Yeah Hillary, what happened? : A communications study of the second 2016 presidential debate in the USA

This essay aims to analyze how Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump communicated verbally and non-verbally during the second presidential debate of the 2016 US election. To do this the essay utilizes a method focused on analyzing actio. The essay also analyses main trends in the rhetoric’s of the candidates. To aid the findings from this analysis the essay takes support from theories such as Impression management, footing, face as well as different theories in representation, including stereotypes, gender in politics and the construction of otherness. The results that the study reached where that very little critic could be raised towards Clinton's actio except for questioning how effective her choice to face the live audience instead of the tv audience was. That only a few major errors could be found in Clinton's actio & her rhetoric as well, was theorized to be due to the stark contrast of her errors against Trump's which many times where a lot worse. The study also found some similarities in how to candidates used similar rhetorical and, to some extent, actio techniques to compel their audience, thou stark differences could be found in the execution of said techniques. Further the study could not point to any definite female or male use of body language, but theorized that this is due to the nature of a political debate and how Clinton might have adapted to the male dominated world of politics. Finally, in the end discussion a speculation was raised that whoever the audience perceived as a “winner” of the debate came down largely to pre-perceived notions of each candidate at least when it came to body language and rhetoric.