Semiotic space invasion: The case of Donald Trump's US presidential campaign

© 2019 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston. 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,...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Wignell, Peter, O'Halloran, Kay, Tan, Sabine
Format: Journal Article
Published: De Gruyter Mouton 2019
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/73759
_version_ 1848763090388123648
author Wignell, Peter
O'Halloran, Kay
Tan, Sabine
author_facet Wignell, Peter
O'Halloran, Kay
Tan, Sabine
author_sort Wignell, Peter
building Curtin Institutional Repository
collection Online Access
description © 2019 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston. 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.
first_indexed 2025-11-14T10:57:56Z
format Journal Article
id curtin-20.500.11937-73759
institution Curtin University Malaysia
institution_category Local University
last_indexed 2025-11-14T10:57:56Z
publishDate 2019
publisher De Gruyter Mouton
recordtype eprints
repository_type Digital Repository
spelling curtin-20.500.11937-737592019-02-19T04:28:17Z Semiotic space invasion: The case of Donald Trump's US presidential campaign Wignell, Peter O'Halloran, Kay Tan, Sabine © 2019 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston. 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. 2019 Journal Article http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/73759 10.1515/sem-2017-0109 De Gruyter Mouton restricted
spellingShingle Wignell, Peter
O'Halloran, Kay
Tan, Sabine
Semiotic space invasion: The case of Donald Trump's US presidential campaign
title Semiotic space invasion: The case of Donald Trump's US presidential campaign
title_full Semiotic space invasion: The case of Donald Trump's US presidential campaign
title_fullStr Semiotic space invasion: The case of Donald Trump's US presidential campaign
title_full_unstemmed Semiotic space invasion: The case of Donald Trump's US presidential campaign
title_short Semiotic space invasion: The case of Donald Trump's US presidential campaign
title_sort semiotic space invasion: the case of donald trump's us presidential campaign
url http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/73759