Below you can find my understanding and conclusion from the mandatory reading for week four of Global Media Systems, Chapter 5: The Trumpification of Election News in the book Reporting Elections: Rethinking the Logic of Campaign Coverage-Contemporary Political Communication, by Stephen Cushion.

The author remarks on the integration of the term ‘post-truth’ in the Oxford dictionary in 2016 to highlight the transcendency of election reporting in the voting deciding of people, the uncritical consumption of news, the partisanship of news outlets and the prioritisation of opinion and personal belief above facts. Opposite to this view, I think the term ‘post-truth’ should also describe the lack of trust in the mainstream media and the change in the way people consume news.

Social media captures new ways of consuming and understanding information. The information is accessible on people’s mobile devices anytime during the day. The flexibility of social media to shape information in a format that is understandable and attractive to the audiences is infinite. People can consume information at their own pace, in their own time, and from their trusted sources (relatives and friends). There are no barriers, memberships or groups… There are no requirements or prerequisites for people to fulfil; everyone can access information and interpret it on their own terms without one person or institution telling them how to understand it. People are free to comment on any information, reinterpret it and share it with their social network. A specific level of education is not needed, and everyone can access information from their the comfort and privacy of their personal devices.

The former president, Donald Trump, took advantage of the benefits of social media platforms and developed a direct conversation with people. Trump’s tweets, Facebooks and Instagram posts connected with the way individuals on the web consume and understand information. The mainstream media offers the opposite experience to social media platforms; the author says, ‘There are clearly deep ideological and party-political divisions in the US, and, over many decades, the news media environment has become part of (rather than independent from) this partisanship.’ I understand partisanship as the support from the mainstream media to the status quo. I would say that the 2016 election was an ‘eye-opener’ experience for the traditional media to understand that the ‘he said, she said’ way of reporting is not connecting with how people want to consume the news.

Who are the beneficiaries of a bipartisan way of reporting the news? We should think deeply about these questions. The answer might be connected to a specific social class or elite group. Who is interested in the perpetuation of the status quo? We all might be interested in it to a certain point because it delivers a sense of stability. I think that the popularity and acceptance as facts of Donald Trump’s tweets tell us something more profound about the status quo. Individuals want something different, and the answer is in the dynamics of social media platforms.

The author says that Donald Trump attracted 400 minutes of airtime from various network television news channels, a massive difference from the other contestants, who received half or far less of the time. I think the traditional media reacted to and mimicked the social media phenomenon because it was financially profitable. The author cites the words of Leslie Moonves, the CBS chief executive, at the Morgan Stanley Technology, Media & Telecom Conference in San Francisco in February 2016 ‘It may not be good for America, but it’s damn good for CBS.’ This comment reflects the editorial attitude of various media platforms in the USA. Is it the same in other countries? How different are other media systems? The author answers this question analysing the coverage of the UK referendum in the UK in 2016 and the Leave campaign’s misuse of statistics.

The trumpification of the news values is a rapid response from the mainstream media to adapt their news coverage to how people consume news on social media platforms. The author cites Michael Gove, who says, ‘people in this country have had enough of experts.’ Why did the media not realise these new patterns before? Were their distracted by supporting the status quo and the partisan way of reporting? Traditional media needed to catch up quickly with cybernauts’ habits and attract them to their news outlets. Based on the author’s analysis, they did not attract cybernauts to the traditional media but ended up promulging intolerance among most individuals who did not use social media. The author says, ‘For all the hype and hyperbole surrounding the role played by online and social media platforms during the campaign, studies before and after it actually found that television news was by far the main source of information about the 2016 US presidential election, particularly for older people the most likely age group to vote.’

I would dare to say that the dynamics of the forerunners’ social media platforms and Trump’s use of it let us see the aspirations of new generations. They are individuals willing to engage in a debate and get involved in the making of their country. Still, they are tired of receiving the news from media outlets supporting the status quo. Thus, social media platforms are a tool to strengthen democracy because they allow individuals to interpret the world without the ‘he said, she said’ way of reporting.

My critical view on social media platforms is that they were, in their early days, a tool to enhance democracy. Still, their potential has diminished over time due to the control governments exert over them (The government taking down the Internet in the Arab Spring), the unethical use of personal data to condition people’s behaviours (the Cambridge Analytical scandal is a good example), and the nature of social media platforms to isolate and confine a set of generations based on their technical skills – the digital divide – and preferences.

Concluding my understanding of the mandatory reading, I agree with the author explaining the intolerance of American voters in the 2016 elections due to the partisanship approach of traditional media platforms. This means that people listen only to ideas similar to their thinking. The partisanship reflects the media’s role in supporting the status quo rather than challenging points of view, offering a new perspective and straightening democracy. Therefore, people have relied on social media platforms to connect with the source of information directly and consume information on their own terms and from who they consider trustworthy their friends, relatives and influencers. Traditional media should adopt new ways of consuming information, part away from the bipartisan approach to reporting news, create digital spaces to promote debate and exploit the benefits of social media to hear the voice of the members of the public regardless of their background.