We outline four connections between xenophobia and punitiveness toward criminals in a national sample of Americans. First, among self-identified whites xenophobia is more predictive of punitiveness than specific forms of racial animus. Second, xenophobia and punitiveness are strongly connected among whites, but are only moderately and weakly related among black and Hispanic Americans, respectively. Third, among whites substantial proportions of the variance between sociodemographic, political, and religious predictors of punitiveness are mediated by levels of xenophobia. Finally, xenophobia is the strongest overall predictor of punitiveness among whites. Overall, xenophobia is an essential aspect of understanding public punitiveness, particularly among whites.

Donald Trump’s tweets have become prevalent in today’s society. Because college students use social media so often, it would be incumbent for the researcher to examine the impact Donald Trump’s tweets might have on these young adults’, civic engagement and how the tweets may be affecting his perceived credibility and expertise. The researcher administered a questionnaire to 350 college students from a private medium sized west coast university using various modified scales examining credibility, expertise and civic engagement. Civic engagement was measured using an adapted version of several civic engagement instruments. The researcher used a correlation analysis to offer answers for the proposed research questions. It was found that Donald Trump’s tweets have a significant positive impact on the way college students perceive him to be credible while also effecting their perception of his level of expertise. The tweets did not indicate a correlation to civic engagement, but further research concluded that specific tweets have the ability to have a significant negative correlation on civic attitudes and behaviors. The correlation analysis also found that there was a significant negative correlation between which form of media students use the most and their civic engagement. A regression analysis was performed to see if the tweets had predicting power on college student perception of his credibility and expertise. The tweets demonstrated predicting power. A regression analysis was done to see if the tweets had predicting power on college student civic engagement; the regression results showed no significant predicting power between the two. These results suggest that tweets from a United States President have a significant influence on how he is perceived to be credible, the perception of his level of expertise and how his tweets may be affecting civic engagement on college campuses.

Thesis advisor: Rosen Valchev / This thesis explores the impact of Donald Trump’s tweets related to China on the financial markets in the United States and China, particularly during the U.S.-China trade war period. The study collects financial variables of interest, including the USC-CNY exchange rate and several stock indices from both countries, at hourly intervals from January 2018 to December 2020, and uses OLS regression models to examine the immediate impact of Trump’s tweets on these variables. The study finds that Trump’s tweets related to China had an immediate impact on several financial variables, including a slight negative impact on the USD-CNY exchange rate, the U.S. stock market (S&P 500), the Chinese A-share stock market (CSI 300), and the U.S. industrials sector (MSCI USA Industrials index). Multiple regression analyses show that the number of tweets has a significant impact on the U.S. stock market and the U.S. industrials sector, while the number of retweets appears to be more market-moving than the number of favorites. The study concludes that Trump’s tweets during the trade war period were perceived by the market as a signal of a potential shift in U.S. trade policy towards China, leading to uncertainty and volatility in the financial markets. / Thesis (BA) — Boston College, 2023. / Submitted to: Boston College. College of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Departmental Honors. / Discipline: Economics.

Thesis advisor: Julia Chuang / In trying to explain the outcome of the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election, many post-election analyses focused on President Trumps’ perceived white working-class base. The idea that President Trump is an advocate for the working-class, though, is up for debate: many scholars have highlighted the ways in which President Trump is more of an advocate for the elite than for the working-class. Given President Trump’s appeal to individuals outside of the working-class, I decided to interview Trump supporters at Boston College—a campus with one of the wealthier student bodies in the nation. In my interviews, I looked for different narrative frames and discourses that my interviewees used in their articulation of their support for President Trump. I found that interviewees drew on parental influences, emphasized the value of hard work, shared narratives of victimization, and more. In addition, I learned about the large network of conservatives at Boston College. Given white working-class tropes surrounding the 2016 Election and stereotypes of college campuses as liberal echo chambers, this paper highlights the presence of conservatism on Boston College’s campus and calls for more research on the topic. / Thesis (BA) — Boston College, 2019. / Submitted to: Boston College. College of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Departmental Honors. / Discipline: Sociology.

The purpose of this thesis is to examine Donald Trump’s Immigration speech that was held September 1, 2016, in Phoenix, Arizona. The speech was a part of his campaign before he was elected president of America. The focus will be on how Donald Trump represents immigrants and talks about immigration. The research questions are how Donald Trump portrays immigrants and immigration and in what terms immigrants and immigration are argued to be a security risk for the country. The representation of the “Other” and Securitization are the theories that will be applied in the study of the speech. Discourse analysis will be used to find out what his messages are and what his perception of immigration is. The messages are based on the discourses that his language may produce through rhetoric which is the second method. The result of the analysis shows that he takes support from the discourses of “us” and “them”, security and nationalism that is a part of a larger political discourse. Immigrants are rhetorically framed as a security threat by describing them as criminals. He paints the picture of America having an immigration crisis. He mainly uses pathos, as a means of persuasion, to appeal to the audience’s emotions of anger, fear and frustration.

During the last decade the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement has brought increased attention to the issues pertaining to police brutality and the systemic discrimination of black Americans. At the same time as the movement has experienced growing support, its opposers have also consolidated. Among them president Donald Trump has proved to be one of the staunchest critics of Black Lives Matter. This has further strengthened the movement's oppositional role in relation to the US government. Therefore this bachelor's thesis examines what role the Trump-administration plays in the portrayal of Black Lives Matter. Using the Essex School of discourse analysis the statements of Trump and his administration towards the movement are examined, and through them discourses opposed to BLM are identified. Through the theoretical lenses of postcolonialism and post-marxism the Trump-administration’s statements can be shown to portray BLM as a violent and extremist socialist movement. The statements have the effect of rendering BLM as distinct from regular americans and as opposed to american values in various ways. This has the additional effect of creating division among the supporters of BLM themselves as they are torn between allegiance to the movement and the nation. The Trump-administration’s statements towards BLM are concluded to stem from the discourses of “American Exceptionalism”, “Neoliberalism” and “Law and Order”. This indicates that previously mentioned discourses are in opposition to BLM.

New media technologies, especially social media, continue to challenge previous notions regarding agenda melding activities. Recent observations have been made during chaotic and turbulent conditions, where participants behave contradictory to what is expected by previous agenda setting and melding theories. This study attempts to examine the content shared amongst ordinary users on Twitter directly following a sudden crisis event, specifically the US Capitol riot from January 6th, 2021. This was done through a quantitative content analysis, where the agenda melding activities as well as rhetorical purpose were examined in order to observe ordinary users’ behaviours during the crisis event. Along with an open discussion regarding what this might entail for US democratic functions or relations, and a general invitation for future research regarding similar issues.    The results of this study showed further support for contradictory agenda melding activities in relation to a crisis event. Where instead of seeking out safety and agreement in the majority, users engaged in arguments, discussions and challenged each other’s views and opinions publicly online.   In examining the content following the Capitol riot, this study hopes to shed light on a subject of study that needs further exploring, as well as arguments for future development of previous theories.

The aim of the study was to examine the ways in which the presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump were portrayed in articles regarding the first presidential debate of 2016. We also wanted to examine the differences and similarities between the framing of the two candidates as well as which frames varied between the newspapers from Sweden and the USA and which they had in common. We made a qualitative framing analysis of 14 articles from 14 different newspapers half of which were from Sweden and half from the USA. The result shows that Hillary Clinton is most often portrayed as an experienced and professional politician whereas Donald Trump is portrayed as her opposite in both regards. The framing of Trump shows him as an outsider from the business world, who has a history of controversial behavior in which he is accused of both racism and sexism. Both candidates are portrayed as highly disliked by the American people. They are also portrayed as dishonest as a consequence of their respective scandals where they are being accused of having hidden something from the public – Clinton in her use of a private e-mail server during her time as secretary of state – Trump due to his unreleased tax returns. The American and the Swedish articles frame the candidates similarly, although the American newspapers are more prone to the usage of harsh language in describing the candidates and their actions in the debate. The Swedish newspapers tend to use less emotive words in re-telling the debate.

Denna uppsats undersöker vilket innehåll USA:s president Donald Trump fyllde begreppen ”vi” och ”dom” med via sitt Twitterkonto under de sista tre veckorna av presidentvalrörelsen 2016. Analysen motiveras av att den kan ge en fingervisning om vilken politik Trump kommer att verka för som president. Forskningsfrågan för studien är: Med vilket innehåll fyller Donald Trump, genom sitt Twitterkonto, signifikanterna ”vi” och ”dom”? Uppsatsen ingår i forskningsfältet politisk kommunikation och utgår från ett teoretiskt ramverk som lägger stor vikt vid språkets funktion i konstruktionen av verkligheten. Som metod används diskursanalys, där betydelserna för ”vi” och ”dom” tolkas utifrån hur begreppen sammankopplas med andra betydelsebärande begrepp och den kontext som tweetarna är skrivna i. I uppsatsens analys framkommer det att Trump konstruerar en motsättning mellan ”vi” och ”dom” som baseras på religiös tillhörighet och ursprung, och där ”dom” som är muslimer eller har invandrat från Latinamerika utgör problemet. Utifrån den konstruerade problembilden kan politiska krav som att stoppa invandringen från muslimska länder och att deportera miljontals invandrade från Latinamerika, framstå som logiska lösningar. Lösningar som också har presenterats av Donald Trump. Denna typ av politiska förslag riskerar leda till att ytterligare öka främlingsfientligheten och de sociala spänningarna i USA. / This paper examines the content US President Donald Trump filled the terms "us" and "them" via his Twitter account during the last three weeks of the presidential election campaign in 2016. The analysis is motivated because it can give an indication of what kind of policy Trump will suggest as president. The research question for this study is: With what content does Donald Trump, through his Twitter account, fill the signifiers "us" and "them"? The essay is part of the research field of political communication and is based on a theoretical framework which places emphasis on the function language has as a tool for the construction of reality. Discourse analysis is used as method, which implicates that the meanings of "us" and "them" is interpreted on the basis of how the concepts are connected with other meaningful concepts and the context in which the tweets are produced. According to the analysis of this paper, Donald Trump constructs an opposition between "us" and "them" based on religious affiliation and origin, in which "them" – who are Muslim or immigrants from Latin America – are the problem. Based on this constructed conflict, the political demands to stop immigration from Muslim countries and deport millions of immigrants from Latin America, appears as logical solutions. Solutions that has also been presented by Donald Trump. This type of policy proposals could lead to a further strengthening of the social divisiveness and an increase of xenophobia in USA.

Donald Trump tog världen med storm när han deltog i det amerikanska presidentvalet och sedermera blev vald. Uppsatsen undersöker om Donald Trump kan placeras på en fascistisk skala baserat på hans uttalanden i sex tal; samt hur det kristna stödet, som Donald Trump erhöll i valet, kan förklaras. Sex tal analyseras med basen i kvalitativ textanalys och kategoriseras i fem kategorier för fascism.   Det kristna stödet kan förklaras genom gemensamma värderingar, Lakoffs Strict Father morality, i kombination med rädsla. Rädslan över vad som ska hända med AFS med Hillary Clinton som president är stor, är en tung faktor för konservativa kristna att rösta på Donald Trump. Studien kommer fram till att Donald Trump kan klassificeras som semi-fascist då han delvis uppfyller de kriterier som studien grundar sig på. / Donald Trump chocked the world when he decided to run for president of the United States of America, and won. This study examines if Donald Trump may be placed on a fascist scale based on his statements in six speeches; and how the Christian support, that he received, may be explained. The speeches have been analysed based on a qualitative text analysis and been categorized in to five categories of fascism.   The Christian support may be explained by common values; Lakoff’s Strict Father morality, in combination with fear. The fear for what may happen to the U.S. with Hillary Clinton as president has a big impact on why conservative Christians voted for Donald Trump. The conclusion of this study is that Donald Trump can be classified as a semi-fascist as he partly fulfils the fascist criteria this study presents.