Commentary
Bing, Bing, Bing: Trump Says Presidency Impossible Without Social Media
- by Erik Sass , Staff Writer @eriksass1, October 25, 2017
Even Donald Trump’s most entrenched critics admit that his use of social media in the 2016 presidential campaign was masterful, as the controversial real-estate developer and reality TV star used Twitter to communicate directly with his followers, circumventing the mainstream media’s ideological filters.
Trump is fully aware of the contributions social media, and especially Twitter, made to the success of his dark-horse presidential bid.
In a Sunday interview on the Fox Business Network, Trump told Maria Bartiromo: “I doubt I would be here if weren’t for social media, to be honest with you. Because there is a fake media out there, I get treated very unfairly by the media.”
By providing a direct channel to his supporters, social media enables Trump to swiftly rebut and reframe attacks.
“So when somebody, says something about me, I am able to go bing, bing, bing, and I take care of it. The other way, I would never get the word out.” He also praised the immediacy of social media and its relationship legacy media, noting: “When I put it out, you put it immediately on your show. I mean the other day, I put something out, two seconds later, I am watching your show, it’s up.”
Trump seemed to admit that the confected online drama, far from being an undesirable side effect of ill-considered social media use, is actually the main purpose of the presidential social-media strategy: “You have to keep people interested also. You know, you have to keep people interested.”
Separately, technology platforms, including Twitter, Facebook and YouTube, have disclosed evidence of attempts by Russian-aligned groups or individuals to influence the 2016 election through social media, including ads and content apparently designed to inflame social tensions around hot-button issues, such as race and immigration.
One recent study found that 19% of all Twitter accounts tweeting election-related content were actually bots of varying partisan orientations, compared to 15% for Twitter overall.
As noted in last week’s post, some foreign-influenced campaigns appear to have targeted U.S. military personnel.
Oxford University researchers identified a number of Web sites associated with the Russian government that used social media last year to disseminate a range of ideologically charged content to service members and veterans. That included “conspiracy theories and other misinformation."
Erik Sass is editor of Publishers Daily. You can reach Erik at eriksass@gmail.com.
One wonders if previous administrations (e.g., Johnson, Nixon) might have responded more effectively to the media narrative (without resistance by gatekeepers choosing which details to omit). Trump cannot precisely control the narrative (nor should he) but he gets unprecedented opportunity to provide an unfiltered defense.
I wouldn't call his use of social media "masterful," but rather "accidental," since social media is automatically top-heavy with ignorant and easily swayed voters. Twitter, especially, is a mirror-image in many ways of the goofy Citizens Band radio from a few decades back.
CB began as a cheap and readily available communications device, and, like Twitter, it very quickly attracted large numbers of dummies. And Twitter is much worse, since it relies on those same dummies to re-tweet the messages, replacing the usual "gatekeepers" in the regular media. The inmates are now in charge of the asylum. Until that is addressed, we may be doomed to getting someone even worse than Trump in office.
trump didn't use social media to communicate directly with his followers, he used it to manipulate media coverage and maintain dominance of headlines and commentary. He noted that, I put it out, you put it on. What he didn't say was, "how dumb can you be?" I think we know (but he won't admit this) that he doesn't give a damn about his followers. But when what he says, which happens to pander, gets coverage, he'll keep on saying it.
He spins it to being treated very unfairly by the media, but he knows that he lives on, and feeds off, that same media. They keep handing him air time, and he keeps taking it.