Donald Trump and the News: A Graph Theory Interpretation
With the rise of “fake news” and Twitter as the President’s preferred vehicle of communication, online and television news coverage continue to gain significance in today’s politics. Trump has positioned himself as a Fox & Friends superfan. His active participation as a weekly guest on the show and regular affirmations of the network while in Office continue to reaffirm that claim. As reported in an article in Politico, the Washington Post, New York magazine, and CNN, Trump has repeatedly set his daily (Twitter) policy agenda and commentary in direct response to the topics covered during Fox’s morning news broadcast. The article suggests that Trump’s reliance on Fox to understand current events has created a slippery slope for all of America.
Not only does he advocate for and actively watch Fox’s coverage, but his “fake news” campaign accurately embodies his disillusionment with other broadcasts such as CNN. In a memo by the New York Times on July 24, Trump was reported to have become upset upon finding that the First Lady Melania Trump’s television aboard Air Force One was tuned to CNN. The article goes on to say that this incident is a continuation of his increasing reliance on selective information to conform to his own narrative.
Trump’s perceived reliance on a singular news conglomerate is best illustrated as a network where links exist if one source relies on another for information, and a positive edge exists where both nodes believe the other to be a valid source of information, and negative otherwise. While there exist many news platforms and relationships, for simplicity we will reduce the nodes in this network to be Trump, Fox & Friends, Trump’s advisors, and White House Staff, America’s intelligence agencies, and other news sources deemed “fake news” by Trump. The previously mentioned articles indicate that strong ties lie between Trump, Trump’s advisors, and Fox. However, there also exist increasingly negative links between Trump, “fake news” media and the intelligence agencies (who have been investigating the Trump administration and the impact on Russia in the election), with a positive link existing between the “fake news” media and the intelligence agencies. In this simplified model there exist two stable triads consisting of the all-positively linked nodes and the one-positive-and-two-negatively linked nodes, respectively. The concern arises out of the stability of these two networks: these echo chambers of thought and information may foster a more radically conservative and uncertain White House while infuriating supporters CNN and other media outlets and other non-conservatives, who are attempting to affect change in their communities and challenge previously-held social norms.