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Scandals and the Digital Code in the Presidential Race

[cs_content][cs_section parallax=”false” style=”margin: 0px;padding: 45px 0px;”][cs_row inner_container=”true” marginless_columns=”false” style=”margin: 0px auto;padding: 0px;”][cs_column fade=”false” fade_animation=”in” fade_animation_offset=”45px” fade_duration=”750″ type=”1/1″ style=”padding: 0px;”][x_image type=”none” src=”https://www.dwrl.utexas.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/clinton-trump1.jpg” alt=”A close-up picture of Donald Trump on the left and Hillary Clinton on the right. On the picture, it seems as if they look at each other from a very close distance. Donald Trump has blond hair and seems to wair a suite, of which one can only see the dark texture on his shoulder and the white collar. Hillary Clinton has blond hair, wears red ear rings, and a red blouse or costume of which one can only see to the shoulder area.” link=”false” href=”#” title=”” target=”” info=”none” info_place=”top” info_trigger=”hover” info_content=””][cs_text class=”cs-ta-left”]Commentators have identified the campaign leading up to today’s presidential election as unlike any that have come before, asking questions like — has this election been shaped by debates about personality rather than political content? Has it been more about moral scandals than past campaigns? Are labels such as “abuser,” “criminal,” “hater,” and “devil” part of a rational discourse between professional politicians?

But there’s something else novel about this campaign: digital media such as Twitter and Facebook have never played such an important role for the candidates as they do today.[/cs_text][x_video_player type=”16:9″ src=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A1Tvhf7QeAk” hide_controls=”false” autoplay=”false” no_container=”false” preload=”none” advanced_controls=”false” muted=”false” loop=”false” poster=””][cs_text class=”cs-ta-left”]Tweets used to comment on political issues; now, political debates have to comment on tweets. Blog posts are an increasingly dominant media form in public discourse on politics, not only by their sheer number, but also by how the blog format affects political discourse. In this respect, digitalization has paradoxical effects: on the one hand, political information is distributed more widely allowing for more political participation; but, since “the medium is the message” (Marshall McLuhan), the brevity of web content on the other hand reduces the depth and quality of political content.[/cs_text][x_image type=”none” src=”https://www.dwrl.utexas.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Hillary-Trump-Tweeting-performance.png” alt=”This picture is a diagram showing a statistic of tweets of the two presidential candidates between April 2015 and July 2016. It compares three aspects regarding Hillary Clinton’s and Donald Trump’s tweets: first, their tweets (Clinton has 714, Trump 914 tweets), second their average retweets (Clinton 3,065.41 and Trump 6,450.81), and, third, their average favorites (Clinton 6,275.59, Trump 18,307.86). In the statistics Clinton’s color is blue, while Trumps color is brown-red. It becomes clear from the statistic that Trump was quantitatively much more prominent on Twitter than Clinton.” link=”false” href=”#” title=”” target=”” info=”none” info_place=”top” info_trigger=”hover” info_content=””][cs_text class=”cs-ta-center”]Hillary Clinton vs. Donald Trump tweeting performance between April 2015 and July 2016
(further discussion)
[/cs_text][/cs_column][/cs_row][/cs_section][cs_section parallax=”false” style=”margin: 0px;padding: 45px 0px;”][cs_row inner_container=”true” marginless_columns=”false” style=”margin: 0px auto;padding: 0px;”][cs_column fade=”false” fade_animation=”in” fade_animation_offset=”45px” fade_duration=”750″ type=”1/2″ style=”padding: 0px;”][x_image type=”none” src=”https://www.dwrl.utexas.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/donald-trump-spreads-the-message-that-hillary-clinton-cant-satisfy-her-husband.jpg” alt=”This is a picture of Donald Trumps tweet. The header is blue with white letters. Underneath is the profile pricture of Donald followe by his name in black letters “Donald J. Trump” and his Twitter name “@realDonaldTrump”. Underneath is a tweet which reads: “‘@mplefty67: If Hillary Clinton can’t satisfy her husband what makes her thing she can satisfy America?’ @realDonaldTrump” link=”false” href=”#” title=”” target=”” info=”none” info_place=”top” info_trigger=”hover” info_content=””][/cs_column][cs_column fade=”false” fade_animation=”in” fade_animation_offset=”45px” fade_duration=”750″ type=”1/2″ style=”padding: 0px;”][x_image type=”none” src=”https://www.dwrl.utexas.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Trump-global-warming-was-invented-by-the-Chinese.png” alt=”This picture shows a tweet by Donald Trump. It reads “The contept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive.” Underneath it shows that this tweet had 24,831 retweets and 14,654 likes.” link=”false” href=”#” title=”” target=”” info=”none” info_place=”top” info_trigger=”hover” info_content=””][/cs_column][/cs_row][/cs_section][cs_section parallax=”false” style=”margin: 0px;padding: 45px 0px;”][cs_row inner_container=”true” marginless_columns=”false” style=”margin: 0px auto;padding: 0px;”][cs_column fade=”false” fade_animation=”in” fade_animation_offset=”45px” fade_duration=”750″ type=”1/2″ style=”padding: 0px;”][x_image type=”none” src=”https://www.dwrl.utexas.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/trump-hillary-has-bad-judgment.jpg” alt=”This picture shows a tweet by Donald Trump which reads: “Crooked Hillary’s brainpower is highly overrated.Probably why her decision making is so bad or, as stated by Bernie S, she has BAD JUDGMENT.” Underneath it says that this tweet had 1,205 retweets and 3,747 likes.” link=”false” href=”#” title=”” target=”” info=”none” info_place=”top” info_trigger=”hover” info_content=””][/cs_column][cs_column fade=”false” fade_animation=”in” fade_animation_offset=”45px” fade_duration=”750″ type=”1/2″ style=”padding: 0px;”][x_image type=”none” src=”https://www.dwrl.utexas.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/trump-my-IQ-is-the-highest.jpg” alt=”This picture shows a tweet by Donald Trumps which reads: “Sorry losers and haters, but my I.Q. is one of the highest -and you all know it! Please don’t feel so stupid or insecure, it’s not your fault.” Underneath it says that this tweet had 10,922 retweets and 8,514 likes.” link=”false” href=”#” title=”” target=”” info=”none” info_place=”top” info_trigger=”hover” info_content=””][/cs_column][/cs_row][/cs_section][cs_section parallax=”false” style=”margin: 0px;padding: 45px 0px;”][cs_row inner_container=”true” marginless_columns=”false” style=”margin: 0px auto;padding: 0px;”][cs_column fade=”false” fade_animation=”in” fade_animation_offset=”45px” fade_duration=”750″ type=”1/1″ style=”padding: 0px;”][cs_text class=”cs-ta-left”]But while the public discourse is abbreviated and simplified, it is also put into a moral perspective. More than ever before we hear that the candidate is a “bad person,” a “liar,” a “witch,” an “angry baby,” a “nasty woman,” a “puppet,” a “chicken,” and even “Lucifer.” The sociologist Niklas Luhmann explains this by the complexity of today’s politics: the less we oversee a complex field of communication, the more we tend to simplify it by moral terminology. Moral distinctions between “good” and “evil”, a “good person” and a “bad person” are much easier than trying to comprehend the difficulties of global politics.[/cs_text][x_video_player type=”16:9″ src=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yBVTqUk4PxQ” hide_controls=”false” autoplay=”false” no_container=”false” preload=”none” advanced_controls=”false” muted=”false” loop=”false” poster=””][cs_text class=”cs-ta-left”]Both communicative effects coming together might thus explain the current debates, namely how the digital and the moral codes are simplifying the political content. As for consequence, while there is more discourse about politicians, it deals less with politics. Does this process eventually undermine rational discourse and democratic participation? Is it true what Adorno and Horkheimer said in their Dialectics of Enlightenment that technological progress might eventually turn dialectically against the very ideals of freedom and democracy? Is the digitalization of politics a danger for democracies?[/cs_text][/cs_column][/cs_row][/cs_section][cs_section parallax=”false” style=”margin: 0px;padding: 45px 0px;”][cs_row inner_container=”true” marginless_columns=”false” style=”margin: 0px auto;padding: 0px;”][cs_column fade=”false” fade_animation=”in” fade_animation_offset=”45px” fade_duration=”750″ type=”1/2″ style=”padding: 0px;”][x_image type=”none” src=”https://www.dwrl.utexas.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/digital-literacy-uncle-sam.jpg” alt=”This is a picture of Uncle Sam in his regular outfit (white hat with white stars on a blue ribbon, blue jacket, white shirt and a red ribbon). He is pointing at the viewer with his index finger. Underneath it says in big red and black letters “I WANT YOU”, while the “I WANT” is black and the “YOU” is red. Underneath is another sentence which reads: “To embrace digital literacy in your classroom!”” link=”false” href=”#” title=”” target=”” info=”none” info_place=”top” info_trigger=”hover” info_content=””][/cs_column][cs_column fade=”false” fade_animation=”in” fade_animation_offset=”45px” fade_duration=”750″ type=”1/2″ style=”padding: 0px;”][cs_text class=”cs-ta-left”]Only the future will tell. But changes in the communicative modes are undeniable. And this election shows all the more how important it is to acquire skills in reading digital media so that we can distinguish between political surface and depth, between political content and moral polemics.[/cs_text][/cs_column][/cs_row][/cs_section][/cs_content]

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