Discourse Analysis: Toxic Political Climate

Since its inception on 4 February 2004, Facebook has acted as the centralized hub for sharing and

keeping in touch with family and friends. However, within the last decade Facebook along with social

media in general has become increasingly political and media centric. With the rise of media news in

everyday interactions came the fight for views and visits, leading to the birth of clickbait journalism. This

unprofessional sect of writing focuses on deceptive headlines and alluring captions to draw readers into

any combination of false, misleading, superfluous, and/or virus-infected news articles. The greatest issue

faced with the rise in this style of journalism is the lack of desire for self-research and the widespread

acceptance of facts at face value.

Across the plethora of social media platforms, millions of users are exposed to this type of

clickbait journalism, and in turn, many fall for its deceptive tactics. For this analysis, I am going to focus

on the respondents to the articles, in other words, those who comment and/or repost what is discussed

in the article. Analyzing these voices provides the most candid approach while reemphasizing the

dangers of group mentality and face value acceptance. The analysis will be focused on Facebook, which

has the most even spread of age ranges in their userbase and boasts 55% global penetration

(comScore). The main aspects of discourse to be analyzed will be the group mentality facet and the

toxicity facet. It should be noted that there is a common discourse between opposing viewpoints that

has been augmented due to social media, but that emphasizes rhetoric and will not be discussed in the

analysis. What will be analyzed however is the Republican versus Democrat discourse communities and

their interactions based on clickbait.

The 2016 election was perhaps one of the most divisive elections of our time, and that was only

fueled by the rise in social media clickbait and what has come to be known as viral news. One of the hot

topics for the Republican party was Hillary Clinton and her illegal voter base (whether it be dead people
or illegal immigrants). To identify and analyze the discourse community, the first step is to define a

clickbait article; posted by Conservative Fighters, the select article is titled THIS Was Just Revealed

About Hillarys So-Called Popular Vote Win, Shes BUSTED! which claimed three million illegals voted

for her and it utilizes a plethora of clickbait strategies. First, it emphasizes a cliffhanger approach to

the title where it baits users into clicking on the article to find the actual content (instead of finding

details like traditional journalism). Second, the article promotes excitement and shock to further engage

users not only into the article, but into the claim as well. Upon reading the article, there is one sentence

of actual relevance to the popular vote, and zero sentences about studies that justify the articles claim.

The most important part of this whole article is those who respond and comment on it, as they

cement the validity of the article in acceptance and discourse. One comment posted by user LINDA

stated, Killary grow up get over it you loss.go get drunk and beat bill up again or hAVe you orgy.you a

mean bitch and Obama and soras. The first thing noticed (past the atrocious spelling) is the egregious

toxicity. This is defined as insulting words intent on degrading a specific community, in this case the

Democratic party. Another comment posted by user Bettie Carpenter states,

i CAN UNDERSTAND BEELING SORROWFUL WHEN YOU FIRST HEAR THE NEWS YOU HAVE

LOST.AND EVEN GRIEVING FOR A WEEK IS OKAY..i THINK THIS IS ONE OF HISSIE FITS

BECAUSE SHE COULDNT HAVE HER WAY.

bESIDES THAT, SHE IS A CRIMINAL AND SHOULD BE IN JAIL.ALONG WITH SOME OF THE

FBI..AND MORE!!!SO DRY IT UP .AND GO TO YOUR FABULOUS HOME SOMEWHERE OFF IN A

DISTANT LAND.

Here is seen small examples of toxicity, but more prominently is the presence of face value acceptance.

This is acceptance of not only the article, but of other viral topics as well, including FBI investigations

into Hillary, the Lock Her Up headline, and grieving the loss. It is evidenced by the multiple other

comments that there wasnt one person who disagreed with the article or desired actual evidence. This
leads to problems where an uninformed populous vote based on falsified information while verbally

degrading and hating an opposing discourse community.

The Democratic party is not safe from succumbing to fake media and news. TheYoungTurks, a

radically democratic and more so anti-republican media channel discusses silencers on a YouTube

video called, Want To Murder Quietly? Republicans Want To Help proving that clickbait is present in

both sides. The reality is that Republicans do not want to make silencers illegal, but the title has users

thinking otherwise, going all the way as to accuse them of murder. The curious thing to be noted is that

in browsing over 100 comments, not one was in support of the video, but rather exemplified toxic

behavior towards it. This may be due to the accessibility YouTube has, but as a notable democratic news

source it is intriguing that there is no support for them. User BobaComa writes, lol pathetic leftist

PROPAGANDA Libtard subhuman cuckold losers still relying on safe spaces to protect themselves-

HAHAHAHAHA, once again exemplifying the toxicity towards a whole community because of the

representation of one headline. However, in a reassuring note, user Ryan E. comments This is the most

amateurish local-access cable poverty excuse for "journalism" I've ever seen. TYT is a joke. Cenk gets his

ass handed to him almost daily by 100 other youtubers who dismantle his weak shit. I've seen high

school video productions from the 1990s that are more polished than this garbage, at least bringing to

light the nonsensicalness that is clickbait media.

In the realm of contemporary news sources, clickbait as taken off exponentially in its popularity

of use. With such easily manipulated content and a simple layout, it is no wonder so many fall

susceptible to its allure as real, important news. As a result, many accept the clickbait at face value and

in turn perpetuate the stories and at times outlandish claims amongst their communities. Most

commonly found is toxic behavior displays by one discourse community towards another, due to

superfluous claims that promote superfluous behaviors. What needs to return is standards to

journalism; as even larger, commonly reputable, news agencies have fallen ill to this journalistic plague.
Else we will be faced with an increasingly divided political climate, only further fueled by the toxic

behavior promoted through the perpetuated use of clickbait journalism.

 WORK CITED

Angrypatriotmovement. THIS Was Just Revealed About Hillary's So-Called 'Popular Vote Win', She's

BUSTED! Conservative Fighters, Conservative Fighters, 25 Nov. 2016,

conservativefighters.com/news/just-revealed-hillarys-called-popular-vote-win-shes-busted/.

Shaw, Mike. The State of Social Media. ComScore, Feb. 2012.

TheYoungTurks. Want To Murder Quietly? Republicans Want To Help. YouTube, YouTube, 16 Sept.

2017, www.youtube.com/watch?v=7sFzRdTVA4s.