Quartz: Trump speaks to his supporters in the language they understand best: social media
Quote:
...a media-mediated discourse with one in which they address the electorate directly, often in 140 characters or less. Tyrkkö says researchers have watched the dominant style of public political rhetoric shift from the written word of print to the spoken style and abbreviated language used in social media: “Words and sentences are now shorter, difficult words and complex sentence structures have all but disappeared, and the language used is more simplistic, colloquial, and juvenile,” she says.
Quote:
Trump’s words are powered by emotion, not reason. Trump connected with his mainly white, rural voters by speaking their language, not policy prescriptions. He exhorted his followers to “believe me,” promised “so much winning,” and dismissed the “rigged system” and “dishonest media.” Details were superfluous. One of the election’s most telling tropes came when a mystified journalist asked supporters to explain Trump’s appeal to them. Voters often replied that the candidate just “says what I’m thinking.”
I think this is the brilliance of Trump. He doesn't go into specifics but appeals to his own Brand and it's trustworthiness. Keeping things general allows the supporter to fill in the blanks with whatever they want and go with the emotion of it.
This has the down side of allowing him to commit to nothing. We are left to judge his motives by his actions.
I have to wonder about the future of literacy and communication, though.
14 Nov 2016, 12:57 pm
