Make Twitter Great Again.
Donald Trump tweeted less than his rivals in the Presidential election last year, an NUI Galway study has found.
The former ‘Apprentice’ host tweeted just 1,904 times, compared to Hilary Clinton’s 2,906 and Dr Stein’s 2,604 tweets.
However, while both other candidates may have been more active on Twitter, the divisive and unfiltered nature of Donald Trump’s tweets were more successful in attracting media news coverage, the study found.
The research has been published by the International Conference on Information Systems(2017) in Seoul, South Korea.
It is one of the first studies to use a magical realism perspective to examine how election candidates used Twitter as a tool for creating specific narratives for their electorate.
Trump’s magic
The results show that Twitter served as an effective power knowledge transfer medium for the presidential nominees by enabling them to create political narratives which were underpinned by specific magical realism techniques.
Just heard Foreign Minister of North Korea speak at U.N. If he echoes thoughts of Little Rocket Man, they won’t be around much longer!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) 24 September 2017
Dr Trevor Clohessy, lead author of the study, said: “Political actors are now eager to catch Twitter users’ attention, because they not only produce word-of-mouth effects but influence other online users’ informational choices.”
“Existing research suggests that users’ experiences of the credibility of a social medial platform affect their perceptions pertaining to the quality of the message being conveyed.”
Donald Trump has been criticised recently for his tweets about Kim Jung Un and for other warmongering tweets about Iran.
The former businessman and reality TV star has also been slated for his handling of the humanitarian crisis affecting Puerto Rico following Hurricane Maria devastated the island.
