Tweets Win Votes: A Persuasive Communication Perspective on Donald Trump’s Twitter Use During the 2016 US Presidential Election Campaign

Twitter, a microblogging platform, has been increasingly used as a tool for political election campaigns. In an attempt to persuade people to vote for them, candidates and political parties worldwide have begun to incorporate Twitter in their campaigns to disseminate campaign information, promote themselves, and mobilize voters. In the 2016 U.S presidential election, Donald Trump had actively utilized Twitter to promote his campaign and convince voters to support him, which helped him earn a strong presence and huge popularity on Twitter. Eventually Trump even successfully got elected as the 45th US president. Although the rise of Twitter in political campaigns has been studied by researches from different disciplines, there have been very few studies focusing on Donald Trump or his communication performance on social media in the 2016 US presidential campaign. Besides, it is found that there is a lack of studying candidates’ social media use from the perspective of persuasive communication. In order to reveal how Donald Trump was making use of Twitter to influence audiences’ attitudes, this paper will present a content analysis of Donald Trump’s Twitter use from the perspective of persuasive communication. Specifically, the study will investigate the characteristics of messages demonstrated from Donald Trump’s tweets, and examine whether his messages placed an emphasis on certain aspects. The aim of this study is to offer insights into Donald Trump’s Twitter use, particularly about his persuasive communication on Twitter during the political election campaign.