Abstract
Much of the 2016 campaign and the election of Donald Trump seemed novel, while other aspects were throwbacks to an earlier era. The Trump campaign fit this dual reality as Trump tweeted with wild abandon, while relying on traditional mass rallies and mediated news media during much of his campaign. So how innovative was the Trump campaign in 2016? This study applies a model of political communication change over time, which I label the Political Communication Cycle (PCC), to the Trump 2016 campaign in order to answer that question in a new way. This study finds that the Trump campaign did not break new ground in terms of online methods or data use, which had been stabilizing for some time. However, the novel style in which candidate Trump used each was applied in a new way, even if the populist and racial-nationalist themes he offered were far from novel. Further, America has had demagogues before, but never one as politically successful as Trump and none in the modern internet-centric media environment. The historical analysis suggests that Trump’s campaign may be viewed as a turning point in terms of campaign communication tactics, but is unlikely to become the new norm.
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