Donald Trump’s Political Journey through 5 Modes of Communication

Presidential candidates are constantly communicating their plans, values, and ideas for how they are going to effectively run this country. Donald Trump, the republican candidate, attracts audiences (both positively and negatively) through the ways he communicates to his audiences.   The modes in which he chooses to communicate with his audience can be analyzed using 5 modes: aural, visual, gestural, spatial, and linguistic. I will be using personal views and opinions to express how I experience all 5 modes of communication.

Aural communication is the mode of hearing. The way in which his audiences audibly hear words he says, and noises he makes, effects how he delivers his ideas. For example, if the Presidential debate was written as a script, and audiences had to read the political banter versus audibly hearing it, the experience would dramatically changed. Trump’s voice is a very unique element to his personality. Popular shows such as Saturday Night Live and Jimmy Fallon, have a great deal of fun simply impersonating how he speaks. His voice serves as an identifier that audiences can distinctly hear, and his voice allows him to further attach what he is saying to who he is. Infamous video scandal that has immensely shaped his campaign features the voice of Donald Trump during a conversation while the camera is only showing the outside of the vehicle he is riding in. From the minute the video starts, audiences immediately identify the person inside the car as Donald Trump, just by audibly hearing his voice.

Watch video here: http://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2016/10/07/donald-trump-women-lewd-comments-origwx-cs.cnn

In terms of the offensive content, I will save that for a different mode of communicating. Aural communication considerably impacts the way in which audiences receives auditory content.

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Visual Communication plays an enormous factor in how Donald Trump communicates. As for me, watching television is my primary news outlet. Key word of that sentence is “watching,” meaning I am visually absorbing all of my news. The television is a prime example of aural communication combined with visual communication. Trump’s visual actions have caused him some trouble in the past during his campaign. In the photo below, Donald Trump is mimicking a disabled reporter who attended his rally. Obviously, this did not sit well with the general public because of how enormously offensive this action is. Trump’s poor use of visual, gestural, linguistic, and aural communication generates a negative impact on his campaign.

Every time Trump, or any one for that matter, is publicly broadcasted, he is communicating using all 5 modes of communication. This is known as being “multimodal.” No one specific mode can thrive with out another, and they all work in harmony, or in Trump’s case chaos, to convey a message or express an idea.

Featured Image found at: https://openclipart.org/detail/256533/donald-trump-cartoon-2

Image in post found at: http://www.redstate.com/leon_h_wolf/2015/11/27/can-donald-trumps-mockery-disabled-reporter-defended/

One thought on “Donald Trump’s Political Journey through 5 Modes of Communication

  1. REally nice focus on the “aural” and visual in this post! How would you describe the way he sounds and looks? Did you mean “visual” or “gestural” in your analysis of the photo above?

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