Semiotic space invasion

The case of Donald Trump's US presidential campaign

Bibliographic Data

ID5121641
AuthorsPeter Wignell (Curtin University , Perth , Australia), Kay L O’halloran (0000-0002-7950-0889, Curtin University, corresponding author), Kay O’halloran (Curtin University , Perth , Australia), Sabine Tan (0000-0002-1244-4077, Curtin University , Perth , Australia)
Year2019
Volume2019
Issue226
Pages185-208
Publication date2019-01-08
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueSemiotica (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0037-1998 • E-ISSN: 1613-3692
PublisherWalter de Gruyter GmbH (PUBLISHER • DE)
DOI10.1515/sem-2017-0109
OpenAlexW2901343030
LanguageEN
Citations received6
References cited15

This paper uses a social semiotic perspective to analyze Donald Trump's domination of media coverage of the US presidential campaign from 16 June 2015, when he announced his candidacy for nomination as the Republican candidate until 8 November 2016, when he was elected as President of the United States. The paper argues that one of the keys to Donald Trump's domination of media coverage was that, in presenting himself and his agenda, he foregrounded interpersonal meaning by making himself the focus of attention of the campaign through strategies that invaded various semiotic spaces to form a "sub-semiosphere" of Trump dogma. The effects of this were that what he did and what he said captured the majority of media attention at the expense of his opponents, enabling him to win the election, despite his complete lack of background experience as a politician

Candidacy · Epistemology · Meaning (existential) · Media studies · Nomination · Political science · Politics · Presidency · Presidential election · Presidential system · Semiotics · Sociology · Discourse Analysis in Language Studies · Law · Media Studies and Communication · Philosophy · Rhetoric and Communication Studies

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