Donald Trump’s Communication During COVID-19 Pandemic On Twitter

Abstract: The year 2020 started with the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. This socio-economic crisis has led to changes in our society as several restrictions were demanded, such as self-quarantining, wearing face masks and social distancing to limit the spread of the Coronavirus. This resulted in a high need for online communication. The United States of America has reached and maintained a high death rate in comparison to other countries. Therefore, this paper researches what are the characteristics of the U.S. President’s, Donald Trump, communication in relation to COVID-19. The paper reviews literature on Trump’s language and communication style, his political incorrectness, and his habits on Twitter communication during the election in 2016. Moreover, it describes theoretical key terms, such as political mediatization, networked society, and further uses Castells’ concept of mass self-communication as a framework for the content analysis. The resource for this analysis is Trump’s official Twitter account, where 4018 tweets were retrieved from March, April, February and June in 2020. Out of those tweets, 638 are COVID-19 related tweets. Key findings show that Trump is using a simple (casual) and offensive tone of voice in his tweets. His Twitter communication demonstrates attacking his opponents and others in a politically incorrect manner while praising himself. Along with negative partisanship and idealization of pressing issues with no coherent and factual arguments. Furthermore, he is using the pandemic as a tool for reaching his political goals, thus politicizing the COVID-19 pandemic on his Twitter account.