How Donald Trump uses

American anxiety
Week 5
http://www.bbc.com
By Jessica Lussenhop
BBC News Magazine
- 25 July 2016 -
Set the context with video
 Donald Trump's remarks accepting the Republican
nomination at RNC 2016
“We will be a country of generosity and warmth. But we will also be a country of law and
order.
Our Convention occurs at a moment of crisis for our nation. The attacks on our police, and
the terrorism in our cities, threaten our very way of life.
…….
I have a message for all of you: the crime and violence that today afflicts our nation will
soon -- and I mean very soon -- come to an end. Beginning on January 20th, 2017, safety will
be restored.

America is far less safe – and the world is far less stable

Nobody knows the system better than me, which is why I alone can fix it. I have seen
firsthand how the system is rigged against our citizens …”
Homicides: +17% in America’s
fifty largest cities.
(Washington : +50%, Baltimore :
+60%)
Chicago: 2000 shooting this year
Officer killed: 50% vs last year
Deportation: 180.000 Illegal immigrants
with criminal records.
YTD 2016 > FY 2015
Immigrant Killed Sarah Root, 21 y.o
from Nebraska
Poverty for African American: 4-in-10
children, 58% unemployed,
Poverty for Latinos: 2 million
Unemployment: 14 Million
HH income: decline by $4.000 Since 2000
Trade Deficit $800BB
GENERAL INFORMATION
• Author:
Jessica Lussenhop, senior staff writers with ±7 years experience (1.5 years in BBC)
• Publisher:
BBC news magazine, highly credible source.
• Purpose of the article:
In accordance with Donald Trump speech and his overall campaign strategy to exploit people’s
anxiety, this article main purpose was to answer
“how Donald Trump uses American anxiety”
“how do voters respond to fear?”
• Type of article:
Descriptive article: offers information in a particular ideas
• Audience/assumed readers:
Have prior knowledge of Donald Trump presidential nomination acceptance speech at
Republican National Conference 2016 and have general understanding of his campaign.
CONTENT
Q1- How Donald Trump Uses American Anxiety?
Donald Trump says the US is in a “moment of crisis”, and he is the only one who can fix it.
Q2- How do voters respond to fear?

Statistics and Facts; Accuracy of Trump speech data and the

importance of accuracy for voters.

Issue Ownership; Republican: issue of immigration, terror and crime.

How Donald Trump
uses American
Anxiety Risk Perception; People aren’t very good at estimating risk or
estimate facts; Riskier when it’s more vivid.

Projected result of the strategy; Gadarian “Stoking fear does not pay
out limitless political dividends”
CLEARNESS
• Organization
• Readability test (http://www.webpagefx.com).
Well written, Grade level 11, should be easily understood by 16-17 years old, 17.89% complex words.
• Brief enough to capture readers focus.
• Some of material is not well organized such as repetition of topics.
• Content
• Focusing solely on people perception of fear instead giving more example and details to
answer the main question as in the articles’ headline.
• The title indicates evaluative article but the article was presented as descriptive.
• Content provided is easy to understand, except “issue ownership”
• Bias:
• Neutral, there is no personal statement of the writers.
• Potential misinterpretation:
• Don’t have enough statistical data to reflect Trump strategy thoroughly
• Meet the objective:
• Partially meet the objective.
• Fail to answer the first question: How Donald Trump uses American Anxiety?
 ACCURACY
Projected result of the strategy Risk Perception

Journal; Perceived Risk: Psychological factors and social implications

(Slovic et al, 1981)
“Subjective judgement, whether by expert of lay people, are major
component of risk assessment” (Slovic et al, 1981)
“one particular important implication of the availability heuristic is that
discussing a low-probability hazard may increase its imaginability and
hence its perceived riskiness, regardless of what evidence indicates.”
(Slovic et al, 1981)

Facts; US Crime Rate Issue Ownership

Journal; Issue Ownership in Presidential Elections, with a 1980 Case
Study* (Petrocik, 1996)
"Candidates do have distinctive patterns of problem emphases in their
campaigns; election outcomes do follow the problem concerns of voters;
the individual vote is significantly influenced by these problem concerns
above and beyond the effects of the standard predictors.” (Petrocik,
1996)
Source : FBI
IMPORTANCE/RELEVANCE
• Context:
Highly relevant, US is in the final phase of presidential election.
Up-to-date and important to readers.
SUFFICIENCY
• Absence of reinforcing example and detail statement related on how
Donald Trump uses American anxiety, and focus more on voters respond to
fear instead.
• Inadequate data availability from trump speech to frame the context
• Supported by multiple sources who are respected in their field.
Newt Gingrich: American political consultant, politician, businessman, historian,
writer and Republican leader, 50th Speaker of the United States House of
Representatives, a candidate for the Republican Party presidential nomination (2012).
Shana Gadarian: Assistant Professor of Political Science, Maxwell School, Syracuse
University; writer of Anxious Politics with 447 citation on Google Scholar.
Emily Thorson: Dual Ph.D., University of Pennsylvania, Political Science and
Communication; Assistant professor of political science of Boston College
Brendan Nyhan: Professor of Government, Dartmouth College
DEPTH AND BREADTH
• The article covered multiple range of key attributes such as risk
perception, issue ownership and data accuracy to enrich the content.
• Should elaborate more background data on issue ownership
• Fail to analyze the behavior changes of the voters which relates the
second question raised by the author at the beginning
• The last point is not followed up by providing examples of Trump’s
solution to the issues.
PRECISSION
• The article is not focus in answering the headlines.
SUMMARY
The article manage to set up a good foundation to enrich our
understanding of trumps strategy and the voters responses towards it.
Nevertheless, some improvement can be made to sharpen the article
such as:
• Focus on one question.
• Rearrange the structure of the paragraphs.
• Equal elaboration for all attributes discussed in the article.
• More data to strengthen the argument.
• Provide a solid conclusion to the question(s).
Questions?