Presidential Campaign Research Articles

Hate Speech Through Identity Politics On Social Media Ahead Of The 2024 Presidential Election

The debate surrounding the 2024 General Election in the virtual space, such as social media, has led netizens to exchange hate speech and heavy criticism regarding their respective support. Two groups have emerged: government supporters highlighting the successes of President Joko Widodo and those shifting their support to Anies Baswedan after Prabowo joined the government. Over time, this phenomenon has led to the proliferation of hate speech based on identities such as religion, ethnicity, and fanatical groups, potentially dividing public opinion. This study aims to explain the emergence of hate speech and the forms of hate speech based on identity politics leading up to the 2024 General Election. This study employs virtual ethnographic analysis (Virtual Ethnography) to observe tweets or statuses on selected accounts and the comments that arise from those tweets. The objects of analysis are the trends of words and phrases and the content within observed sentences or paragraphs. The research findings have been presented in the form of tabulation and categorization. The results show that comments and statuses containing hate speech always create bidirectional and multi-directional communication models among users. Hate speech often uses phrases and keywords that lead to insults, malicious accusations, curses, and accusing the opposing party of being stupid and evil. Based on this study, social media users must realize that the presidential campaign is a time to have different choices but remain aware of the same nation. Users need to develop an awareness of social media ethics. Enforcing rules against those who spread hate speech is key for every actor involved.

Facebook Framing of the First Female U.S. Vice President: An Intersectional Approach to Analyzing Memes Depicting Kamala Harris

Kamala Harris made political history in 2020 when she was elected vice president of the United States. Our study employs intersectionality to shed light on how people framed Harris in Facebook memes during the 2020 U.S. Presidential Campaign and 2021 Inauguration. While gender and racial pride were strong in many of the memes, our analysis identified both racist and sexist characterizations that built on historical stereotypes of Black women. Harris was the subject of a variety of sexist and racist attacks with Facebook posts/memes framing her using tropes, such as “Jezebel” and “Tragic Mulatto.” Our intersectional analysis of the framing of political candidates provides a rationale for the continued assessment of memes for their ability to promote and spread historical stereotypes and racist narratives. The continued framing of Black women based on both gender and race is an indication society has made little progress in its representations of the group.

Strategy and Subterfuge: Billy Graham’s Political Machinations from Montreux to the Mayflower Hotel and Beyond

Abstract One of the turning points in the 1960 presidential campaign was a gathering of 150 Protestant ministers at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington on September 7, 1960, two days after Labor Day. During the closed-door gathering, Protestant leaders, including Norman Vincent Peale, unanimously adopted a statement warning about the dangers to the First Amendment and the separation of church and state should a Roman Catholic be elected president. Drawing on newly available archival sources, this article examines the role of religion in the 1960 campaign, including John F. Kennedy’s long struggle to neutralize the issue and the significance of Paul Blanshard’s 1949 best-seller, American Freedom and Catholic Power. Although Peale was roundly criticized for his role in the Mayflower gathering, the real force behind the meeting was Billy Graham, who did not attend. After assuring Kennedy in a letter dated August 10, 1960, that he, Graham, would not raise the religious issue in the campaign, Graham, at Peale’s behest, convened a group of Protestant ministers at the Montreux Palace Hotel in Switzerland eight days later to discuss how they could deny Kennedy’s election in November. The direct consequence of the Montreux meeting was the Mayflower Hotel gathering. While Peale took the heat for the meeting, Graham continued to play both sides, insisting publicly that he was neutral in the presidential race while working behind the scenes to advance Nixon’s candidacy, a strategy he employed again twenty years later in an attempt to jettison the reelection of a fellow evangelical, Jimmy Carter.

Illegal Immigration from Latin America Amid the 2024 U.S. Presidential Campaign: Polarization Effects

Illegal immigration, particularly from Latin American countries, remains a major issue that divides the political process in the United States. Both Republican and Democratic candidates are exploiting this problem for political gain, as they compete for voters' support in the lead-up to the 2024 presidential election. While representatives of the two main political parties align on negative attitudes towards the issue, their approaches to addressing the problem are signifi cantly divided. This study aims to examine the impact of the polarising eff ects of Latin American illegal immigration on the political process in the United States within the context of the 2024 presidential campaign. The article takes a regional approach, examining presidential candidates from the Democratic and Republican parties who have formally declared their intention to run on September 1, 2023. The article concludes that the ongoing migration crisis in the United States and related socio-economic issues will remain a major concern in the future. Overall, discussions on this matter extend beyond domestic political discourse in the United States and now encompass the contentious interAmerican relations and the outlook for the liberal-democratic model as a whole.

Robredo Vs. Marcos’ Presidential Jingles: A Pragmatic Analysis

This study qualitatively analyzed the speech act functions in Philippine political jingles, focusing on the presidential campaign songs "Bagong Lipunan" for Bongbong Marcos and "Kay Leni Tayo" for Leni Robredo. The research delved into the linguistic elements and speech acts employed in these jingles, exploring their role beyond information through content analysis. The chosen jingles, featuring prominent presidential candidates, were selected for their creative merit. The findings unveiled that the select jingles consistently demonstrated a convergence of speech act functions. In locutionary acts, these compositions articulated a rich voice of hope. Regarding illocutionary acts, their collective intention frequently revolved around committing to the promise of a new beginning. The perlocutionary dimension was equally impactful, as the expressions evoked an emotional response, inspiring the audience with hope. The jingles also revealed a nuanced interplay of illocutionary acts, seamlessly blending commissive, assertive, and declarative intentions and strategic use of directive and expressive acts. Examination of linguistic elements, such as metaphors, imagery, rhyme, simile, repetition, and thematic elements like unity and resilience, uncovered a deliberate linguistic strategy to convey persuasive messages and foster positive images of the political figures, ultimately aiming to garner support.

Who Is Curating My Political Feed? Characterizing Political Exposure of Registered U.S. Voters on Twitter

Social media platforms offer people a variety of options to engage with politics, from directly following elected officials to discussing politics with social peers. Despite major advances in recent research on online political exposure through the lens of selective exposure, filter bubbles, and ideological echo chambers, little is known about the fundamental questions of what types of political actors people are exposed to on social media, and how these distinctive types vary across sociodemographic groups. We address this gap in the literature by analyzing unique panel data on more than 600,000 registered U.S. voters on Twitter during the 2020 U.S. Presidential campaign. We analyze this dataset to identify distinct types of political consumers and how they vary in terms of sociodemographics. Our findings suggest that the bulk of the population has a meaningful share of political content available from social peers, that the majority of this content originates from traditional sources of political information (media organizations, journalists, and politicians), and that media organizations are the dominant and direct source of political information on Twitter for nearly 20% of the sample population. These results advance our understanding of the way citizens learn about politics in new media and pave the way for next-step research to identify the causal effect of exposure to distinct curators of political content on individuals’ political attitudes and political behavior.

Prospects for Investigations of Political Discourse (Review of a Monograph by Prof A.A. Romanov and O.V. Novosiolova “Constructions of Threat in Pre-electoral Discourse. Linguocognitive Analysis of papers and programs of presidential campaign in 2018”. Moscow: URSS, 2021. — 440 p.)

This article presents a review of the monograph titled “Constructions of Threat in Pre-electoral Discourse. Linguocognitive Analysis of papers and programs of the 2018 presidential campaign” by A.A. Romanov and O.V. Novosyolova. The authors examined different factors related to pre-election communication, such as cognitive-discursive, psycholinguistic, and pragmalinguistic factors. They analyzed representative material and used topical linguistic analysis methods, including Diatone, an automated program for analyzing textual data in pre-election communication. They also examined the emotional-suggestive impact of pre-election programmes. Prof. A.A. Romanov and O.V. Novosyolova’s monograph is topical since it is grounded upon present-day trends of conducting linguistic analysis on the basis of one of the genres of political discourse in a comprehensive manner. The scientific novelty of the research lies in the fact that it is the first time such a massive investigation has been completed. The results of the book under study significantly contribute to further development of various linguistic theories, such as pragmalinguistics, speech act theory, functional semantics, communication theory as well as political discourse, cognitive semantics, and communicative-pragmatic constructivism. The practical value of this research is evident in the sphere of political linguistics as well as in teaching courses such as “Topical Issues of Present-day Linguistics”, “Methods of Linguistic Analysis”, “Modern Political Discourse”. It also contributes to integration of new courses into programmes that explore interaction between language and thinking, language and speech, and language and society from a political science perspective.

The Bitter End: The 2020 Presidential Campaign and the Challenge to American Democracy

The Bitter End: The 2020 Presidential Campaign and the Challenge to American Democracy

The Distinction Among Political Humor Meme Creators in the Political Field of The 2019 Presidential Campaign for The Jokowi-Amin Pairing on Twitter

Political meme creators play an important role in conveying political messages, shaping public opinion as well as the practice of decision making through the political memes produced. Political memes circulating on various social media during the campaign period of the 2019 Presidential Election 2019 largely contain hate speech, hoax and character assassination. Nearing the grand campaign for the 2019 presidential election, political memes were popping up everywhere, containing humorous narratives in conveying political messages and support to the 2019 Jokowi-Amin pairing, which were distinct when compared to political memes in general. This study aimed to explore distinct actions by political humor meme creators around the grand campaign for the 2019 presidential election for the 2019 Jokowi-Amin pairing on Twitter. This study used a qualitative approach with the case study method. Primary data were obtained from observations and in-depth interviews with political humor meme creators who produced political humor memes nearing the grand campaign for Jokowi-Amin. Secondary data were sourced from digital materials (political memes, political humor memes, videos, and digital media). The results showed that the distinct behaviors displayed by these political humor meme creators influenced by habitus and capital aspects which aim to describe tastes and form classes in their social structure. Tastes are not only limited to consumption patterns of food, clothing and culture, but also include political ways of political humor meme creators who use humorous narratives in political memes to show their social class by not resorting to hate speech in winning the Jokowi-Amin pairing.

Američki realisti i rat u Bosni 1992-1995.

While there is a significant body of literature on U.S. policy towards Bosnia in the early 1990s, the role and policy recommendations of American realists have been largely overlooked. Realism is a school of thought in international relations which holds that states are the key actors motivated by interests which seek to maximize their power and security in an anarchic world. Adherents of this worldview emphasize the pursuit of national interests and the importance of power and force in achieving it. Realists are generally opposed to military interventions where a vital national interest is not at stake. The purpose of this article is to fill this gap by analysing both realist policymakers and academics and how they responded to the war in Bosnia from 1992 to 1995. Several top officials of the George H. W. Bush Administration including the President, Secretary of State James Baker and National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft were realists and this worldview shaped the US response to the outbreak of the war in Bosnia. Focused on a host of other foreign policy issues at the time, the Bush Administration was adamant not to get involved militarily in Bosnia. James Baker’s statement „We don't have a dog in that fight“ came to define the Bush Administration's Bosnia policy. Its realist outlook combined with the presidential campaign priorities in 1992 to ensure that the Western response to the war in Bosnia was handed over to the Europeans. With realist policymakers in power from the outbreak of the war in spring 1992 through early 1993, many Bosnians hoping for a Western military intervention at the time would later come to realise how far-fetched those hopes were. In addition to realist policymakers, several prominent realists in the American academia also weighed in on how the US should respond to the war in this part of Southeast Europe in the early 1990s. Academic realists published their opinions and recommended policy options in leading media outlets throughout the three-and-a-half year war. Though their worldview was not shared by the first Bill Clinton Administration, academic realists continued offering policy recommendations on Bosnia. Academic realists like Robert Pape and Michael Desch opposed the use of air power in Bosnia arguing that it would be ineffective. John Mearsheimer together with Pape called for partition of Bosnia and establishment of homogeneous states in the Balkans and arming of Bosnian Muslims. Kissinger was opposed to a military commitment to Bosnia but did not lay out specific policy recommendations. In sum, both policymakers and academics argued that there was no vital US national interest at stake in Bosnia warranting deployment of ground troops. Even after the Dayton peace talks concluded in late 1995, American realists continued weighing in on Bosnia and offering generally bleak assessments. While the majority of those recommended policy options were not implemented, realists’ views on Bosnia in the 1990s still deserve scholarly attention. Studying American realists provides an overview of how both practitioners and intellectual adherents of a key theory in international relations perceived the war and its outcome. This analysis will also provide a more nuanced understanding of the variety of American responses to the war in Bosnia.

A critical discourse analysis of some selected 2019 Nigerian presidential election campaign advertisements on social media

Political campaign advertisements are one of the mediums where the electorates hope to get the right information to help them make a choice before an election. The study explored the lexico-syntactic patterns, discourse strategies and how they were used to create ideologies in the 2019 Presidential campaign advertisements. The study adopts the theoretical framework of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) by Van Dijk called socio-cognitive model and his (2000) model on principles that express ideological stances. Five campaign advertisements were purposively selected for analysis from the following social media platforms: Facebook, WhatsApp, Twitter and also the following media outlets punch.com, nairaland.com, to mention but a few. The campaign advertisements chosen featured the two major candidates, Atiku Abubakar of the PDP (Peoples Democratic Party) and Muhamadu Buhari of the APC (All Progressives Congress) in the 2019 Presidential elections. The study revealed that the campaign advertisements chosen used discourse markers that emphasized ideologies like; APC is a haven for corrupt Nigerians, Atiku is a thief, Buhari and Atiku do not care about the poor, Buhari is incorruptible, are among other ideologies that the campaign advertisements tried to portray. The study submits that discourse was negative especially in the presentation of the ‘out group’ (the political opponents) and that the ideology of the text creators was a very strong force in all the texts analyzed. Therefore, the electorates need to be more critical in reading these presidential campaign advertisements before forming their opinions and taking actions, in order to deepen our democracy.

The politics of glyphosate regulation: lessons from Sri Lanka’s short-lived ban

BackgroundGlyphosate is the world’s most used herbicide and a central component of modern industrial agriculture. It has also been linked to a variety of negative health and environmental effects. For instance, the International Agency for Research on Cancer classified glyphosate as “probably carcinogenic to humans” in 2015. This has motivated widespread political demands for stricter glyphosate regulation but so far few governments have followed through.MethodsWe conduct a case study of Sri Lanka, which in 2015 became the first and so far only country in the world to adopt and implement a complete glyphosate ban. But this ban proved to be short-lived, as it was partially reversed in 2018 (and later fully revoked in 2022). To explain the political causes of Sri Lanka’s pioneering glyphosate ban and its subsequent reversal, we employ process tracing methods drawing on publicly available documents. Our analysis is theoretically guided by the multiple streams framework and the concept of self-undermining policy feedback.ResultsGlyphosate regulation rose to the top of the Sri Lankan political agenda in 2014 when a local scientist linked glyphosate exposure to an epidemic of Chronic Kidney Disease of Unknown Origin (CKDu). A glyphosate ban was eventually adopted in June 2015 by the newly elected government of Maithripala Sirisena. The ban was a political commitment made to the Buddhist monk Rathana Thero and his party, which had supported Sirisena during his presidential campaign. The ban’s partial reversal in 2018, implemented through sectoral exceptions, was the result of continued lobbying by export-oriented plantation industries and increased political concerns about potential negative effects on the large and structurally powerful tea sector. The reversal was further aided by the scientific community’s failure to corroborate the hypothesized link between glyphosate and CKDu.ConclusionsThe case of Sri Lanka suggests that strict glyphosate regulation becomes more likely when coupled with locally salient health risks and when decision-making authority is de-delegated from regulatory agencies back to the political executive. Meanwhile, the short-lived nature of the Sri Lankan ban suggests that strict glyphosate regulation faces political sustainability threats, as the apparent lack of cost-effective alternative herbicides motivates persistent business lobbying for regulatory reversal.

Political polarization and emotion rhetoric in the US presidential transition: A comparative study of Trump and Biden on Twitter and the post-election impact on the public

The pictures of the US Capitol attack, on January 6, 2021, represent a before and after in a country marked by the culture of political polarization. Following a presidential campaign based on misinformation and accusations of electoral fraud by Republican candidate Donald Trump, the level of maximum polarization causes a climate of social rupture. Faced with this, the Democratic candidate and winner of the elections, Joe Biden, projects a discourse of institutional stability and legality as a strategy before public opinion. Two years later, the abrupt division of the US electorate is evident, with a significant percentage of Republican voters questioning the legitimacy of the electoral process. The objective of this research is to find out the strategies of political polarization deployed by Donald Trump and Joe Biden on Twitter in the 2020-2021 presidential transition period, as well as the public’s response. Based on a general sample of 1,060 tweets, a comparative content analysis methodology with a triple approach (quantitative-qualitative-discursive) is applied, based on the study of themes, emotions, and the ability to go viral of the messages of both political leaders. The results confirm a Trump’s speech defined by polarization, misinformation and the attack on the democratic system, relegating information from his presidential administration in the last months of his term to the background. On the contrary, Biden avoids confrontation and reinforces his legitimacy as president-elect, by announcing management measures of the future government. The engagement value of the social audience on Twitter is also added, with a position of support for the winner of the elections.

The Translatability of Sports Metaphors in Political News

The present study investigates the difficulties and problems in deciphering the figurative meaning of English sports metaphors that appear in political news and, more specifically, in US presidential campaigns and their Arabic equivalents when they are under the detailed scrutiny of translation. In order to highlight the problem under discussion, the study explores the translation of some sports metaphors in their original context of use. Several English sports metaphors from different sports fields are collected randomly from British and US online newspapers with their possible equivalents in Arabic that are used in comparable texts that report the same topic. This comparative study focuses on the different strategies that are followed in rendering English sports metaphors in Arabic online newspapers. The researcher employed an empirical, descriptive and analytical approach where sports metaphors are described and classified. Their translations on online Arabic newspapers are also discussed and examined. The analysis will be based on the conceptual metaphor framework proposed by Lakoff and Johnson (1984). Thus, it will be important to assess the conceptualized experiences across different cultures, particularly between English and Arabic, in this study. The findings reveal that English sports metaphors pose a metaphorical and cultural threat to the Arab translator, who might be tempted to translate them literally in case s/he fails to understand their hidden meaning. Producing accurate translation equivalents for these items cannot be achieved without knowing their metaphorical senses and the ability to provide natural and acceptable equivalents in the target language. The aim is to create a similar impact on the target language audience.

Those Who Will Join Us

“Those Who Will Join Us” reviews Bouchra Khalili’s multimedia installation The Circle (2023) in the context of Sharjah Biennial 15. The Circle was commissioned by Sharjah Art Foundation and won one of the biennial prizes, and suggests larger questions about what it means to be in the world, how we might remake the world, and what the role of art could be within this. The installation, which includes archival images and small televisions around a large two-channel video projection, is an investigation of the Movement of Arab Workers (MTA) and its theater groups, Al Assifa and Al Halaka. These agitprop t heater groups, formed by North African migrant workers and students like the rest of the MT A, were active in Paris and the south of France between 1973 and 1978. Khalili’s work particularly focuses on the 1974 presidential run of D jellali Kamal, a pseudonym for an anonymous Al Assifa member whose candidacy was seen as an extended public performance meant to reveal the ways in which migrants were denied civil rights.

“They own our country!” voter reaction to anti-China rhetoric: The case of the presidential election in Brazil in 2018

How do voters react to a presidential candidate who warns against investments from a foreign country? This study examines voter reactions to a presidential candidate warning against foreign Chinese investments, using the Brazilian 2018 campaign as a case study. Far-right candidate Jair Bolsonaro repeatedly criticised Chinese acquisitions of national assets, particularly in natural resource extraction. By analysing geographically referenced data on Chinese investments and electoral data, I find that Bolsonaro's electoral success increased with higher levels of Chinese acquisitions, especially those related to natural resources. Post-election surveys also confirm a link between voting for Bolsonaro and rejecting Chinese investment. These findings highlight the connection between right-wing voters' fears of globalisation and the rise of far-right candidates. The study contributes to understanding the role of ideology and nationalism in shaping voter attitudes towards foreign investment during a presidential campaign.

An Analysis of the Abortion Issue in America: Judicial Activism from the Perspective of Conflict of Rights

Abortion has been recognized as the most controversial and emotional issue in the United States, debate of which has lasting for three decades. The overturning of Roe v. Wade is considered to be one of the major goals of the Republican presidential campaign. As a country with many parties and religions, the debate of abortion has been a constant battle ground between warring factions. Since Roe v. Wade, the pro- and anti-abortion sides have used the right of patients to autonomy and privacy and the unborns right to life as arguments, triggering a debate over the right to choose and the right to life. However, there are also more views that the issue raised by the Supreme Courts overturning of Roe v. Wade is actually a question of whether the law interferes excessively in political issues. Does it infringe on the legislative power of the states and even the spirit of democracy? This paper attempts to start from the appeal of right protection, go back to the Warren Court, and think about the changes of the meaning of right under judicial activism, so as to carry on the discussion of democracy and freedom.

Gender and moral language on the presidential campaign trail

AbstractPolitical candidates choose to highlight morality in their campaign speeches in various ways. In particular, we expect presidential candidates to highlight moral principles in introducing themselves to voters early in the campaign. However, usage may not be the same across candidates. Existing research suggests that, in general, women focus on different moral values than men. The question is whether such findings in the mass public translate into rhetorical differences between men and women presidential candidates. We know little about whether such gender differences exist, and if so, how they might influence voters. We examine a unique data set of presidential candidate speeches given in Iowa in the 2016 and 2020 nomination campaigns, developing and testing hypotheses about gender, the use of moral language, and its effects on vote outcomes. Using automated text analysis, we find that all else equal, while women candidates do not use more moral language overall, they do emphasize care and fairness more than men, and in doing so, they may be disadvantaging themselves, especially when using language related to fairness.

Foreign Policy Marathon: The Emergent Role of Foreign Policy in the Political Career of George H. W. Bush (1971-1989)

The present article reviews the emerging role of foreign policy in the political career of George HW Bush, one of the most influential political figures in the second half of the 20th century. More specifically, the focus of this review is Bush's steady presence in government service and his unique perspective on foreign policy. Since an attempt of this kind has been the goal of previous research, the present article builds on the existing literature with an emphasis on the role of foreign policy in a political trajectory which later came to the fore during his presidency. This review focuses on four administrations and the areas of global change from the time of Bush's entry into world politics up to his successful presidential campaign. in doing so,the study pursues the emerging role of foreign policy within Bush's lifelong pursuit with references to Cold War foreign policy examples. The article demonstrates how this role was subject to individual circumstances, global imperatives and each administration's unique approach to world affairs.

Morality on the ballot: strategic issue salience and affective moral intuitions in the 2020 US presidential election

PurposeWhile morality is ever-present in elections, scholars have yet to merge political public relations and Moral Foundations Theory. It is crucial to assess the complex morality present not only in social deduction, but also in political strategic communication. The current work aims to analyze the issue agendas and their relationships in the 2020 presidential campaign and assesses their moral strategy.Design/methodology/approachThis study used a computer-assisted content analysis (N = 7,888) with each moral intuition coded from the Moral Foundations Dictionary. Datapoints included campaign tweets, Facebook posts, debate performances, remarks, news releases and nomination acceptance speeches. Coverage included articles from including The New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, CNN and Fox News to assess both liberal and conservative media.FindingsCandidates' issue and moral agendas were correlated with each other and with the media's agenda. Comparatively, the Biden campaign has stronger correlations when it came to connecting with issues, stakeholders and moral intuitions in the media agenda than the Trump campaign. For issues, the Biden campaign prioritized COVID-19 and the economy, while the Trump campaign prioritized the economy and crime. The candidates also had similar moral strategies.Practical implicationsThis study suggests effectively leveraging organizational communications in democracies can support the transfer of object salience, moral attributes and networks to media coverage, public discourse and opponent messaging. It can also help achieve organizational goals by managing public image, reputation and expectations.Originality/valueThis work expands the literature by taking a pluralist moral psychology approach in assessing the salience and correlation of five moral intuitions: harm/care, fairness/reciprocity, ingroup/loyalty, authority/respect and purity/sanctity. This study serves as a springboard for examining morality's impact on political public relations.