Wednesday, February 1, 2017

Donald Trump: Use and Manipulation of Language and why he uses twitter

Donald Trump, whether you're a fan or a not (proud to say I fall into the latter of this group) has to be one of the craziest things that has happened to Washington D.C. since it burned down back on August 24th, 1814 when it literally burned down (and hopefully doesn't repeat itself because of this stunning upset in the elections.) And let's admit it, I love the memes that have been constantly circulating around the internet of Trump, and while they're all fine and dandy, I'm not talking about these,


The memes I'm referring to are the ones that ridicule his form of speech. Now I'm no Comm. Major (yet!) but In my honest opinion I think sometimes the way he goes about expressing his ideas and giving speeches, whether it was a press conference or one of his memorable debates. (Who can forget his epic snapback "That makes me smart!" when Hillary accused him of not paying taxes? As someone who does not support Trump, even that left me at a loss for words and praising him for making such a gutsy statement.) But since his election into the office, Trump hasn't really been that active in the public. A lot less speeches and a lot less of him talking to any sort of public. Except for on a social media app that Trump was vocal on throughout his campaign and still is to this day: Twitter. As Nerdwriter1 explains,

Video Link---> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=geEVwslL-YY

Ever since he won his presidency, Trump has sent out about 153 tweets from his personal phone. As he points out Trump is very good at emotionally framing his tweets, which means that when it comes to tweets Trump doesn't frame his tweets with any inflated language, he types them with intention of being straight to the point. And while he may get criticized for ending his tweets with one or two word exclamations (example: "So Sad!"or "To Bad!") but in reality it are these exclamations that really drive home the emotional appeal he wants his audience (twitter followers) to feel.

 And while all this is good, what does twitter have to do with Trump being a good Rhetor? You might be asking "Well maybe this gives him some merit of being a better writer sure, but this has nothing to do with speech." Well my fellow classmates and rhetor's in the making, if you thought the aforementioned thought... YOU'RE WRONG, and should probably take a look at your notes real quick.

 As we talked about in class before, computer mediated communication more resembles speech rather than writing. Nerdwriter1 claims that the exclamation's that Trump uses at the end of his tweets closely represent speech, and Trump uses this emotional appeal extremely well. And he goes as to claim that while other traditional politicians write through Twitter, Trump speaks through it and to the people. "Instead of asking us to read, he forces us to hear." (Nerdwriter1) And what makes Trump and his style of speech so much different from other politicians is that he doesn't resemble a politician, he resembles everyday people like you and I. He'll continue to speak freely as he wishes because he doesn't go into a tweet having us the people in mind and how he'll react, he posts just like any regular person would, about their opinions on what they find relevant. Which, if reading Trump's tweets as you would any one of you're annoying Facebook friends, this makes a lot of sense. Nerdwriter1 explains this could be why in a majority of his positive, congratulatory Tweet's are to himself, and why in his negative tweets he more times than not personal attacks towards his opponents.

While we may find it inappropriate for someone of Trump's power to be constantly tweeting, however how can we blame him? He is only participating in the same digital world everyone of us also partakes in. While the idea of tweeting becoming a regular thing from POTUS might seem odd, with time we will become accustomed to it, and it can be scary when thinking that Trump's tweets now hold more political meaning and can result in serious consequences if not careful. So we'll see ultimately how it plays out, but I think it's safe to say that this Presidency is going to be something like we've never seen, and we should be attentive to how big of a role social media plays in the grand scheme of things. 

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