Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-g7gxr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-04T21:25:45.915Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

14 - Fake Alignments

from Part III - The Interactive Making of the Trumpian World

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 September 2020

By
Sylvia Sierra  and
Natasha Shrikant
Edited by
Janet McIntosh  and
Norma Mendoza-Denton
Janet McIntosh
Affiliation:
Brandeis University, Massachusetts
Norma Mendoza-Denton
Affiliation:
University of California, Los Angeles
Get access

Summary

This chapter analyzes President Trump’s remarks at the 2017 Black History Month Listening Session, in particular his repeated discussion of the seemingly irrelevant subject of “fake news.” Through a framing analysis (Goffman 1974) of Trump’s language, we make sense of Trump’s seemingly non-sequitur topic shifts and illustrate how the actions he takes through these shifts function as strategic attempts to build relationships with African American participants in the session. Our analysis illustrates how Trump strives to build relationships with his African American interlocutors through first praising well-known African American figures and then shifting frames to commiserate about the news media. While praising such figures functions as Trump’s direct attempt to align with the broader African American community, making disparaging remarks about news media functions to indirectly align Trump with the politically conservative African Americans in this interaction, sometimes through their laughter at his jokes. Like many politicians, Trump elicits support as much from his implicit relational messages as from the content of what he says.

Keywords

Goffmanalignmentframingframesfake newsrelationalitymessaginglaughterracetopic shifts
Type
Chapter
Information
Language in the Trump Era
Scandals and Emergencies
 , pp. 203 - 214
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2020

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Bateson, Gregory. 1972. Steps to an Ecology of Mind. Ballantine Books.Google Scholar
Bauder, David. 2018. “US Newspapers to Trump: We’re Not Enemies of the People.” Associated Press article, August 16, 2018. https://bit.ly/2OEuLbq.Google Scholar
Bobic, Igor. 2017. “Trump Convenes Black History Month ‘Listening Session’ with People Who Like Him.” The Huffington Post, February 1, 2017. https://bit.ly/2oK1ep7.Google Scholar
Bucholtz, Mary, and Hall, Kira. 2005. “Identity and Interaction: A Sociocultural Linguistic Approach.” Discourse Studies 7, no. 4–5: 585–614.Google Scholar
Bump, Philip. 2017. “Trump Began His ‘Black History Month Listening Session’ with a ‘Media Complaining Session.’” The Washington Post, February 2, 2017. https://wapo.st/2mpW5lk.Google Scholar
Flores, Reena. 2017. “Trump Blasts Media at African-American ‘Listening Session.’” CBS News article, February 1, 2017. https://cbsn.ws/2nYntHy.Google Scholar
Glenn, Phillip. 2003. Laughter in Interaction. Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Goffman, Erving. 1974. Frame Analysis: An Essay on the Organization of Experience. Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Goodwin, Marjorie Harness. 1996. “Shifting Frame.” In Social Interaction, Social Context, and Language: Essays in Honor of Susan Ervin-Tripp, edited by Slobin, Dan Isaac, Gerhardt, Julie, Kyratzis, Amy, and Guo, Jiansheng, pp. 71–82. Lawrence Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Gordon, Cynthia. 2008. “A(p)parent Play: Blending Frames and Reframing in Family Talk.” Language in Society 37, no. 3: 319–49.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Merica, Dan. 2017. “Trump: Frederick Douglass ‘Is Being Recognized More and More.’” CNN article, February 2, 2017. https://cnn.it/2vK8Yum.Google Scholar
Naylor, Brian. 2017. “In Black History Month ‘Listening Session,’ Trump Lashes Out at Media.” NPR article, February 1, 2017. https://n.pr/2nWOJ9x.Google Scholar
Nelson, Louis. 2017. “Trump Launches Media Attack during Black History Month Listening Session.” Politico, February 1, 2017. https://politi.co/2o4Donz.Google Scholar
Shrikant, Natasha. 2019. “‘Who’s the Face?’: Communication and White Identity in a Texas Business Community.” Ethnic and Racial Studies 42, no. 2: 254–71.Google Scholar
Sierra, Sylvia A. 2016. “Intertextual Media References as Resources for Managing Frames, Epistemics, and Identity in Conversation among Friends.” Ph.D. diss., Georgetown University. https://bit.ly/2mtYueU.Google Scholar
Thrasher, Steven W. 2017. “Donald Trump’s ‘Listening Session’ on Black History Month Was Anything But.” The Guardian, February 2, 2017. https://bit.ly/2o3JyEs.Google Scholar
Trump, Donald. 2017. “Black History Month Listening Session.” C-SPAN video, February 1, 2017. www.c-span.org/video/?423342–1/president-trump-holds-african-american-history-month-listening-session.Google Scholar
Wootson, Cleve R. 2017. “Trump Implied Frederick Douglass Was Alive. The Abolitionist’s Family Offered a ‘History Lesson.’” The Washington Post, February 2, 2017. https://wapo.st/2kwLykX.Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×