The article “Trump
Makes Promises He’ll Never Be Able to Keep” was featured on MSNBC’s website.
The article discusses how the author Steve Benen believes that Donald Trump’s
claims regarding health care are impossible because the president has set
unreasonably high benchmarks. The negative context is established right from
the beginning of the article and is further developed during its duration. The
title of the article is even utilized in creating the negative context being
communicated by the article. The author’s choice of the words “Promise” and
“Never” are used to evoke a strong emotional response from the audience. The
word “Never” evokes a strong emotional response because it implies
impossibility. The word “Promise” also induces a strong response because the symbolic
value of a promise is important to people. By using these words together Steve
Benen is making an attempt to persuade the audience that the president has lied
to his constituents. Steve Benen continues to develop this context and creates
the larger symbolic message by utilizing terms like “unrealistic”, “will never”
and “irrational” throughout the article.
The larger symbolic
message I believe that Steve Benen is attempting to communicate is that Donald
Trump and also the Republican Party are incompetent group that lack
trustworthiness. This symbolic messages is communicated through the context and
a variety of other ways. Steve Benen communicates the Republican Party’s incompetence
by stating “There is no scenario in which Republicans can create a system with
universal coverage and lower deductibles”. This statement is then followed by “In
other words, if GOP policymakers wanted to move “Obamacare” to the left, then
maybe it could achieve these goals”. This sequence of statements implies that
the GOP is incompetent enough to believe the impossible is achievable. Another
implication of the statements is that the GOP is also too incompetent to
realize that if they utilized the current democratic healthcare system in place
they could potentially reach their goals. The lack of trustworthiness is symbolically
derived when Steve Benen comments “the (republican) party is led by an incoming
president who’s publicly making promises he’ll never be able to keep.”. This
statement attacks the trustworthiness and credibility of Donald Trump, by
saying he makes promises he can’t keep. This statement implies that Donald
Trump lies publically to his constituents by making promises he can’t keep.
This message would
resonate a lot differently depending on the audience. The audience that this
message would be most effective on is Democrats and other groups that dislike
Donald Trump. This message would be effective to these groups because the
audience is able to identify with the statements made by Steven Benen. On the
other hand those who empathize and support Donald Trump would be unable to
identify with the symbolic message Steve Benen is making an attempt to
communicate. The audience has a direct relationship to the means that were
chosen to communicate the message. The article was posted on MSNBC’s homepage.
MSNBC is a network that is known to cater to liberals. By posting the article on
a liberal news source there’s a greater chance for the message to identify with
the audience. If the same article was posted on a website like Fox News for
example there’d be less of a chance for the message to identify with the
audience.
Article:
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/trump-makes-health-care-promises-hell-never-be-able-keep
Good start here. The very concept of "campaign promises" has become something of a trope. Toward the end of any administration's term, there will generally be articles devoted to listing all the promises made and the promises kept. It seems to be one of the chief ways that supporters of an outgoing politician can establish a legacy for that leader.
ReplyDeleteIn recent years, the political inclinations of different publications (like the NYTimes and WashPost) have come under scrutiny - which has resulted in their respective "fact checkers" to be "fact checked" themselves, and sometimes with surprising results. This president has decided that an active rivalry with some of the main newspapers in the country will serve him politically - his relationship with the professional media will be the subject of a great deal of research and attention in the coming years; obviously depending on the trajectory of his presidency.
You have identified what could be an excellent area for this project - but you are very broad here. Consider how you might focus your attention more specifically on an example or a specific issue (rather than the general idea of "competence").
Good stuff! Let me know how I can help!
I think it’s interesting how campaign promises serve as a tool in developing a legacy for an outgoing politician. The influx of articles specifically devoted to listing all promises made and kept during a politician’s administration shows how important the concept of a promise is in American culture. This phenomenon also illustrates how important delivering on promises is to a leader’s lasting legacy in the eyes of their supporters. The relationship between legacy and campaign promises made me about what if Trump isn’t able to bring his promises into fruition, will non-supporters use articles of the same nature to diminish Trump’s legacy at the end of his administration?
ReplyDeleteI believe this relationship has a direct connection to Trump’s so called war against media opposition. Trump’s attempts to delegitimize the validity of media sources who don’t support him will be interesting to observe over the course of his administration. Trump’s choice to deem news sources that oppose his beliefs and actions as “fake news” will likely cause those who support him to receive their news from sources that favor his administration’s policy and ideology, if they don’t do so already. By delegitimizing the validity of his opposition Trump is able to have more control over what messages are received by his supporters. This control of news could potentially have a disastrous outcome, because news sources that support this administration’s ideological beliefs could eventually become propaganda machines. While legitimate news sources who don’t have political inclinations favorable to the president have their validity publically attacked. Another effect this war against the media could have is that news outlets that at one time didn’t support Trump’s beliefs could change their political inclinations to avoid being publically delegitimized by the president.
The current political inclinations of news outlets only plays into the concept of fake news. Bias news outlets that skew the truth to cater to their target audience fuel the idea of “fake news” and media untrustworthiness. As we observed in class news stories are often times reported on vastly different by the various media outlets that exist. The differences in the way facts and news stories are presented to audiences by different media sources is supplemental to the idea that there is in fact “fake news”. The idea that “fact checkers” now even have to be fact checked too also plays into the idea that “fake news” is being presented to the masses as unbiased facts.
This practice of delegitimizing news sources that oppose the president could work in effectively bringing together Trump supporters and alienating nonsupporters. If Trump’s supporters rely solely on biased new sources for their information they could begin to fall victim to propaganda being presented to them as unbiased facts. While news stations who either oppose the president’s ideology or present unbiased facts may fall victim public delegitimization. The development of political inclinations within mass media outlets may be an insightful topic study for the final paper. I could observe how, when, and why different sources of news developed their specific political inclinations.
You mention Trump's "attempts to delegitimize" his rivals in the professional media. I suspect, as is the case with propaganda generally, that Mr. Trump's "goals" are more about affect than about truth and falsehood. Trump the politician has broken the conventional mold in so many ways - one of the most important being his tendency to rely on social network media to disseminate his message. Interestingly, while most people view with skepticism things they "find on the Internet," most people also tend to perceive communication from the White House as being inherently trustworthy (or, at least, that's the conventional expectation). So, when "communication from the White House" becomes just another thing one can "find on the Internet," it produces a great deal of cognitive dissonance.
ReplyDeleteIt would be interesting to stay focused on the notion of the campaign promise as a way of assessing the relative effectiveness of Trump's administration. As you said, this sort of exercise is usually reserved for the outgoing politician - it is unusual for pundits to review fealty to campaign promises so early into an administration. Of course, when the administration generates such extreme reactions, looking for additional ways to assess or critique it seems routine. When I designed this assignment, I envisioned that students might apply one of these critical methods to a piece of propaganda which they might actually be supportive about. Consider how the quality of the criticism of this president - the hyperbolic vitriol and viciousness - might actually result in a source's "objectivity" to be questioned. When the NYTimes explicitly confirms that they stand opposed to the current president, why would anyone believe that their criticism of the president is objective or honest?
Thoughtful writing here. Don't get sidetracked with the task of how agendas have developed or how certain news outlets have turned increasingly partisan. Instead, find a good example of the sort of extreme bias or exaggeration as your artifact. Good stuff here! Let me know how I can help!