Donald Trump Has Disappeared From Our Interlocutors

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Former President Donald Trump’s popularity in online discourse has largely declined since he left the White House, according to data shared with Newsweek.

Online mentions of the former chief executive and Google searches for his name began with last year’s election and the events on Jan. 6 – but have since dropped significantly.

Data provided by Brandwatch showed more than 355 million mentions of Donald Trump on what it called the “social web” —including blogs, forums, news sites, and public social media pages and accounts — from the start. of June of last year to the end of July 2021. These mentions do not include his eldest son and name, Donald Trump Jr.

June 2020 was the most seen, with more than 54.1 million mentions. Mentions also exceeded 50 million in October and November 2020, according to figures from Brandwatch’s Consumer Research platform.

The low point was April 2021, with more than 2.4 million — a 95 percent fall from its peak — while in July the figure stood at more than 3.5 million. Numbers read “more than” to account for the likelihood of deleted and or edited posts.

The graphic below shows the number of mentions per month since last June.

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On a daily basis, January 6 is the day with the most mentions of any of the time periods examined, at more than 5.1 million.

The graphic below charts the daily citation over the duration of the Brandwatch analysis.

“Obviously the big conversations in October and November of 2020 were due to the election that took place in early November, and October held two, separate televised debates that tend to provoke discussion online, “Kellan Terry, Brandwatch’s director of communications, told Newsweek.

“June’s conversation escalated due to online reaction and commentary about accusations that Trump was in a White House bunker and the picture of Trump in front of St. John’s Episcopal church.”

Terry said Brandwatch also looks at the daily mention of Trump, which provided a “more dramatic and vivid” picture of how the mention of him has changed. The day with that one mentioned – 5.1 million – was January 6, 2021, the day of the chaos at the Capitol.

“Two days later, Trump has been booted from a lot of online social platforms. You can see how little Trump’s online conversation has been since then,” Terry said.

“That said, Trump is still mentioned tens-to-hundreds-thousands-of-times-a-day. Many, many brands are pleased to have such intense conversations online on a daily basis.”

The graphic below charts the daily citation over the duration of the Brandwatch analysis.

fire watch

Brandwatch also analyzed the sentiment of the mentions, placing them in the broad category of negative and positive.

“For the entire timeframe, Trump’s online conversation was extremely negative with 69.48 percent of the aforementioned category cited in the category going negative,” Terry told Newsweek.

“You can see Trump’s conversation has been a bit more negative since January 2021, but not much more negative when we analyze the sentiment of the conversation on a monthly basis.

“This is a far cry from Trump’s conversation from many years ago. While Trump has always been a polarized figure-with his sentiment in online conversations regularly hovering around 50/50 -his conversation was noticeably more negative within this timeframe. “

The graphics below show the overall sentiment over the time period followed by the monthly breakdown.

Fire guard Fire guard

While Brandwatch numbers show a decline in discussion, Google Trends data also shows a decline in search interest around the term “Donald Trump.”

Trending data shows a figure between 0 and 100 that highlights relative interest in a search term over time.

Looking at the same period discussed above – the beginning of June 2020 to the end of July 2021 – interest reached around 100 around last year’s presidential election.

Subsequently, there was an increase between January 3 and 9, the period of time during which the riot took place at the Capitol, where it hit 57. By the end of July, the figure was at 4. The lowest point on the measured period before Trump’s departure from the White House was 17.

The screenshots below show the Google Trends data chart around searches for “Donald Trump” during the periods June 2020 to July 2021 and June 2015 to July 2021.

Google Trends Google Trends

In retrospect, from the month Trump announced his candidacy – June 2015 – until the end of July 2021 there was a sharp decline in search interest.

At the time, by the time Trump won the 2016 election search was at the top 100 mark.

There was an increase at the time of his inauguration, to 58, and another in the 2020 election, rising to 57 in November 2020.

In June 2015, it was at 20 while in July 2021 the number was at 5. Some of the variation between those figures may have been affected by a change in Google’s data collection in January 2016.

In office, Trump has more power to generate news and media outlets are more tied to reporting on him. But as a former president no more, Jon Herbert, senior lecturer in the school of social, political and global studies at Keele University and co-author of Donald J. Trump’s The Ordinary President, told Newsweek.

Rejecting that effect is not necessarily out of the ordinary for an outgoing president-but for Trump it is even more remarkable because of his approach to the media throughout his tenure, Herbert suggested.

“Trump can’t come up with a lot of news,” Herbert said. “He is behind the entire force of the federal government – even if some of them use knives – in terms of making stories in various areas of policy. The media is obliged to seize them as he is. is president; you can’t ignore the presidency because those words have an impact on many different levels.So, like it or not, the media got to magnify his every action.He understood that and played it. .

“Now, he’s another citizen: Why should so many outlets pay attention? There’s certainly some proper bargaining in Trump’s name for attention from their readers and viewers – the stories involving him are still popular with consumers. of the media to the right – but, if you like, the level of magnification is reduced.

“It happens to all outgoing presidents, but its optics are magnified in this case because Trump’s presidency is overly media -driven.”

Herbert said that while Trump’s bans from many social media platforms will have an impact on his ability to influence the conversation, it is “a mistake to overstate its importance even in Trump’s example. “

“I think he’s fighting for the same level of coverage now even though he has access to Twitter-we’re discussing‘ social media ’but basically, he tweets and the campaign / White House makes sure it comes out in other platform, ”Herbert said.

“The conventional media attention is still dropping because he is no longer president and it gives them more choice whether they cover what he said or not.”

Andrew Chadwick, professor of political communication at Loughborough University and author of The Hybrid Media System: Politics and Power, has given more weight to social media suspensions.

“It’s inevitable that Trump’s previous strategy of trying to hit his online base and mandate news circulation with incendiary tweets won’t work the same way now that he doesn’t have a Twitter account,” Chadwick told Newsweek.

“Trump now needs to rely on social media substitutes to do that for him. There are many of those, but they can’t be reduced as effectively as he used to.

“Social media is based on an economy of attention. It’s not enough to post press releases on your website and expect other people to post them on Twitter.”

Chadwick highlighted that the poll still indicated high support for Trump in the elections.

“So, we have an intriguing situation, where support for conservative politics remains high in U.S. elections but the main organizing force for that movement has no public profile that he previously did,” he said. .

“It’s likely to open up a gap for new conservative Republican leaders to fill the gap online.”

Newsweek contacted the former president’s office for comment.

Former US President Donald Trump is preparing to speak at the Rally To Protect Our Elections meeting on July 24, 2021 in Phoenix, Arizona. Brandon Bell / Getty Images

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