The Press War in the Post-Truth Era: A Corpus-Assisted CDA of the Discourse of US Political Analysts on Trump’s Figure and Policy

The election of Donald Trump to the US Presidency has been linked to a decline of popular confidence in democratic institutions and to the emergence of a post-truth era. The President accuses unfavourable media outlets of spreading fake news, which he contrasts with opposing – and even unproven – stories. The present research considered Trump’s statements about the media posted on the social network Twitter since his election. Following his tweets, articles and broadcast news issued by the media under attack and those published by more acquiescent press were collected in order to explore how the President’s figure and policy were framed by the voice of political analysts. Texts were investigated from quantitative and qualitative perspectives, combining Corpus Linguistics and Critical Discourse Analysis to examine the topics and discourses exploited, the strategies enacted in the presentation of opinions, and to discuss their implications and contribution to the reproduction of ideologies. The study suggested that the liberal media tended to exploit scandals to construct Trump’s presidency as chaotic and to depict his figure as unreliable. The right-leaning press seemed, instead, to reproduce the President’s discourse about biased media and to spread any alternative opinions and facts which may prove useful to defend and support Trump.