Understanding the Unprecedented 2016 Campaign 9 In light of the criticisms about the media’s coverage of the 2016 presidential campaign, Daniela V. Dimitrova and Kimberly Nelson investigate “Fact-­Checking and the 2016 Presidential Election: News Media’s Attempts to Correct Mis- leading Information from the Debates” in Chapter 7. Through a content analy­sis of articles from three national newspapers, they examined 231 fact-­ checking statements to determine how the news media performed their watch- dog role according to established criteria ­ after each of the three presidential debates. In addition to reporting the results of their study, the authors make suggestions on how journalists can improve their fact-­checking function espe- cially in ­ today’s polarized po­liti­cal environment. Part One concludes with an analy­sis of the rhetorical functions of comedic po­liti­cal impersonation in Chapter 8, ‘I’m About to Be President ­ We’re All ­ Going to Die’: Baldwin, Trump, and the Rhetorical Power of Comedic Presi- dential Impersonation.” Authors ­Will Howell and Trevor Parry-­Giles trace the developments in comedic presidential impersonation from 1928 to 2017—​ ­ including the 2016 presidential campaign, election, and new administration, during which actor Alec Baldwin portrayed Trump in a rec­ord 15 of the 18 episodes of Saturday Night Live that ran in the final four weeks of the campaign through his first 100 days as president. Their analy­sis suggests a new func- tion for comedic presidential impersonations. Part Two—Campaign ­ Communication—­features eight studies that examine not only the communication strategies of Clinton and Trump but also Michelle Obama and female and male candidates ­ running for the U.S. House of Representatives in 2016. Five of ­these chapters examine presidential can- didate communication during the primary and presidential debates as well as in their campaign speeches, interviews, and tweets. One chapter analyzes former First Lady Obama’s speeches at three Demo­cratic National Conven- tions. Two chapters examine po­liti­cal tele­ vi ­ sion ads: one looking at their effects during late-­night comedy tele­ vi ­ sion shows and the other focusing on their con- tent in mixed-­gender U.S. House races. In Chapter 9, “Pro­cessing the Po­liti­cal: Presidential Primary Debate ‘Live-­ Tweeting’ as Information Pro­cessing,” Josh C. Bramlett, Mitchell S. McKinney, and Benjamin R. Warner explore presidential primary debate social watching be­hav­iors through a content analy­sis of college students’ tweets and their responses to pre-­ and post-­debate surveys. Their goal was to explore how view- ers acquire issue knowledge from debates, as well as the relationship between po­liti­cal attitudes and social watching be­hav­iors in a real-­time setting. Their study provides an in-­depth examination of tweet content to more fully explore message pro­cessing, including issue/image focus, positive/negative assessment, and agreement/disagreement with candidate issue positions. In Chapter 10, “Donald Trump and the Rejection of the Norms of Ameri- can Politics and Rhe­toric,” Robert C. Rowland argues that Trump’s campaign is best understood within the rhetorical frameworks of “nationalistic pop­ u ­ lism”
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