In the modern political setting, it seems practically every week we have a new comment or action by our current President, Donald Trump, that becomes a topic of interest across news circles. One of the more recent and rather disturbing comments was the bold suggestion that Sweden was victim to a terrorist attack the night before his big rally on February 18th (Trump on Sweden Clip). Trump asserted his claim was based on a previous Fox news report on the immigration policies of Sweden, and claimed that he meant that crime in Sweden was increasing as a result of their immigration policies, not that they were victims of a terrorist attack (Source). As interesting as this scenario is, it merely provides context for a very interesting news report by Fox News the week following his comment. This follow up interview session was not the source of where Trump claims his comment originates, but appeared to further discuss the immigration policies of Sweden. During Bill O'Reilly's segment on February 23, he interviewed two Swedish nationals as to find out their perspectives on the Swedish immigration policy effects (O'Reilly Factor Segment). One of the the Swedish nationals was a reporter for a Swedish news agency, while the second was described as the Swedish National Security Adviser, his name being Nils Bildt. Nils Bildt was extremely opposed to the immigration policies of Sweden, and confirmed that the country was much more dangerous because of how many immigrants Sweden takes in. After the release of this interview, many Swedish officials must have been confused. According to a report by Dagen's Nyheter (Source), a Swedish news agency, no officials in Sweden are even aware of who Nils Bildt really is. In their report, they discussed finding that Nils Bildt is actually Nils Tolling, who emigrated to the US in 1994. Not much else is known about Nils Bildt, except for that Dagen's Nyheter also claimed he served a year in a US prison in Virginia for a violent offense. Washington Post was able to get a response from Bildt via email, and he confirmed that he was not a National Security Adviser for Sweden, affirming those claims, but he denied serving any prison sentence (Source). He also proclaimed being a self-taught expert, though he didn't release any credentials to verify his expert status. An interesting note: Politifact also looked at claims concerning Swedish immigration problems, and found most of the claims asserted on behalf of immigration linked to violence is a misrepresentation of the data (Source).
This news report by Fox News has received mixed responses. Opponents of Trump are often using it to criticize Donald Trump claims of "Fake News" by showing that his favorite news network uses fake news to support his claims (e.g. Youtuber example, NY Times, Esquire). This is interesting backlash for a President who has continually asserted that the media is reporting fake news on his claim. Surprisingly, it appears that the message by Nils Bildt, in support of Trump's claims, has been much more effective to those who counter the claims than to those that actually support the claims. The message of a fake expert to support Trump's claims has become a powerful tool for his opponents to de-legitimize Trump's fake news assertions, and his claims on immigration. Despite the controversy surrounding the fake expert, some supporter's of Trump's ideas on Swedish immigration problems continue to assert these claims, but ignore the Nils Bildt portion of the interview and instead continue to push the ideas of Trump (Example). In fact, the previous example tries to demonize the other Swedish interviewee, and even call her an agent of fake news, ignoring the Nils Bildt controversy entirely.
Overall, it appears evident that this example is a prime example of fake news, and remains interesting as to how supporters and opponents of the ideas either ignore or demonize the fake expert.
This is, in fact, a prime example of "fake news;" and, frankly, is the sort of thing that may happen more often than people realize. Given how the 24-hour news cycle contains many hours that require constant programming to fill, those hours are increasingly spent with panels of "experts" who then debate - or just argue about - whatever issue is in front of them. It's disheartening that a prime-time show like O'Reilly would resort to this sort of chicanery, yet the prime-time news shows generally would appear to be increasingly based on propaganda and spin than on information and news.
ReplyDeleteIn our course, we are learning critical techniques that will allow us to discuss how different messages ultimately had the impact that they did. While this is an excellent example of what anyone would call "fake news," the larger context of the Trump/Sweden story contained many twists and turns - many assertions, retractions, and efforts to both support and undermine the basics of Mr. Trump's original tweet.
You do a good job commenting on the backlash, etc. from this story. For that reason, I might suggest that you take a closer look at this entire episode. Trump's inclinations toward casual tweeting are the most unconventional sort of presidential rhetoric in history. It is very intriguing to watch different news organizations cover this type of communication - is it literal? is it meant to be taken literally? is it symbolic? is it nothing more than a type of "fishing story" where the size of the fish will always be a little exaggerated for effect? Ultimately, the artifact you should choose for this analysis would be more representative of a larger story or narrative. I'd suggest that Mr. Bildt's appearance on O'Reilly was not particularly important, nor did what he said on that show necessarily change public opinion in any real way. Remember that rhetorical analysis is most useful when it is applied to important messages. This is a good area - but I'd say the more significant "propaganda" effort is found in the severe adversarial relationship between this administration and the left-leaning media.
Good stuff - lots of potential. Please let me know how I can help!
I agree, I think the best direction from here would be to focus on Trump's initial claim which sparked all of the interest, and use segments like this one, as well as articles from other major news sites in response to this as my background. Clearly I'm still unsure of the best critical approach to take, but I can decide that later.
ReplyDeleteThis whole episode as a whole is extremely interesting. The comment originated during one of the first campaign style rallies since Trump took office, and it was a big deal for a lot of his supporters. I think there's room to expect that opponents of Trump were just looking for something to go wrong with it, but I feel it doesn't fully justify such a colossal mistake as to falsely name a country as a victim of terrorism that Trump made. Most of the leftist media and Trump critics responded by highlighting on this mistake (NYTimes, CNN, NBC, etc.) while right-wing media (Fox et al.) largely continued to push that he wasn't referring to a single attack, but a general unrest, which Sean Spicer also claimed. Trump himself vaguely tweeted that his comment was based on a Fox News report, but didn't elaborate further.
This "fake news" pushed by Trump is interestingly not from his twitter, but rather by more conventional means, which interests me in particular because it gives us better insight into his style of communication by using more familiar approaches as opposed to less conventional and less studied fields like social media. His entire speech during this particular presidential rally is very interesting, but I think the Sweden and immigration segment would be more manageable for me to tackle and analyze.
Well, as with many of Mr. Trump's seemingly outrageous claims, as time goes on and more facts are investigated, the initial "outrageous" classification often needs to be toned down or qualified. In recent weeks, there continue to be troubling stories emerging from Sweden, as well as other stories clearly designed to "debunk" the narrative that this region is being severely disrupted by waves of immigrants who are not being smoothly integrated with the existing fabric of society. And, as with many stories that got their start as Trump tweets, the Sweden "crisis" evolved into yet another symbolic event where the president is smeared as an unbalanced liar by opponents and accepted as a crude, but generally accurate communicator by supporters.
ReplyDeleteThe nature of social network media renders a single tweet as just a very small portion of the larger message. The basic issue here would be the selection of a particular artifact. Perhaps, rather than a particular speech, you might consider looking at a series of tweets - perhaps all of those pertaining to Sweden? You mention how "conventional means," rather than Twitter, are how "fake news" is "pushed by" this administration. I would suggest that conventional news outlets use the tweets as raw material from which to generate news content. There are innumerable potential choices here as far as a specific artifact. I like the area. Please let me know how I can help.