Communication ETDs

Publication Date

Summer 7-28-2026

Abstract

When talking about political campaigns, it is necessary to consider the central role of mass media, given that it is still through them that, in many cases, people get (political) information. This occurs particularly via social media, as all media outlets, including legacy media, now use social networks to spread their content (and gain more readers/subscribers).

This dissertation centers on how the New York Times (NYT) covered the 2024 U.S. presidential campaign on its Facebook (FB) page. I critically analyzed how the NYT FB posts represented, verbally and visually, Trump, Biden, and Harris, the major parties’ presidential candidates, primarily reflecting on the newspaper’s (implicit) ideological positions on them as “good” and “bad.” I conducted my investigation using the Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) approach and applying a strong interconnection between CDA and framing theory.

The results let us infer that the NYT FB posts provided more negative coverage of Trump and more positive coverage of Biden and Harris, together with a depiction of the events primarily through strategic and episodic framing and special versions of issue frames.

Language

English

Keywords

mass media, social media, CDA, political communication, presidential campaigns

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Communication

Level of Degree

Doctoral

Department Name

Department of Communication and Journalism

First Committee Member (Chair)

David Weiss

Second Committee Member

Ilia Rodríguez

Third Committee Member

Jessica Feezell

Fourth Committee Member

Marco Briziarelli

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Available for download on Friday, July 28, 2028

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