Murphy, Eloise, The Heady Mix of the 2016 Presidential Election: Twitter, Power, Politics, Gender, and Journalism, Doctor of Philosophy (Media and Communication), May 2020, Temple University, Philadelphia, PA The 2016 US presidential general election was unusual for a variety of reasons. Politically, the candidates were new and different in that Clinton was the first woman to be elected Presidential nominee by a major political party, and Trump was brash and the Republican Party’s dark horse who had never held a political office. Also, Trump used Twitter to amplify political speech that was abnormal for a presidential candidate. Journalistically, the coverage of the candidates was strange because, in general, non-alt-right media organizations amplified Trump’s atypical rhetoric by providing Trump with an unprecedented amount of free media coverage. Also, in general, media organizations did not acknowledge or tiptoed around the bizarre nature of Trump’s rhetoric. This extraordinary display of political and journalistic abnormalities revealed an angry electorate divided into political, economic, and sociocultural factions. The confluence of abnormal political speech, by Trump on Twitter, as well as the media’s obsessive unfiltered coverage of Trump, led to the question this dissertation asks: How did candidate representation and media coverage of candidate representation comport with and push against political and journalistic norms in the 2016 presidential election? This dissertation employs qualitative methodology and performs a critical discourse analysis through a feminist lens to examine how each candidate communicated their identity, performed power, and expressed gender on Twitter. Also, the dissertation analyzed how national newspapers and Sunday morning political talk shows recontextualized the candidates’ tweets, and whether journalistic norms of like objectivity, were demonstrated. The goals of this dissertation are to explain how Trump and Clinton represented themselves as candidates and how Trump used Twitter as his foot soldier to violate political norms. Also, this research demonstrates that the media enabled, normalized, and legitimized Trump’s rhetoric by engaging in tacit co-conspiratorial agenda-setting with Trump, by binding and blinding themselves to Trump’s rhetoric, revealing that the press relinquished their role as a watchdog of government corruption and overreach. KEYWORDS: Political communication, Journalistic norms, Twitter, 2016 Presidential election, Gender / Media & Communication

Diploma thesis The Rate of Negativity in Miloš Zeman's and Karel Schwarzenberg' Reflection in Media during Presidential Election in 2013 analyses the rate of negativity in the news production of three national newspapers - Mladá fronta Dnes, Lidové noviny and Právo - about these presidential candidates. Time range setting is one month before first round of presidential election and one month after first round of presidential election. The presidential election in January of 2013 was completely different from previous presidential elections. People voted in a direct presidential election. It was very important event, in which the media were very interested. Press, television and radio broadcasting were filled with presidential election, candidates, debates and many reflections. Media have taken it a bit contradictory. Apart from the ordinary information that were important for the public knowledge, the media resorted to the kind of media storm. There were a hight rate of negativity in the news against Miloš Zeman. On the contrary, Karel Schwarzenberg was reflected as an ideal president. The public was separated into two groups by media. First group was supporters of Miloš Zeman and the second one was supporters of Karel Schwarzenberg. The aim of this diploma thesis was to find out, how much...

My thesis named "Attitude of Czech dailies Lidové noviny, Mladá fronta Dnes and Právo to the first direct Czech presidential election" should confirm or disprove the bias of the three Czech newspapers in the period between the first and the second round of the direct presidential election. The first part of thesis focuses on selected chapters of media, linguistic and semiotic theories regarding bias. It also discusses the process of direct elections and CVs of Karel Schwarzenberg and Miloš Zeman. At first, I used quantitative analysis to determine if the newspapers were balanced and provide comparable space to the both candidates. Then I applied the qualitative analysis to find out what language and semiotic components used the authors from newspapers to inform the public about the candidates of the second round of direct elections. Depending on the findings, I divide the articles into positive, neutral, negative categories for Karel Schwarzenberg and positive, neutral, negative for Miloš Zeman. After the victory of Miloš Zeman the bias was discussed. This thesis should answer the question of whether the three Czech newspapers were biased in favour of Karel Schwarzenberg or Miloš Zeman between the first and the second round of the first direct Czech presidential election.

The aim of this thesis is to analyze the process of changing the Czech Constitution from indirect presidential election to direct popular election. This happened in 2012 and it is the most significant change of the Czech Constitution since its adoption. The first chapter of this thesis focuses on characteristics of a president in the Czech Republic and his specific role in the constitutional political system, which is crucial for understanding the topic. The second chapter deals with the process of constitutional change from the indirect to popular presidential election. It describes the history of legislative bills from 1989 to 2012, when the last bill was passed by the Parliament. Also, this chapter introduces an expert discussion about this fundamental constitutional change, as well as its pros and cons. The arguments for a direct election are rare in expert discussion compare to the arguments which are against. The argumentation of the political representation is generally in favor of direct presidential elections. This is in a strong contrast with political scientists and constitutional lawyer's opinion. The strongest argument for a direct election was public demand. The fact that a direct election has no place in the parliamentary political system and has potential to deform the parliamentary...

本文主要探討選舉新聞報導中，記者語言策略如何再現記者和候選人之間的人際關係，個案選定第九屆總統與副總統直選期間，中國時報、聯合報、以及自由時報三大報的選舉用語。研究目的有三個；一為希望剖析出一套選舉新聞中記者的語言策略，並透過這些語言策略，進一步釐清記者和候選人的人際關係模式；二為期望作為對這方面有興趣者後續參考；三為提供閱聽人一判讀新聞語言背後人際關係的管道。 本文共分成五章。第一章導論，首先介紹本文的研究動機、研究問題、與研究目的。第二章文獻探討，分兩大部分加以述說，一就語言的認知與人際關係功能加以陳述，二就語言的三大策略 -- 引述言語、前景與背景、與觀點，一一進行探討。第三章分析方法，說明本文所蒐集的語料，以及分析本文的方法。第四章文本分析，除了針對蒐集的語料，引用記者語言的三大策略 -- 引述言語、前景與背景、與觀點，一一進行分析之外，並透過記者語言策略的分析，歸納出記者和候選人的人際關係模式。第五章結論，分成研究發現、研究貢獻、研究限制以及發展，對本文作一結尾與展望。 / In this thesis, the representation of interpersonal relationship in the media is investigated in terms of linguistic devices. The media discourses of election in China Times, The United Daily, and The Liberty Times are chosen here as a data which will be used to examine the interpersonal relationship between the journalists and the candidates of Kuomintang, Democratic Progressive Party, and New Party. This thesis is divided into five parts. In the beginning part, the motivation, problem, and purpose of the thesis will be introduced. In the second part, previous literature on functions of language and linguistic devices will be reviewed. Those linguistic devices include reported speech, foreground and background, and perspectivasion. In the third part, the research method of the thesis will be employed. In the fourth part, the main section of this thesis, will focus on an empirical analysis of the interpersonal relationships between the journalists and the candidates in terms of language devices, which as we argue, find their expression in the media coverage. In the last part, the interpersonal relationship patterns between the journalists and the candidates are found out.

<p>The aim of this bachelor thesis is to examine the current situation as regarding the political equality in Iran. The method of this reaserch is based on a single-case studie wich grounds in secondary sources. The analysis of this paper is based on fields that concern political equality which in this study will focus on the right to vote, candidacies in the parliament election 2004 and the presidential election 2005. A democracy theory by Jack Lively is used to analyze the political equality in Iran´s political system.</p><p>The Iranian regim is strongly criticized by the goverments in the Western world and NGO´s for the situation of the democracy and the human rights in the country. Despite the criticism, Iran still continues in the same political direction, although the democracy has gained a stronger role in the political sphere. Therefore in this paper I have examined if Iran´s political system is based on political equality. As the evidences show, the conclusion in this bachelor thesis is that the Iranian political system cannot meet all the criterions that are stated by Lively in the theory used and therefore political equality cannot exist in Iran´s political system.</p>

This dissertation consists of three essays that apply both economic theory and econometric methods to understand design and dynamics of institutions. In particular, it studies how institutions aggregate information and deal with uncertainty and attempts to derive implications for optimal institution design. Here is a brief summary of the essays. In many economic, political and social situations where the environment changes in a random fashion necessitating costly action we face a choice of both the timing of the action as well as choosing the optimal action. In particular, if the stochastic environment possesses the property that the next environmental change becomes either more or less likely as more time passes since the last change (in other words the hazard rate of environmental change is not constant over time), then the timing of the action takes on special importance. In the first essay, joint with Maxwell B Stinchcombe, we model and solve a dynamic decision problem in a semi-Markov environment. We find that if the arrival times for state changes do not follow a memoryless process, time since the last observed change of state, in addition to the current state, becomes a crucial variable in the decision. We characterize the optimal policy and the optimal timing of executing that policy in the differentiable case by a set of first order conditions of a relatively simple form. They show that both in the case of increasing and decreasing hazard rates, the optimal response may be to wait before executing a policy change. The intuitive explanation of the result has to do with the fact that waiting reveals information about the likelihood of the next change occurring, hence waiting is valuable when actions are costly. This result helps shed new light on the structure of optimal decisions in many interesting problems of institution design, including the fact that constitutions often have built-in delay mechanisms to slow the pace of legislative change. Our model results could be used to characterize optimal timing rules for constitutional amendments. The paper also contributes to generalize the methodology of semi-Markov decision theory by formulating a dynamic programming set-up that looks to solve the timing-of-action problem whereas the existing literature looks to optimize over a much more limited set of policies where the action can only be taken at the instant when the state changes. In the second essay, we extend our research to situations, where the current choice of action influences the future path of the stochastic process, and apply it to the legal framework surrounding environmental issues, particularly to the ‘Precautionary Principle' as applied to climate change legislation. We represent scientific uncertainty about environmental degradation using the concept of 'ambiguity' and show that ambiguity aversion generates a 'precautionary effect'. As a result, justification is provided for the Precautionary Principle that is different from the ones provided by expected utility theory. This essay serves both as an application of the general theoretical results derived in the first essay and also stands alone as an analysis of a substantive question about environmental law. Prediction markets have attracted public attention in recent years for making accurate predictions about election outcomes, product sales, film box office and myriad other variables of interest and many believe that they will soon become a very important decision support system in a wide variety of areas including governance, law and industry. For successful design of these markets, a thorough understanding of the theoretical and empirical foundations of such markets is necessary. But the information aggregation process in these markets is not fully understood yet. There remains a number of open questions. The third essay, joint with Robert Lieli, attempts to analyze the direction and timing of information flow between prices, polls, and media coverage of events traded on prediction markets. Specifically, we examine the race between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton in the 2008 Democratic primaries for presidential nomination. Substantively, we ask the following question: (i) Do prediction market prices have information that is not reflected in viii contemporaneous polls and media stories? (ii) Conversely, do prices react to information that appears to be news for pollsters or is prominently featured by the media? Quantitatively, we construct time series variables that reflect the "pollster's surprise" in each primary election, measured as the difference between actual vote share and vote share predicted by the latest poll before the primary, as well as indices that describe the extent of media coverage received by the candidates. We carry out Granger Causality tests between the day-to-day percentage change in the price of the "Obama wins nomination" security and these information variables. Some key results from our exercise can be summarized as follows. There seems to be mutual (two-way) Granger causality between prediction market prices and the surprise element in the primaries. There is also evidence of one-way Granger causality in the short run from price changes towards media news indices. These results suggest that prediction market prices anticipate at least some of the discrepancy between the actual outcome and the latest round of polls before the election. Nevertheless, prices also seem to be driven partly by election results, suggesting that there is an element of the pollster’s surprise that is genuine news for the market as well. / text

本研究針對1996年至2008年台灣總統大選的造勢活動，挑選各次大選中特定的大型造勢活動做為個案研究分析，分別在文宣策略、活動幅員、媒體效果及民意支持度等影響層面做為分析指標，輔以當年曾參與選舉的競選工作人員及記者的深度訪談，找出四次總統選舉各類造勢活動的類型及表現方式，並分析各項類型活動在每次大選運用的變化。 研究個案的選擇指標是以影響性及大型活動(Mega-events)規模的條件來篩選，依序探討1996年陳履安「行腳祈福」、2000年陳水扁「百萬人民站出來」、2004年陳水扁「牽手護台灣」及2008年「Long Stay下鄉長住」四個案例。以四次不同年代的總統副總統選舉中特定單一的造勢活動，依據「事件行銷」及「選舉造勢活動」對大型活動(Mega-events)的分類，以及SWOT優劣勢分析模式進行個案研究。 本研究深入訪問四個案的競選總部高階負責人，以及當時擔任該造勢活動的媒體採訪記者，以「半結構性訪談」方式，了解四個案造勢活動的規劃及執行細節，以及受訪者認為該造勢活動個案對選戰的影響效果。 研究發現大型競選造勢活動能夠型塑及強化選戰主軸、且達成多項競選功能成效，並加深勝選的助力。最後綜合比較四大個案，分析在各自年代的歷史意義、選情熱度以及投入資源程度的不同，對當年以及往後選舉的影響層面也有不同的意義。 / This study investigates the impacts of campaign events (rallies) on the result of Taiwan’s presidential elections from 1996 to2008. The analysis focuses on the campaign strategies, the scale of the activities, media effects as well as the strength of public support at each campaign event. Combining with in-depth interviews with campaign office staff and journalists, the study aims at detecting the patterns of the campaign rallies, and their impacts on the particular presidential election. Four significant campaign events (also known as Mega Events) are selected for this study and they are: Chen Li-an’s " Blessing March" in 1996, Chen Shui-bian’s "Million People to Stand Up" in 2000, Chen Shui-bian’s "Hand in hand to cherish Taiwan " in 2004, and Ma Ying-jeou’s " Long Stay" in 2008. The cases are chosen based on the scale and size of the activities and their potential impacts on election outcomes. In addition to event analysis, semi-structured interviews were conducted with the high-level executives from the campaign headquarters of the chosen cases and journalists who were following these events at that time, to provide an in-depth analysis on planning and execution details, and to gauge the impacts of each rally from the interviewees’ perspectives. The findings suggest that large-scale campaign rallies are indeed capable of strengthening campaign fever, consolidating supports, and thus, enhance the chance of winning. Last but not the least, a comprehensive comparison of the four mega-events (including the analysis of the historical meaning of the event at that time period, citizen enthusiasm to the particular election, and resources allocation for each event) is included in the discussion. The findings suggest that each event does have a different historical meaning at its own time and has impacted on subsequent elections.

À l'instar de la psychotechnique des industries culturelles, savoir manier l’émotion pour toujours mieux capter l’attention d’un électeur dans la sphère de l'infotainment reste l’un des premiers objectifs d'une stratégie de campagne. Cependant, le Web politique a fait émerger de nouvelles formes de communication dans les méthodes de persuasion électorale : l’impact du capital médiatique d’un candidat se joue en ligne prolongeant celui du terrain. Sur Internet, les politiques, efficacement secondés par des experts de l’image chargés de façonner leur identité, leur réputation et leur influence, ont découvert de nouveaux territoires pour amplifier leur message, se promotionner 24 heures sur 24 ou mobiliser en temps réel des militants et récolter des fonds. Contournant les médias traditionnels pour ne pas être déstabilisé par les éditorialistes, un responsable politique s’exposera plus généreusement sur les réseaux sociaux pour devenir « rédacteur en chef » de sa propre campagne. En immersion de 2011 à 2017 sur le site de microblogging Twitter qui n’utilise que 140 caractères par message, j'essaie au travers de ma thèse de déterminer la place et la fonction de ce « média social », ainsi que son poids dans la construction de l’espace médiatique des prétendants à l’Élysée, notamment lors de la présidentielle française de 2012. Quels sont les enjeux des candidats sur le Web et que nous révèlent-ils sur les mises en scène du pouvoir ? Comment les professionnels des cellules de communication politique ont-ils pris possession de ces nouveaux outils qui accélèrent la temporalité des logiques institutionnelles et qui offrent aux militants un espace de réactivité aussi performant que celui d’un journaliste pour corriger les imprécisions des promesses de campagne ? Quelques éléments de réponses se trouvent dans les mots-clés : défiance, fact-checking, storytelling, Big Data, modélisations prédictives, irrévérence, infotainment, riposte-party et social-TV et dans les chiffres qui leur sont associés. / According to the psycho-technological model of the cultural industries, the ability to manage emotion to get voters’ constant attention in the infotainment sphere, remains one of the first objective in an electoral campaign strategy. However, the political Web contributes to the emergence of new forms of communication in electoral persuasion methods. The impact of a candidate’s media capital plays an important part online and as an extension offline. On the internet, the political class, effectively assisted by technical design experts whose job is specifically to deal with the profile of their identity, their reputation and their influence, have discovered new territories to amplify their message and to promote 24 hours a day, or to mobilize supporters in real time to raise funds. Circumventing traditional media rather than taking the risk of being destabilized by an editorialist, a political manager will choose to be more present on social media to become editor-in-chief of his or her own campaign. Totally immersed from 2011 to 2017 in website Twitter, to practice microblogging (140 characters), I try in my thesis to identify the position and the function of this « social media » as well as its value in the construction of presidential candidates, including during the French 2012 presidential election.What are the issues of the candidates who are present on the web sites and what do they reveal to us about the representation of power? How do the professionals of communication cells (the « cellcoms ») manage to take possession of these new communications tools that accelerate the temporality of institutional logics and offer to supporters an equivalent space to correct the imprecisions of campaign pledges?I suggest some answers to these questions that can be found in these keywords: suspicion, fact-checking, storytelling, Big Data, predictive modeling, irreverence, infotainment, riposte-party and social-TV as well as the associated figures presented in this thesis.

This study aims to shed light on the relationship between the commercial advertising model AIDA (Awareness/Attention, Interest, Desire, Action) and political television advertising, with a historical perspective being of extra interest. In order to do so, the study made use of theories concerning the AIDA-model, representation, rhetoric (with focus on ethos, pathos, and logos), and the professionalisation of political communication. The methodology involved qualitative analyses of 18 official political campaign advertisements from nine United States presidential elections between the years 1952-2016. One issue-ad from each candidate (Republicans and Democrats only) from every other election was strategically chosen for examination. Each advertisement was then analysed both as it relates to its rhetorical content as well as its structure with the defined four stages of the AIDA-model in mind, with any potential patterns between the rhetoric and the structure being taken into account. The results of the study suggest that while the AIDA-model can be recognised in political television advertisements in the United States since the inception in the 1950s, the advertisements from the post-modern phase of the professionalisation of political communication (1985-) seem to place more emphasis, compared to the modern phase (1950s-1985), on the desire stage of the AIDA-model. Furthermore, no distinct differences could be found between the parties from a pure rhetorical and structural standpoint, and both appear to be on practically identical evolutionary paths. An explanation to this could be the escalating reliance on hiring independent experts and specialist to manage the various areas involved with running a political campaign, which is a characteristic of the ever-increasingly professional environment of political communication.