‘Little handed losers’ storm White House golf course and dream big; demand no collusion without representation: A perceptual analysis of ‘fake news’ and the American Social Consciousness following the 2016 U.S Election

Abstract

In the months leading up to the 2016 U.S Presidential election, popular discourse and national news media sources predominately predicted that Hillary Clinton would comfortably defeat Donald Trump at the polls. As the voting results came in on November 8, 2016, quantitative polling models for predicting state and district outcomes imploded live — America appeared to be a much different country than its dominant institutions of media and government were aware of. After the election I began to listen more to political conversations and found that many of my peers or acquaintances from Michigan felt like the ways in which their identities were grouped demographically did not paint a thorough enough picture of their life situation or concerns. I conducted my study through a series of conversations with five people about the effects of the election on their identity. By looking at theories on perception, media, memory, and identity formation; it is my hope to paint a picture of American culture that conveys the depth of its cultural disarray and confusion.