Public Sphere and Misinformation in the U.S. Election: Trump’s Audience and Populism Indicators in the COVID-19 Context
Abstract
:1. Introduction
- O1.
- To find out the causes of the fall in the electorate’s confidence in Donald Trump after the U.S. elections.
- O2.
- To find out, from the opinion polls, the electorate’s opinion on Donald Trump’s populist discourse based on the delegitimization of the electoral results.
- O3.
- To understand the change of attitude of the Republican electorate following the events related to the attack on the Capitol.
2. Background
2.1. Leadership and Cyber Populism’s Influence at Election Time
2.2. Audience Activism against Trump’s Infodemic in Times of Crisis
3. Materials and Methods
3.1. Research Questions and Hypotheses
- Q1.
- What have been the causes of the loss of confidence in Trump manifested by a part of the American electorate after the U.S. elections?
- Q2.
- What is the electorate’s opinion of Trump’s populist strategy in the post-election phase?
- Q3.
- How have Trump’s fraud speech and the incidents of the Capitol attack influenced the change of attitudes of the U.S. electorate?
- MH.
- Populism emerges as a communicative and discursive strategy in the context of management systems based on capitalism and globalization.
- SH1.
- Political populism, when perceived as such, generates rejection and distrust in the electorate.
- SH2.
- The attack on the Capitol and Donald Trump’s reaction after learning the polling data generated a change in the attitude of the Republican electorate.
3.2. Methodology
- -
- Wave 78 of the American Trends Panel (Pew Research’s American Trend Panel 2020): Developed by Pew Research Center, it is an online survey panel that, through a national and random sampling, seeks to understand the attitudes of the American electorate after the 2020 presidential election. The survey was conducted on 12–17 November 2020, among 11,818 U.S. adults, including 10,399 U.S. citizens who reported voting in that election. The survey, which had a margin of sampling error of ±1.6 percentage points, was weighted to be representative of the U.S. adult population by gender, race, ethnicity, political affiliation, education and other categories
- -
- Wave 80 of the American Trends Panel (Pew Research’s American Trend Panel 2021): The Pew Research Center conducted this new survey to examine the public’s reactions to the aftermath of the 2020 presidential election, including Americans’ views of Biden as president-elect, also for ratings on the Capitol Hill assault. The survey, conducted 8–12 January 2021, consults 5360 U.S. adults recruited through random sampling with weighting, as above, to ensure representativeness of the U.S. adult population based on the variables: gender, race, ethnicity, political affiliation, education and other categories. The margin of error for this survey is ±1.9 percentage points.
4. Results
5. Discussion and Conclusions
Author Contributions
Funding
Institutional Review Board Statement
Informed Consent Statement
Data Availability Statement
Conflicts of Interest
References
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Research Questions | American Trend Panel 2020 | American Trend Panel 2021 | |
---|---|---|---|
RQ1 | What have been the causes of the loss of confidence in Trump manifested by a segment of the American electorate after the US election? | Figure 3. Trump and Biden’s post-election conduct evaluation Figure 7. Trust in the candidates’ ability to manage the COVID-19 health crisis. | Figure 9. Evolution of the evaluation of Trump’s and Biden’s behavior after the presidential election |
RQ2 | How do voters view Trump’s populist strategy in the post-election phase? | Figure 4. Percentage of voters who believe that the U.S. elections have been well managed Figure 5. Percentage of voters who are convinced that their vote has been counted correctly | Figure 10. Percentage of Americans who incorrectly think Trump won the election |
RQ3 | How have Trump’s fraud speech and the incidents of the Capitol attack influenced the changing attitudes of the American electorate? | Figure 6. Evolution of trust in the correct recounting of the vote | Figure 8. Citizens who consider that Trump bears at least part of the responsibility for the Capitol disturbances |
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Pérez-Curiel, C.; Domínguez-García, R.; Jiménez-Marín, G. Public Sphere and Misinformation in the U.S. Election: Trump’s Audience and Populism Indicators in the COVID-19 Context. Journal. Media 2021, 2, 335-350. https://doi.org/10.3390/journalmedia2030020
Pérez-Curiel C, Domínguez-García R, Jiménez-Marín G. Public Sphere and Misinformation in the U.S. Election: Trump’s Audience and Populism Indicators in the COVID-19 Context. Journalism and Media. 2021; 2(3):335-350. https://doi.org/10.3390/journalmedia2030020
Chicago/Turabian StylePérez-Curiel, Concha, Ricardo Domínguez-García, and Gloria Jiménez-Marín. 2021. "Public Sphere and Misinformation in the U.S. Election: Trump’s Audience and Populism Indicators in the COVID-19 Context" Journalism and Media 2, no. 3: 335-350. https://doi.org/10.3390/journalmedia2030020
APA StylePérez-Curiel, C., Domínguez-García, R., & Jiménez-Marín, G. (2021). Public Sphere and Misinformation in the U.S. Election: Trump’s Audience and Populism Indicators in the COVID-19 Context. Journalism and Media, 2(3), 335-350. https://doi.org/10.3390/journalmedia2030020