debate originally through the Twitter platform. In making unverified claims of such huge magnitude, @RDT actively creates original frames that serve to forward his own agendas both on and offline. The volume of debate generated by these claims, due to the significance of such a claim were it to be later verified, dominated media outlets for days and weeks afterwards. These claims are also another instance of @RDT’s attempting to shift the focus of debates away from his alleged links to Russia, and thus are further examples of tactics previously observed during previous Group periods. This, coupled with outright denial of his administration’s links to Russia – “Fake News” - means that this period is of large importance to discussions surrounding specific attempts by @RDT to frame events on Twitter, with the purpose of forwarding his own agendas during the first 100 days of his presidency.

@POTUS continues in the same vein as described in previous groups. 24 of @POTUS’ 71 tweets during this period are categorized as ‘Plans and Positivity’, while 31 are direct quotations from the president’s Congress Address, prefaced with #JointAddress. This leaves us with 16 tweets, all of which are concerned with White House announcements or retweets of GOP personnel. At this point, @POTUS has offered very little in terms of effective tweet frames. The contrast between @POTUS

53 and @Green’s methods of retweeting are also important to note once again, with the NGO’s methods of inclusion and community-creation through retweeting being seen as far more persuasive and therefore effective.

@Green tweets 241 times during Group 5, 79 of which directly thank specific users, while 63 tweets are devoted to retweeting the frames of others. Again, we can see here attempts to present a united front, to engage with as many users as possible, and to include well-known figures such as actor Patricia Arquette and activist Mike Hudema. @Green directly engages in real-time with the points and claims made by Trump during his joint address, reframing these points so they are salient to the causes and priorities held dear by Greenpeace members “Trump just claimed to value clean water on the same day he signed an EO attacking clean water protections. That's not value. #JointSession” (01/03, 02:51). Such tweets are relevant to our research question because they involve active reframing of offline actions in order to best promote the agendas of Greenpeace and its members.

The size of The Guardian’s content-creating staff is very apparent in Group 5, with 344 tweets created during this period. These tweets engage with all aspects of Trump’s presidency and its complications, as seen by the even spread of tweets across all designated categories. Unsurprisingly, large numbers of tweets are devoted to Trump’s Congress Address, the redefined Travel Ban, links to Russia, and Jeff Sessions. 17 tweets are spent addressing the president’s ‘Obama Wiretap’ claims, with the topic originally framed in unbiased terms: “Trump 'wiretap' tweets: White House wants Congress probe of Obama https://t.co/azn4eHiqfg” (05/03, 15:08). Overall, however, the trend of criticizing the POTUS and his decisions continues unabated, with 73 of 344 tweets classed as ‘Anti-Trump’ during this period.

Group 6 – March 11 to March 20:

During Group 6, the second Travel Ban proposed by the Trump administration was ruled unconstitutional by a Hawaii judge on 15/03. This period also featured ongoing negotiations amongst the GOP as to the upcoming budget and healthcare reform proposals. On 16/03, Trump made his first formal budget proposal to congress, which included proposed cuts to education, environmental protection, health and human services and foreign aid, in favour of increased military expenditure. At the end of this Group period, on 20/03, members of the House Intelligence Committee spoke in front of Congress, stating that, although Trump’s wiretap claims have no basis for investigation, alleged links between the Trump administration and Russia may have some substance. The events of 20/03 were

54 potentially very damaging to the president and his team, with some outlets even comparing such accusations to Nixon and the Watergate scandal (Kendzior).

During the first nine days of Group 6, @RDT offers few new framing methods, and thus few new topics of discussion for this thesis. @RDT engages with concrete events such as his proposed budget in an expected manner, justifying his proposed cuts by framing national security as a natural priority “A budget that puts #AmericaFirst must make safety its no. 1 priority—without safety there can be no prosperity: https://t.co/9lxx1iQo7m” (16/03, 15:52). Similarly, @RDT frames the upcoming healthcare proposals as a huge improvement on Obamacare, which is often labelled as “imploding” or as a “disaster”, however he fails to provide more substantial factual details on the matter. This method of framing events has been discussed previously, and is notable only for its continuation into Group 6.

It is not until the very last day of Group 6, 20/03, that @RDT engages significantly with the actions of others. This is the day of the FBI’s announcement that Trump’s wiretap claims have no factual basis, while further stating that links between the Trump Administration and Russia needed further investigation. These developments were a double blow to the president, as they negated the attempts detailed during Group 5 to refocus attention away from his own team’s actions and onto the actions of others. Therefore, it comes as no surprise that @RDT tweets five times on 20/03, each time to distract attention. In summary, these five tweets claim that the Russian Links are “Fake News” designed by Democrats to slander his name, all because they were still unhappy with their 2016 election defeat. This is not a new framing method, however @RDT’s devotion of five tweets in such a short space of time suggest the president’s determination to reframe this discussion. This culminates in a new suggestion: “Is it true that the DNC would not let the FBI in to look?” (20/03, 13:14) This is again a direct attempt to reframe discussions along lines more suitable to Trump and his team.

@POTUS continues in the manner described during previous Group periods, again focussing its efforts primarily on ‘Plans and Positivity’ and the retweeting of others. However, @POTUS does actively engage with the events of 20/03, in a manner that seems much more productive than previous framing methods discussed in previous groups. While @RDT spends 20/03 tweeting in his established style, which involves active reframing of issues with little to no external media links, @POTUS supplements these arguments with external links to the testimonies of FBI and NSA heads before Congress (20/03, 16:42). These videos are framed under headings such as “The NSA and FBI tell Congress that Russia did not influence electoral process”, however the videos in question do not fully back up this assertion. This was due to the questions posed to both Michael Rogers and James Comey, which asked if they had knowledge of interference in specific states. Their denials, although

55 considered by @POTUS as proof of there being no links between Russia and the 2016 election, come with the impression (from watching the video) that the matter was not fully closed. This impression was later confirmed by the continuation of investigations into the aforementioned Russian Links. Therefore, we are faced with an active reframing attempt by @POTUS, an attempt that is an elaboration on the previously more understated style of tweets offered by the user to date. This style of reframing attempt – statement coupled with video link - is repeated six times by @POTUS on 20/03. Each time, the framing text differs slightly in interpretation from the actual content of the video link. Thus, we can see a coordinated attempt by @RDT and @POTUS to reframe the events of 20/03 so that the priorities and reputation of the Trump administration are not compromised.

The actions of @Green are less important to the discussions around Group 6, mainly due to their continuation of framing methods established in previous group periods. Again, @Green’s priorities are environmental, and so issues such as #PollutingPruitt, Keystone and Dakota Access Pipelines, and the proposed budget take precedence here, as well as: “3 things you should know about Trump's #CleanPowerPlan executive order signed earlier today. https://t.co/a4qjbi6KMJ” (28/03, 21:06). As these group periods are fabricated by this thesis, with the sole intention of placing smaller brackets on series of events for the purpose of structure, it is no surprise that issues repeat across multiple 10 day Groups. Again, we can see here the use of regular hashtags, tagging of individual users, and the retweeting of others, as attempts by @Green to curate their online community.

Like @Green, the framing methods described of @Guard in previous Group periods are repeated during Group 6, and so there are little new techniques worthy of explicit discussion between 11/03 and 19/03. However, like @RDT and @POTUS, the events of 20/03 are deemed of large importance by @Guard, with 17 tweets alone dedicated to the topic on 20/03 alone. Unsurprisingly, @Guard frames the hearings differently, choosing to label the events as “huge”, avoiding the same conclusions made by @RDT and @POTUS, and stating repeatedly that the Russian Links would require further investigations. @Guard also mentions multiple times the Committee’s assertion that no evidence was available to confirm the ‘Obama wiretap’ claims, with various parties’ reactions to this news reported in external links (20/03, 15:10, 21:03, 21:26). Each of these tweets came with external media links attached, with the frames offered by @Guard seemingly correlating more fully with the content of said links. Therefore, if the events of 20/03 were notable for the heightened engagement of @RDT, @POTUS and @Guard, it can be said that @Guard’s framing of the hearing corresponded more obviously with the recorded video evidence of the hearing itself.

Group 7 – March 21 to March 30:

As discussed during Group 6, 20/03 was an important day in American politics, with the House Intelligence Committee speaking before Congress. As this fell on the last day of Group 6, it is no surprise that the debate surrounding this is engaged with during the early days of Group 7. On 21/03, the GOP’s new Healthcare Bill amendments were announced. On 23/03, the Congressional vote on this bill was postponed, then on 24/03 the Bill was pulled from consideration by GOP law makers, meaning that it was not considered capable of gaining majority support in the House of Representatives. On 28/03 Trump signed an Executive Order prioritizing fossil fuel use, while on 30/03 reports The New York Times reported that members of the White House passed information to the House Intelligence Committee without the President’s knowledge.

Considering the concrete events during this period, it is no surprise that @RDT devotes 23/45 tweets to ‘Internal Affairs’ during this period. 14 of these 23 tweets are devoted to the new Healthcare Bill, which @RDT repeatedly frames as a huge improvement on his predecessor’s version: “After seven horrible years of ObamaCare (skyrocketing premiums & deductibles, bad healthcare), this is finally your chance for a great plan!” (24/03, 12:14). @RDT also, unusually, engages with Twitter’s platform affordances, using hashtags such as #repealANDreplace and #Obamacare during this period. Such actions suggest the president is intent on influencing as many Twitter users as possible – through contributing to ordered hashtags, he can speak to both his followers and those who search for #Obamacare and the like within Twitter. This, on top of the fact that 26% of @RDT’s tweets contained external linked media during this period – a large percentage comparatively speaking for this user – suggest that the president is keen to battle the controversies surrounding his administration up to this point using more external media links.

@RDT also devotes 10 tweets to ‘Media and Opposition’ during this group period, using New York Post journalist John Crudele’s criticisms of The New York Times to supplement his ongoing assertions that the Times were and are biased against Trump (28/03, 15:26). As well as making his now oft-repeated “Fake News” claims, @RDT also takes direct aim at the Clintons, suggesting without media links that both Bill and Hilary Clinton were tied in various ways to Russian investors. Again, we see here @RDT’s established reframing tactics, which involve taking allegations made against his interests and shifting them firmly onto the Democrats, Obama, or the media: “If the people of our great country could only see how viciously and inaccurately my administration is covered by certain media!” (29/03, 12:21).

@RDT also spends time framing the Keystone Pipeline Executive Order, signed on 24/03, as a victory for American people: “Today, I was thrilled to announce a commitment of $25 BILLION & 20K

AMERICAN JOBS over the next 4 years. THANK YOU Charter Communications!” (24/03, 17:59). Similarly, @POTUS continues the tweeting habits described during previous Group periods, with 22/38 tweets categorized as ‘Plans and Positivity’. Most notable here is the claim that the KXL signing beckons in “A new era in American Energy”, a claim that is supplemented with #MadeinUSA and a link to a video of Trump signing the Executive Order (28/03, 21:48). Such claims frame the EO in terms of patriotism and employment, and are in direct opposition to those made by @Green during previous group periods, insofar that @Green considers the pipeline to be of huge potential damage to the environment.

Therefore, it is no surprise that @Green spends a large proportion of its 152 tweets during this period debating and reframing the KXL decision. Included here are 46 tweets classed as ‘Information’, which offer facts and previous case studies that suggest such pipelines are environmentally damaging: “The State Department is planning to approve #KXL, but we're ready to RESIST and fight it. #ResistOften https://t.co/0Tcfc6i8ev” (23/03, 22:42). 22 tweets are classed as ‘Retweet’, with 12 of these retweets of other users who are physically present and protesting at the KXL site. Later in the period, @Green publishes a statement, which is linked in a tweet, along with the claim that “Trump's executive order shows that he's just a fossil fuel industry stooge with a presidential pen.” (28/03, 19:14) The link provided offers comments by Greenpeace USA Executive Director Annie Leonard on the president’s prioritization of fossil fuels, comments that are in tone and outlook much different to sentiments expressed by @RDT on the same issues. Although this tonal opposition again shows the different agendas prioritized by @RDT and @Green, it is important to note the different type of media links offered by @Green to frame events for their followers. Although many of @Green’s tweets offer third-party opinions and studies, often laden with facts and figures, in order to contest decisions made by the Trump Administration, other tweets contain links to opinions pieces created by Greenpeace members and hosted on the Greenpeace website: “BREAKING: The State Dept said it will approve #KXL. Our response: https://t.co/Wj1wtl91a8 https://t.co/3kXEhwKSfu” (23/03, 15:56). Thus, @Green offers a variety of external link types, with a mix of objectivity and subjectivity, to frame the actions and decisions of the Trump Administration. These tactics occur regularly during the 100 days, and is notable during this group due to the intensity of opposition expressed to the KXL signing order through @Green’s twitter account.

@Guard devotes 23 tweets to ‘Climate’ and environmental concerns, more than any other period to date. 17 of these 23 are directly concerned with President Trump’s policies to date, with terms such as “assault”, “attack” and “immensely depressing” used to frame these policies. This framing reflects similar opinions held by @Green during this period, with the Keystone Pipeline Executive Order seen as indicative of the dangers represented by Trump to the agendas of @Guard

58 and @Green: “The Keystone pipeline will create just 35 permanent jobs. Don't believe the lies.” (24/03, 16:06). Previously, @Guard’s ‘Climate’ tweets did not occur in large numbers and were mainly concerned with global environmental concerns; however, this period is notable for @Guard engaging with the Keystone signing and its implications, and therefore taking a stronger stance on climate issues on a more regular basis.

Similarly, @Guard heavily criticizes the new healthcare proposals, and does not regret their withdrawal on 24/03: “Trump tried to burn down Obamacare. He set his hair on fire instead” (24/03, 21:17). Again, the tactics and framing methods of @Guard mirror those used in previous Group periods. Although many tweets are sent by @Guard during this period, many of which criticize Trump and his administration’s decisions explicitly, these tweets conform to and feature framing techniques established earlier. This group does not contain any developments on the Russian Links beyond analysis of events already discussed, nor does it feature any ‘Foreign Affairs’ developments of note, and so no extra framing efforts on @Guard’s behalf can be discussed at this point.

Group 8 – March 31 to April 09:

Group 8 is notable for the Trump Administration’s shift in focus from Internal to Foreign Affairs. On 04/04, it was widely reported that chemical weapons had been used in an area south of the Syrian city of Idlib. It was later established that these weapons were authorized by Bashar al-Assad, President of Syria. This was considered as a human rights violation and Assad was widely criticized by Western Media sources. On 06/04, the US Military launched military strikes in Syria, as retaliation for the events of 04/04.

@RDT tweets 41 times during this Group period, devoting more tweets to ‘Media and Opposition’ than to any other category. 10 tweets are spent distancing the president from the continuing conversations surrounding Russian involvement in the 2016 election, a number that suggests @RDT’s determination to reframe these discussions according to his own agenda. The character and composition of these tweets are consistent with that of earlier group periods, with phrases such as “Fake News” regularly occurring, and no external media links of note: “The real story turns out to be SURVEILLANCE and LEAKING! Find the leakers” (02/04, 13:34). This is supplemented with the mentioning of usual targets Hilary Clinton and Barack Obama, including links to articles from Conservative news source The Daily Caller (04/04, 12:39). These articles rely on word of mouth and little factual evidence while making ‘heard on the grapevine’ claims about the Obama Administration

59 and its supposed wiretapping of Trump Tower. Such claims are again seen as efforts to refocus conversations about Russia, and to move attention away from the Trump Administration.

Interestingly, @RDT makes no mention of the authorized military strike in Syria during this Group period. This is surprising considering that; The Trump Administration was seemingly in need of some positive press coverage after a difficult number of weeks; the widespread condemnation of the 04/04 Chemical Attacks, including from the president himself in press conferences that week, and; this was the first military strike authorized by Trump since a much-criticized operation in Yemen in late January. Thus, it may be expected that @RDT might frame this event positively in the days following 06/04. This does not occur.

Instead, @POTUS steps in, tweeting on 06/04 a link to a video statement made by President Trump concerning the strikes, which aims to justify the strikes on the airbase that launched the chemical weapons of 04/04: “Tonight I ordered a targeted military strike...... https://t.co/3nUzrdiGzX” (07/04, 06:18) This framing of the strikes as a natural reaction to “terrorism”, “cruelty” and “barbaric” deeds was accepted and often encouraged by the global media in the days following these events (Palazzo and Foster). @POTUS also twice retweets White House Social Media Advisor Dan Scavino, who provided external links to videos of National Security Advisor H R McMaster discussing and justifying the strikes (07/04, 06:19 06:20). This is the first time during the studied period that @POTUS has referenced and framed an event not engaged with by @RDT. The fact that this event was so ‘newsworthy’ and had much coverage in other areas of the media highlights the unpredictable nature of @RDT’s tweeting patterns. It also suggests that @RDT does not consider Twitter a suitable medium through which to offer details on Military decisions made by Trump and his team, a claim that is backed up by the lack of engagement by @RDT with the aforementioned Yemen mission in early January.

Similarly, @Guard is notable during this period for its prioritization of Foreign Affairs, especially (but not limited to) events in Syria. Of 254 tweets published, @Guard creates 88 that are classified as ‘Foreign Policy’ - just over a third of all tweets for this period. 65 of these tweets occur on or after 06/04. 53 of this 65 are concerned directly with the reporting and framing of the Syrian airstrike. As mentioned, over 98% of all @Guard’s tweets during the 100 days contain links to extra media and articles, this amounts to a huge concentration of coverage on one topic. These tweets offer immediate responses to the airstrikes, with more measured opinion pieces appearing in the days after the strikes. Although initially reported factually with no obvious biases, agendas, or prerogatives beyond the supplying of details, @Guard chooses to frame these strikes negatively over the following days, claiming the strike to be a “senseless” operation that “achieves nothing” on numerous occasions

(07/04, 05:07 06:13). Here we see the previously discussed tactic of frame repetition from @Guard come to the fore again, with numerous exact repetitions of such tweets occurring over this period. On a different note, @Guard’s reduction in ‘Climate’ tweets, of which only 5 occur for this period, suggest that the KXL pipeline was a short-lived topic of interest for @Guard. Here we see the prioritization of political and military decisions by @Guard, thus suggesting the ephemeral nature of certain agendas on behalf of news outlets such as The Guardian.

Although each of the other three users were notable for their engagement with – or lack of on the part of @RDT – US Foreign Policy decisions, it comes as little surprise that events in Syria are not referenced or framed by @Green. Instead, true to its wider environmental priorities, @Green chooses to continue negatively framing issues such as the KXL Pipeline and Trump’s prioritization of fossil fuels: “Rumors say Trump is preparing to issue an executive order to expand offshore drilling https://t.co/Ruenz4qcCT” (07/04, 18:00). Prioritizing these issues is not a new policy of @Green’s, nor are they framed in any new manner from previous groups, and so do not need more discussion.

One aspect of @Green’s agenda that is particularly striking during Group 8 is its prioritization of the needs of minority groups. @Green regularly retweets content from minority groups’ Twitter handles during the 100 days, linking such groups to environmental issues and thus combining aspects of Greenpeace’s explicit and implicit agendas. Examples of such efforts include the regular retweeting of the National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People (@NAACP), retweeting of anti- deportation group @LatinoRebels and the use of #NativeNationsRise to frame pipeline constructions as a threat to Native Americans: “RT @IENearth: T O D A Y we gather and march in D.C. for the #NativeNations march! #IndigenousRising #NativeNationsRise https://t.co/Ve6XQssXIY” (10/03, 14:52). This, although not explicitly stated on the Greenpeace website or on @Green’s Twitter ‘Bio’, corresponds with Greenpeace’s socially progressive agendas. In total, @NAACP is retweeted 5 times during this Group period: “RT @NAACP: 68% of African Americans lived near polluting coal power plants. We NEED the #CleanPowerPlan, @POTUS” (29/03, 22:57). This combination of environmental and racially-progressive agendas diversifies @Green’s tweet set and yet again creates a strong sense of community spirit.

Group 9 – April 10 to April 19:

Group 9 again is notable for the Foreign Policy decisions and debates that occur during this ten day period, with debates from the 06/04 Syrian airstrikes continuing into this period. On 11/04, White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer made comparisons between Al-Assad and Adolf Hitler. On

13/04, the US launched another military offensive, this time in Afghanistan. This was especially notable for the use of the GBU-43, commonly nicknamed as the Mother of All Bombs, or MOAB. Meanwhile, within the US, on 10/03 Neil Gorsuch was confirmed to the SCOTUS. This week also featured several special Congressional elections.

Again, @RDT is notable for what is not said, this time regarding the MOAB deployment on 13/04. @RDT does not mention or allude to this event in any manner during this Group period. Instead, of the ten ‘Foreign Policy’ tweets sent during this period, six discuss relations with China and North Korea, thus suggesting the President’s priorities at this point. North Korea is framed by @RDT as a “menace” who “is looking for trouble”, while relations with China are presented as worthy of cautious optimism: “Why would I call China a currency manipulator when they are working with us on the North Korean problem? We will see what happens!” (16/04, 12:58) This continues @RDT’s positive framings of US-Chinese relations, framings which began during previous group periods, after the visit of Chinese President Xi Jinping to The White House and Mar-a-Lago, the president’s Florida residence. These frames occur in classic @RDT style, with no links to external media, and no quantifiable facts offered beyond the existence of “phone calls”. Notably, @RDT also claims that “Things will work out fine between the U.S.A. and Russia” (13/04, 13:16). Meanwhile, Trump suggested in a press conference during this time that US-Russian relations “may be at an all-time low” (@GuardianUS; 13/04, 07:10), a large claim considering the history between the two countries during the twentieth century. Yet again we see the contrast in @RDT and @Guard’s frames, with @RDT offering calm and hope to followers, and @Guard choosing to quote the president’s more pessimistic press conference remarks.

@POTUS engages once with MOAB during this group period, retweeting US Central Command (@CENTCOM)’s statement confirming the event. This statement is supplemented with an external link to a short memorandum, which briefly frames the bomb choice and the event itself as positive and of high importance (13/04, 20:21). This retweeting of @CENTCOM, a group that is theoretically more knowledgeable on this topic, allows @POTUS to effectively frame this matter as one of national importance, and therefore as a desirable event. Again, we see here the lack of engagement with this matter by @RDT, coupled with a short, positive framing of the event by @POTUS. This suggests a pre- meditated Twitter strategy on behalf of Trump and his team.

As in the discussions enacted around Group 8, @Greenp does not offer any new framing tactics or methods for discussion during Group 9. Again, analysis of the tweets sent by @Green during this period highlight the NGO’s continued prioritizing of environmental issues, with frames created that are very similar in tone and character to those described earlier in this discussion. One feature of

@Green’s tweeting style that has not been discussed in detail so far is the nature of tweets in the ‘Action’ category. ‘Action’ tweets, as described in previous sections, are those that have the explicit intention of gaining offline involvement for a cause or project. Examples of ‘Action’ tweets include requests to attend marches or rallies, to sign petitions, to send letters to Congress members, and to download sign and placard templates for printing. Such ‘Action’ tweets are often framed as natural progressions for any concerned citizen looking to do their part for the #resistance. This understanding of an ‘Action’ tweet is paraphrased from the work of Saxton and Lovejoy. @Green publishes many ‘Action’ tweets over the course of the 100 days, however Group 9 is the first period in which ‘Action’ outnumbers ‘Community’. In total, 22 Action tweets occur during this Group Period, with the majority requesting users to attend the upcoming #MarchforScience on 29/04: “March for climate and communities on April 29 https://t.co/KNT1lEGeE2” (19/04, 18:48). This strategy implies the importance of the upcoming march to @Green, while also suggesting the limitations of constantly framing events’ environmental impact online. In other words, as @Green’s main agenda has always been environmental conservation, the nature of this agenda and the perceived problematics associated with the Trump Administration necessitates many such calls to action. This is reflected by @Green’s regular creation of tweets devoted to this section over the course of the 100 days.

@Guard continues to devote large number of tweets to ‘Foreign Affairs’ issues during Group 9, with 105 of 277 falling into this category. Of these 105, 29 are spent discussing escalating tensions between the US and North Korean governments, with @Guard framing this escalation as of potential huge harm. One such tweet frames Trump’s statements on North Korea to be “buffoonery” (19/04, 20:07), while others are dedicated to discussing the implications of the recent Syrian and Afghan strikes for the US-North Korea situation: “Can Trump defuse North Korea by acting like Ike? | Matthew d’Ancona https://t.co/BFXSncklVG” (17/04, 13:10). Thus, nuclear war is framed as the real threat to US society during this group period, with events in the Middle East seen by @Guard as less immediately threatening to citizens of the USA. This can be seen in the concerns expressed about the “one-man wild-card” (17/04, 13:38) at the head of decision-making in America, as well as the regular updates provided on North Korea’s nuclear test experiments conducted during this period. As expected, @Guard also publishes many ‘Anti-Trump’, ‘Internal Affairs’ and ‘Administration’ tweets, however as these conform to framing techniques described earlier, they will not be discussed in detail here.

Group 10 – April 20 to April 29:

Although the events of Group 10 do include Executive Orders signed by the President, as well as concerns about a potential governmental shutdown, in reality few concrete events grab the attention of the four studied users, and so few new events are significantly framed in this period. However, each user recognizes the significance of the President’s first 100 days, with each making attempts during this period to frame the entire period according to their own wider agendas and priorities. Therefore, this section of the discussion will focus on how each of the four users - @RDT, @POTUS, @Green and @Guard – frames the entire 100-day period for its followers.

@RDT and @POTUS make many attempts to frame President Trump’s first 100 days as a huge success. @RDT begins the period by claiming that “No matter how much I accomplish during the ridiculous standard of the first 100 days, & it has been a lot (including S.C.), media will kill!” (21/04, 10:50). Thus, we return to claims of media inauthenticity, a major theme of @RDT throughout the studied period. However, @RDT also exhibits a flexibility during this period, using polls from media outlets previously said to be “Fake News” providers to advance the perception that he is succeeding in his role: “The two fake news polls released yesterday, ABC & NBC, while containing some very positive info, were totally wrong in General E. Watch!” (24/04, 12:15). Again, we see here @RDT’s predominant framing style – unsubstantiated (on Twitter) references to opinions and a lack of regularly provided external media links. Later in the period, @RDT retweets a video summary of his achievements during the 100 days, a summary that focusses on the achievements of the Trump Administration, but omits details such as the continued problems passing new healthcare legislation (29/04, 17:42). Therefore, although @RDT frames his 100 days, through 140 character tweets and some external media links, in an overwhelmingly positive fashion, these framing methods seem imbalanced to say the least.

Although @POTUS also offers followers multiple tweets detailing the successes of the President’s first 100 days, including linked video content, these tweets are less frequent and more restrained in tone than those of @RDT. In all, @POTUS offers three tweets referencing the 100 days in its entirety. These all claim the period to be a success, and all occur over the last three days of the period. The final tweet from @POTUS during the studied period perhaps summarizes best the role of this user across Group periods, insofar that it consists of a retweet of another Trump-associated user (@WhiteHouse), along with a positive framing of the President and his activities. The video attached to this tweet can only be categorized as one-sided in the extreme, with one soundbite claiming the president’s record as “pretty close to perfect”: “RT @WhiteHouse: .@POTUS has dedicated his first

#100Days to restoring prosperity, safety and security, and accountability:… https://t.co/LH3X3XQSSq” (29/04, 18:05).

@Green takes a different approach to summarizing the 100 days, instead framing the period from the perspective of the organization, its members, and its actions. One tweet suggests that the NGO is prepared for a long commitment to the #resistance, with the claim “Wait until you see the next 100 days” supplemented with a link to details surrounding upcoming pro-Science marches and rallies (29/04, 20:46). 29/04 is also notable for the series of Climate Marches, framed by @Green through the hashtag #Climatemarch, that took place across the USA on that day. As Greenpeace is intensely interested in addressing as many issues as possible during these protests, it comes as no surprise that previously used hashtags such as #PollutingPruitt and #Resistoften regularly feature within the same tweets: “When Trump and #pollutingPruitt threaten our clean air and water by defunding the EPA, what do we do? #RESIST! #climatemarch https://t.co/LYtvhlFgnf” (29/04, 20:13).

In all, @Green tweets 48 times on 29/04, combining the opposition of Trump, and protesting his administration’s decisions, with multiple other inter-related topics. Here we see the differences between the agendas of @RDT and @POTUS on one side, and @Green on the other. While both the president’s accounts focus on summarizing the positive aspects of the previous 100 days, @Green prioritizes the future and promises to continue supporting members of the #resistance.

Like @RDT, @Guard offers tweets across the final ten-day period that directly address the President’s first 100 days in their entirety. However, it comes as no surprise that @Guard’s take on events is often hugely different from that of @RDT and @POTUS. Claiming this to be “100 Days that shook the world” (23/04, 10:03), @Guard does not downplay the importance of the period just passed, choosing to focus on issues such as; the activists who have most opposed the Trump administration; the “cosmetic” nature of the Executive Orders signed during the period; comparisons between President Trump and his predecessors; interviews detailing how individuals are “coping” with developments in America; the “gibberish” and loose claims made by the President; concerns about Trump’s claimed (by @Guard) “forever war” policy, and; asking “will we survive the next 1361 days”. Such examples highlight the attitude applied to Trump’s presidency by @Guard across the entire period, with a key feature being consistent negative framing of the Trump presidency and its actions.

5.3 Summary of Discussion; Connection to Literature

This section will summarize the main discussion points detailed in the previous subsection, with the intention of providing readers with a clear impression of the framing methods of each user studied.

@RDT displays the following framing characteristics:

- @RDT often actively re-frames issues according to its own agendas, insofar that President Trump is determined to ignore any facts or figures that he deems unsatisfactory, claiming them to be fake or biased. - Similarly, when creating his own frames on Twitter, @RDT rarely relies explicitly on facts or statistics to back up his claims. This is shown via the large volume of tweets sent by @RDT without external media links, tweets that often contain claims that are therefore difficult to prove or disprove. - Further, these frames often contrast in tone and focus from the frames applied by @Guard and @Green, thus suggesting that the agendas of these three groups are markedly different. - @RDT rarely; uses hashtags; tags other users; engages with his own mistakes or failures.

@POTUS displays the following framing characteristics:

- @POTUS does not often actively frame new content for its followers, instead retweeting a small group of other users - These retweets are often the most information-heavy frames from @POTUS - @POTUS offers a large proportion of factual event and appointment details. Although this serves a purpose, and can be seen as repeating established frames for the benefit of @POTUS’ large follower base, it is argued that the lack of original tweet content creation from @POTUS leads to this user becoming secondary in our analyses of important framing methods during the first 100 days of the presidency.

@Green displays the following framing characteristics:

- @Green creates frames that are immediately applicable to its own wider agenda, an agenda that is described thoroughly on the group’s website(s).

- Particularly, @Green focusses on the environmental implications of the Trump administration’s decisions, reframing these decisions almost always as dangerous to both America and the wider Anthropocene. - The methods carried out to do this are unique among the four users studied, in that @Green; actively engages with its community of followers; retweets often; thanks many users individually, and; constantly makes efforts to coordinate marches and protests offline. This is unsurprising considering the group’s oft-repeated mission to #resistoften the policies of the new administration. - Although @Green does hold environmental goals that do not immediately concern the Trump administration, the vast majority of issues discussed during the first 100 days by @Green are relevant to the new president and the implications of his actions.

@Guard displays the following framing characteristics:

- @Guard regularly positions itself against the Trump administration, as is to be expected from the self-described “world’s leading liberal voice”. - The organization produces a large volume of tweets each day, with a broader range of topics covered. Although this is unsurprising considering The Guardian’s large staff and commitment to informing the public, the tone and focus of these tweets are often explicitly anti-Trump, with criticisms of the president’s appearance, actions, decisions, and speaking habits regularly appearing. - These criticisms are sometimes framed as the opinions of other public figures, although often they are included in opinion pieces from Guardian writers. - @Guard frames consist of; external links to (mostly) Guardian articles, supplemented with 140 characters or less; a lack of hashtags; sweeping criticisms of the Trump Administration.

A wide variety of recent academic work can be used to justify the importance of this paper’s findings. The arguments of Rogers, Rieder, Borra, Scheufele & Tewksbury, Skogerbø et al, Cacciatore, and more have been offered in the opening sections, with the intention of highlighting the widespread concurrence that the platform is a useful area of research, one that offers many different possibilities to academics. Some of these possibilities have been prioritized by this study, namely; the use of 140 characters to frame topics of interest in the USA; the allowance of external linked content to

67 supplement these frames, and; analysis of hashtags as a specific method of involving users in discussions on the platform. To justify these discussion points, the arguments of Marres are once more prioritized, specifically three key points mentioned earlier in this paper.

Having argued for the importance of Twitter as a platform of study, in line with the arguments of academics mentioned in the previous paragraph and the first sections of this paper, Marres states that “the issue network proposes that participants in such a network are connected to one another by way of the particular issue with which it is concerned.” Again, this could be rephrased as ‘Content is connection’, or ‘issue instigates all’. It becomes very clear from the findings discussed that the issues surrounding Trump’s presidency are of huge importance to all four users studied. As well as this, “formatting issues (is) a crucial dimension of the politics of civil society”, thus suggesting that to organize and talk about topics of contention is an important aspect of being a citizen. Next, Marres draws attention to “Extended configurations of actors and issues that are marked by antagonism”, thus echoing the political differences between the users studied in this paper, and implying that a study of how these differences are framed online is of use. As has been argued, it is the disagreements, both explicit and implicit, that take place between these groups that places them within the same network, and even necessitates investigations into their framing and agenda-setting attempts.

Marres offers one more point of note to this discussion, when she asks, “how do these technologies transform civil society practices of the formatting of issues?” (10) Although this question cannot be answered definitively by this thesis, the findings detailed above suggest that Twitter’s specificities – especially the emphasis on little text combined with media links – have allowed @RDT and others another platform from which to influence voters, citizens, and other concerned parties.

5.5 Thesis Conclusion

The limitations of this paper are multiple and need to be addressed, with the purpose of providing a rounded view of the research discussed above. Although DMI-TCAT offers numerous possible avenues of research, such as analysis of engagement figures (the retweeting and favouriting of tweets), and follower analysis, these areas were not prioritized because they did not offer any obvious information to the research question. Further, although concerned theoretically with both framing and agenda-setting, this paper prioritized conversations around framing techniques. This was carried out to avoid straying into any unnecessary generalizations about the wider agendas of each group, as this is a murky topic that may not have any definitive conclusions. It is argued that, as frames

68 and agendas have been established as directly interconnected - and indeed to be often inseparable concepts - a focus on the more practical framing characteristics of each studied user allows for more substantial findings and discussions.

Further, although this paper used, with justification, the tweets of The Guardian and Greenpeace as counterpoints to those of the Trump Administration, other groups could have been just as useful in this study. For example, a conservative US news source such as Breitbart, or even a news accumulation source such as The Drudge Report, would have offered useful counterpoints to the frames published by The Guardian in particular.

This all being said, the research findings and discussion points detailed in this section often speak for themselves, insofar that any well-founded analysis of President Trump’s tweets in the 2017 political climate offers opportunities for useful discussion points. Therefore, the controversial nature of the 45th American Presidency, coupled with arguments concerning the viability of Twitter as an area of research, means that this topic and others like it are of huge importance. This thesis is a small contribution to such discussions, with many opportunities for further research based on the findings detailed here. Considering recent (as of June 2017) developments in the USA, specifically the ongoing narrative of James Comey, the FBI and the implications that any proven Russian contact may have for President Trump and his team, a study that concerns itself with the framing of such allegations will be of continued importance moving forward.

Section 6: Works Cited

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Section 7: Appendices

7.1 Appendix 1 of 2

Appendix 1 offers a full list of ‘Concrete Events’, references to which occur regularly in the thesis paper.

Group 1: Days 1-10 (20/01/17 – 29/01/17)

- 20/01/17: Trump sworn in. Executive order on Obamacare. - 21/01: Women’s Marches take place in various parts of USA and wider world. - 22/01: Kellyanne Conway speaks about Sean Spicer’s use of ‘alternative facts’. - 23/01: USA withdraws from longstanding US-Pacific Trade deal, pending re-assessment. Hiring freeze imposed on civilian agencies in US. Mexico City policy (one that cuts funding to pro- abortion agencies) is debated. - 24/01: Five executive actions signed by Trump, most significantly to do with Keystone and Dakota XL pipeline restarting. - 25/01: More executive actions assigned; Mexican Wall declaration of intent; Sanctuary Cities. - 26/01: Proposal forwarded by Trump admin to press: 20% tax on Mexican imports. - 27/01: Trump phones Mexican president, then meets British Prime Minister. He also signs an executive action that limits refugee admissions to the United States. This becomes known as ‘Muslim Ban’ or ‘Travel Ban’, and stops entirely entry to US from seven countries. - 28/01: More executive orders are signed. The National Security Council received proposed reforms, the Executive Branch incurs changes in its ethics rules. Commitments are made to fighting ISIS globally and expanding military expenditure. - 29/01: First US soldier dies under Trump Administration, in Yemen. Global Media hotly debate the proposed Refugee limitations.

Group 2: Days 11-20 (30/01/17 – 08/02/17)

- 30/01: Sally Yates is removed from her position as acting Deputy Attorney General. - 31/01: Neil Gorsuch is approved as new member of US Supreme Court (commonly abbreviated to SCOTUS) - 01/02: Two Republicans vote against Betsy De Vos’ nomination as Education secretary.

- 02/02: National Prayer Breakfast held at White House. Trump speaks controversially on a variety of topics. - 03/02: Iranian sanctions announced. Rollback of Obama era’s Wall Street regulations proposed. - 04/02: Trump admin defends proposed immigration ban. - 05/02: Trump admin defends proposed immigration ban. - 06/02: Trump speaks out against ‘dishonest press’ and visits military base in Tampa, Florida. - 07/02: De Vos confirmed as Education secretary. - 08/02: Travel Ban goes to appeals court. Elizabeth Warren silenced in the senate.

Group 3: Days 21-30 (09/02/2017 – 18/02/17)

- 09/02: Travel Ban defeated in court. - 10/02: Japanese Prime Minister visits White House. Immigration debate continues in media. - 11/02: Trump golfs, no major developments. - 12/02: No major developments. - 13/02: Canadian Prime Minister visits White House to discuss North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Michael Flynn resigns as National Security Advisor amid alleged ties to Russia. - 14/02: The New York Times publishes allegations of Russian interference in the 2016 US elections. Henceforth called ‘Russian Links’. - 15/02: Israeli Prime Minister visits White House. Russian links debated in global press. - 16/02: Trump speaks about Flynn and Russia in heated press conference. Obama Administration regularly blamed for current administration’s problems. - 17/02: Trump visits South Carolina. Associated Press publishes supposed internal memo that details a plan to enlist 100,000 National guard Troops to round up undocumented migrants in USA. Trump administration denies document’s legitimacy. - 18/02: Trump attends rally in Florida.

Group 4: Days 31-40 (19/02/2017 – 28/02/17)

- 19/02: Pro-Muslim, anti-ban rally held in New York. - 20/02: ‘Not my President’ protests take place across America. H R McMaster replaces Flynn.

- 21/02: Department of Homeland Security issues new directives to increase deportations among the USA’s 11 million undocumented immigrants. - 22/02: Announcements by Trump admin: Revamps to tax and healthcare under upcoming new budget; recent Transgender student bathroom-sharing directives to be rescinded. - 23/02: Steve Bannon and Reince Priebus speak at Confab Human Trafficking listening session. - 24/02: Trump admin criticizes Associated Press and holds an ‘invitation-only’ press conference. - 25/02: Trump announces he will not attend traditional White House Correspondents’ Dinner. - 26/02: Annual Governors’ Dinner takes place at White House. - 27/02: Budget Outline signed by Trump. Russian links continue to be debated by global media, and Trump Admin. - 28/02: Trump’s first Congress address.

Group 5: Days 41-50 (01/03/17 – 10/03/17)

- 01/03: No major developments. - 02/03: Revealed that Attorney General Jeff Sessions lied about meeting Russian ambassador in 2016. Sessions recuses himself from hearings on Russia. - 03/03: Trump visits schools in Florida. - 04/03: Pro-Trump ‘March 4 Trump’ takes place across America. Trump claims that Obama wiretapped his calls during 2016 elections. - 05/03: Obama Wiretap claims debated in global press. Emerges that FBI Director James Comey requested US Justice Department refute wiretap claims. - 06/03: Travel Ban proposal updated and reissued, this time excluding citizens of Iraq from ban. - 07/03: Trump claims that upcoming healthcare changes will serve as an upgrade on previous administration’s version. - 08/03: Wikileaks releases documents containing figures about CIA surveillance capacities. Republicans formally request wiretap investigations through letter to FBI. - 09/03: Judges issue legal challenges to newly proposed Travel Ban. - 10/03: GOP hold talks on upcoming healthcare bill. It is released that 235,000 jobs were added to the US economy in February 2017.

Group 6: Days 51-60 (11/03/17 – 20/03/17)

- 11/03: An intruder/protestor tries to enter The White House, fails. Plans announced to dismiss 46 Obama Admin attorneys. - 12/03: Internal GOP Healthcare talks continue. - 13/03: Congressional Budget Office says that Healthcare proposals are ultimately harmful to Americans. Executive order for government reorganization announced. - 14/03: Saudi Prince visits White House. Trump’s tax returns debated in media. - 15/03: Second Travel Ban ruled unconstitutional by Hawaiian judge. - 16/03: Senate Intelligence Committee announces that a wiretap would have been ‘unlikely’. In his first formal budget proposal to Congress, Trump seeks to increase defence spending by $54 billion and offsets that with cuts to education, environmental protection, health and human services and foreign aid. - 17/03: German Chancellor visits White House. - 18/03: Another intruder tries to enter White House while Trump is in Florida. - 19/03: No major developments. Wiretap claims debated in press. - 20/03: James Comey and House Intelligence Committee states that wiretap claims have no basis for investigation, but Russian links claims do. Trump visits Kentucky.

Group 7: Days 61-70 (21/03/17 – 30/03/17)

- 21/03: Healthcare bills amendments announced. 19.5 Billion extra funds made available to NASA in budget proposal reforms. - 22/03: Healthcare bill debated in media. Congressional Black Caucus meetings take place. - 23/03: Healthcare Bill vote postponed. Trump meets truckers outside White House. - 24/03: Healthcare Bill pulled from consideration. Widely considered a major blow to Trump admin. Keystone Pipeline Exec Order signed, Trump claims victory for jobs. - 25/03: No major developments, debates continue in media. - 26/03: No major developments, debates continue in media. - 27/03: Some minor rollbacks to Obama legislations announced. Trump meets with American Female Small Business Owners. - 28/03: Energy Executive order signed, prioritizing fossil fuel use. - 29/03: Opioid Abuse listening sessions held at White House.

- 30/03: NY Times reports that Trump Admin helped pass documents to House Intelligence Committee without president’s knowledge. Danish Prime Minister visits White House.

Group 8: Days 71-80 (31/03/17 – 09/04/17)

- 31/04: Two executive orders released that heighten increase import regulations. - 01/04: No major developments. - 02/04: No major developments. - 03/04: Egyptian Leader visits White House. Democrats block nomination of Neil Gorsuch to Supreme Court. Trump donates salary to date to National Parks. - 04/04: Trump speaks on Syrian chemical weapons attacks, blames Obama and Assad for developments. America First policy promoted in press conferences. - 05/04: Steve Bannon removed from National Security Council. - 06/04: Missile strikes launched in Syria. Summit Meetings with Chinese Leader Xi Jinping. Republicans utilize ‘nuclear option’ to confirm Gorsuch nomination. - 07/04: Syrian missile strike debated in global press, Trump defends actions to GOP. - 08/04: Internal White House meetings held, in lieu of Bannon removal and rumours of unrest within administration. - 09/04: H R McMaster told he can pick his own lieutenant.

Group 9: Days 81-90 (10/04/17 – 19/04/17)

- 10/04: Gorsuch is ‘sworn in’ to Supreme Court. - 11/04: Press Sec. Sean Spicer compares Assad to Hitler in controversial conference. Links made between Syrian chemical weapons attack and Russia. - 12/04: Trump states that NATO ‘is no longer obsolete’. Also says that US-Russian relations are ‘at an all-time low’. - 13/04: Trump speaks widely about US foreign policy, including justifying the days’ bombings in Afghanistan and use of MOAB weapon. - 14/04: Foreign policy debates continue in press and media. White House announces that visitor records will no longer be officially kept, breaking from a long-running tradition. - 15/04: Trump Tax returns hotly debated as Tax Day rallies are held across USA. North Korea- US and China-US relationships debated in global media, after N. Korea’s failed nuclear explosion experiment.

- 16/04: North Korea-US and China-US relationships debated in global media. - 17/04: Traditional Easter Egg Roll takes place at White House. - 18/04: ‘Buy/Hire American’ Executive Order signed in Wisconsin. Previously-filed lawsuit against Trump Business Interests expanded. - 19/04: Veterans’ Choice programme extended by White House Admin. Republicans win a special election in Georgia.

Group 10: Days 91-100 (20/04/17 – 29/04/17)

- 20/04: Italian Prime Minister visits White House. Announced that steel import regulations will be reviewed and strengthened, as a move against growing Chinese influence. - 21/04: Executive order signed that continues rollback of Obama financial sector legislation. - 22/04: Trump announces he will attend a rally in Pennsylvania instead of the upcoming traditional White House Correspondents’ Dinner. - 23/03: No major developments. - 24/04: Trump chats to astronauts aboard the International Space Station. Week of Remembrance proclamation made, strongly condemns Holocaust and anti-Semitism. U.N Diplomats told to ‘be stronger’ when dealing with Middle Eastern issues. - 25/04: Mexican wall brought up in Press conference, Trump claims that progress is being made on this front. - 26/04: Trump signs an executive order calling into question the future of more than two dozen national monuments proclaimed by the last three presidents. The administration pitches a tax reform outline calling for big corporate rate cuts, a simpler tax code and big increases in standard deductions. After briefing senators at a White House meeting, members of Trump's national security team said they're trying to coerce North Korea into giving up its nuclear weapons program by cutting off foreign money they need to finance it. - 27/04: Executive order announced that protects Military Veteran Whistle-blowers. Increases in aluminium imports announced. Argentinian Prime Minister visits White House. - 28/04: Stopgap budget offered to Congress and so a government shutdown is avoided. National Rifle Association convention held in Atlanta. Executive order announced that promotes drilling for oil in Arctic waters. - 29/04: Correspondents’ Dinner takes place without Trump, who attends Pennsylvania rally instead.

End of 100 Days

7.2 Appendix 2 of 2

Appendix 2 shows the full data visualized in Figure 14, which occurs in subsection 4.4 and details how often @GuardianUS mentions ‘Trump’ during the 100-day period:

Date Trump' Mentions Date Trump' Mentions 15-Feb 15 24-Mar 16 16-Feb 24 25-Mar 8 17-Feb 38 26-Mar 9 18-Feb 10 27-Mar 10 19-Feb 11 28-Mar 13 20-Feb 20 29-Mar 16 21-Feb 11 30-Mar 21 22-Feb 15 31-Mar 14 23-Feb 16 01-Apr 10 24-Feb 22 02-Apr 6 25-Feb 12 03-Apr 8 26-Feb 14 04-Apr 7 27-Feb 22 05-Apr 18 28-Feb 21 06-Apr 10 01-Mar 32 07-Apr 28 02-Mar 12 08-Apr 10 03-Mar 16 09-Apr 11 04-Mar 16 10-Apr 9 05-Mar 9 11-Apr 8 06-Mar 15 12-Apr 21 07-Mar 10 13-Apr 14 08-Mar 11 14-Apr 15 09-Mar 21 15-Apr 6 10-Mar 18 16-Apr 8 11-Mar 10 17-Apr 14 12-Mar 8 18-Apr 10 13-Mar 12 19-Apr 12 14-Mar 7 20-Apr 10 15-Mar 22 21-Apr 5 16-Mar 36 22-Apr 7 17-Mar 27 23-Apr 10 18-Mar 28 24-Apr 13 19-Mar 8 25-Apr 15 20-Mar 27 26-Apr 16 21-Mar 19 27-Apr 11 22-Mar 12 28-Apr 16 23-Mar 7 29-Apr 16