Twitter Versus the Traditional Media

Abstract

In the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign, both the traditional media and social media platforms, like Twitter, were critical in attempts to influence voters. Prior to the 2016 presidential election, the assumption was that campaign messages sent through the traditional media are perceived as more effectual by the public than those sent via Twitter. But after the election of Donald Trump, there is now a sense that things may have changed. In this new era of American politics and campaign discourse, do campaign messages sent via Twitter resonate equally with messages sent through the traditional media? This study attempts to address this question by utilizing a survey experiment to test whether campaign messages sent using USA Today headlines were perceived as more believable and persuasive by potential voters than messages sent via Twitter. The results suggest that campaign messages about candidates sent via Twitter-regardless of the candidate of focus-resonate just as strongly with potential voters as those sent via the traditional media. This provides a potential partial explanation for the shocking rise of Donald Trump's political fortunes.

Trump 2016, ¿presidente gracias a las redes sociales?

“…Para algunos, esta campaña ha sido la primera que puede recibir la denominación de "Twitter election" (Heller, 2016). Pero, además de esta dimensión cuantitativa, algunas investigaciones han subrayado también que durante estos comicios los mensajes de los candidatos en Twitter pudieron ser más influyentes ante los votantes que las noticias difundidas por los medios tradicionales, lo cual refuerza el papel de esta red social (Morris, 2017).…”

An Analysis of the Media Messages during the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election: A Thematic Comparison between CNN News and Donald Trump’s Tweets

“…The fact that his victory was a surprise for the United States is not something that can be ignored (Tracey , 2017, 526). Many scholars suggest that Trump's Twitter was one of the most important factors that led him to the office (Morris, 2017;Conway-Silva, Filer, Kensk, & Tsetsi, 2017). It is noteworthy that there are many researches in the realm of social media and how it is changing the platform of the political communication.…”

Inferring the votes in a new political landscape: the case of the 2019 Spanish Presidential elections

“…In a seminal work, Tumasjan et al [49] looked for the margins of error between online and research institutes (traditional channels) taking as example the latest general elections in Germany. More recently, Morris [41] analyses the 2016 U.S. Presidential campaign and compares the results. His conclusions are that the analysis of tweets mentioning a political party could be considered as a plausible reflection of the vote share.…”

“…But, the 2016 race for the White House shows that traditional media and Twitter platforms are critical mechanisms that influence voters [41]. Twitter by conveying candidates' messages about their ideas, policies, and future actions establishes fundamentals that resonate for the public as much as those sent by the traditional media.…”