The Conceptualization of Explicit and Implicit Populism in Donald Trump's
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CORVINUS UNIVERSITY OF BUDAPEST THE CONCEPTUALIZATION OF EXPLICIT AND IMPLICIT POPULISM IN DONALD TRUMP’S TWITTER COMMUNICATION DOCTORAL DISSERTATION Supervisors: Ágnes Veszelszki, Ph.D. and Márton Demeter, Ph.D. Tamás Tóth Budapest, 2020 THE CONCEPTUALIZATION OF EXPLICIT AND IMPLICIT POPULISM IN DONALD TRUMP’S TWITTER COMMUNICATION Tamás Tóth 1 Corvinus University of Budapest Doctoral School of Sociology and Communication Science Supervisors: Ágnes Veszelszki Ph.D. & Márton Demeter Ph.D. ©Tóth Tamás 2 Corvinus University of Budapest Doctoral School of Sociology and Communication Science The Conceptualization of Explicit and Implicit Populism in Donald Trump’s Twitter Communication Doctoral Dissertation Tamás Tóth Budapest, 2020 3 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS It has been, and continues to be, an honor to work with my supervisors, Ágnes Veszelszki and Márton Demeter. Their guidance consistently helped me to undertake the largest research I ever worked on. I am especially grateful for my classmates, Jácint Farkas, and Balázs Zsolt Major, who challenged me to think about my work from different perspectives. I am deeply indebted to Corvinus University of Budapest, and the professors and lecturers of the institute for their supportive attitude. I would like to thank the programmers and coders, Levente Kóbor, György Pákozdi, Bettina Végh, Aliz Tóth, and Krisztina Kovács for their aid which was a vital element of finishing this dissertation. Finally, I am grateful for Dóra Dercsényi’s support and my friends’ and family’s patience. Without them, I could not have completed this work ever. 4 Table of Contents ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ....................................................................................... 4 1. INTRODUCTION .............................................................................................. 8 2. THEORETICAL BACKGROUND: LITERATURE REVIEW AND THE INTRODUCTION OF EXPLICIT AND IMPLICIT POPULIST POLITICAL COMMUNICATION STYLE ................................................................................. 15 2.1. Mass media and campaign rhetoric in presidential elections in the United States 15 2.2. Twitter and presidential elections: sending messages via the blogosphere 16 2.3. Shifting the focus during and after the campaign via Twitter .................... 18 2.4. The early instances of populism ................................................................. 19 2.5. Populism and its conceptualizations .......................................................... 21 2.6. Populism as a (thin) ideology ..................................................................... 27 2.7. The criticism of Mudde’s ideational approach........................................... 30 2.8. Political communication style and its ties to the thin concept ................... 32 2.9. Blame attributions and negative emotions in populist political communication style .............................................................................................. 37 2.10. The conceptualization of Explicit and Implicit Populist Political Communication Style ............................................................................................. 41 2.11. Measuring populist political communication with text analysis – emerging methods .................................................................................................................. 47 3. METHODOLOGY AND DATA ..................................................................... 52 3.1. Measuring topics in Donald Trump’s tweets ............................................. 52 3.2. Emerging Topics in @realDonaldTrump’s tweets..................................... 56 3.2.1. Economy ................................................................................................ 57 3.2.2. Election .................................................................................................. 59 3.2.3. Enemy .................................................................................................... 62 3.2.3.1. Antipathetic Countries ................................................................... 63 3.2.3.2. Democrats and Other Home Affairs’ Opponents ........................... 64 3.2.3.3. Fake News (Media) ........................................................................ 65 3.2.3.4. Hillary Clinton ............................................................................... 66 3.2.3.5. Moderate Generalization ................................................................ 68 3.2.3.6. Terror Organisations/Attacks ......................................................... 69 3.2.4. Foreign Policy ........................................................................................ 70 3.2.5. Nominations & Policies ......................................................................... 72 3.2.6. Other ....................................................................................................... 74 5 3.3. Measuring explicit and implicit populist political communication style in Donald Trump’s tweets .......................................................................................... 75 3.4. The characteristics of explicit and implicit populist political communication style in Donald Trump’s tweets ................................................... 77 3.5. Measuring explicit and implicit populist political communication style in Hillary Clinton’s tweets ......................................................................................... 80 3.6. The characteristics of explicit and implicit populist political communication style in Hillary Clinton’s tweets ................................................... 82 4. RESULTS AND ADDRESSING RESEARCH QUESTIONS ..................... 87 4.1. Topics in Donald Trump’s tweets .............................................................. 87 4.2. Explicit and implicit populist political communication style in Donald Trump’s tweets ....................................................................................................... 93 4.3. Explicit and implicit populist political communication style in Hillary Clinton’s tweets ...................................................................................................... 97 5. EMERGING TOPICS, EXPLICIT, AND IMPLICIT POPULISM IN DONALD TRUMP’S TWEETS IN PERIOD ONE AND PERIOD TWO ....... 101 5.1. Discussion of the key modifications in Donald Trump’s tweets between Period One and Period Two ................................................................................. 101 5.2. The discussion of PPCS in Period One .................................................... 106 5.2.1. Addressing the relevant people ............................................................ 106 5.2.2. The primary enemy: Hillary Clinton .................................................... 109 5.2.3. The ineffective predecessor.................................................................. 111 5.2.4. A supporter of the main establishment: the media ............................... 112 5.2.5. Other dangerous entities ....................................................................... 114 5.3. Neutral sentences in Period One .............................................................. 114 5.4. The discussion of PPCS in Period Two. A comparative approach .......... 115 5.4.1. Fake news media .................................................................................. 116 5.4.2. Moderate generalization ....................................................................... 118 5.4.3. The Democrats ..................................................................................... 120 5.5. Neutral sentences in Period Two.............................................................. 121 5.6. Limitations ............................................................................................... 122 5.7. Conclusion of Chapter 5 – The art of adjusting to specific situations: blame-shifting, antagonism, and counter-attacks ................................................. 123 6. EXPLICIT AND IMPLICIT POPULISM IN HILLARY CLINTON’S TWEETS IN THE LAST STAGE OF THE 2016 PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN ........................................................................................................... 128 6.1. Discussion of PPCS in Hillary Clinton’s tweets ...................................... 128 6.1.1. Addressing female voters ..................................................................... 129 6.1.2. War veterans and the case of Humayun Khan ..................................... 132 6.1.3. Taking into account the ethnic minorities ............................................ 134 6.1.4. The missing populist communicational tools in Clinton’s tweets ....... 135 6 6.1.5. Suggested exclusionism ....................................................................... 137 6.1.6. The first and foremost task: balancing ................................................. 138 6.1.7. The lack of minimal explanations ........................................................ 140 6.2. Neutral sentences ..................................................................................... 141 6.3. Limitations ............................................................................................... 143 6.4. Conclusion of Chapter 6 – A non-populist female politician’s effort on implementing populist political communication style ......................................... 144 7. THE COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF DONALD TRUMP’S AND HILLARY CLINTON’S EXPLICIT AND IMPLICIT PPCS IN