Tweets, Hashtags, and Campaigns: A Multimodal Analysis of Donald Trump’s Social Media Strategy

Abstract

Social media has drastically changed political discourse, offering politicians direct access to connect, engage, and gather voters without discretion. This research paper uses Multimodal Discourse Analysis to examine how Donald Trump's rhetorical and visual Twitter tactics interact, construct meaningful narratives, and influence the public. Kress and Van Leeuwen's framework scrutinizes how Trump's tweets employ ideological, interpersonal, and textual functions to shape views, reinforce dogmas, and inspire participation strategically. Results demonstrate that to cultivate loyalty and control his story, Trump persistently capitalizes words for emphasis, repeats slogans for familiarity, adopts a bold tone for authority, and shares patriotic graphics for identification. While exacerbating polarization, his populist, nationalist, and autocratic language passionately unite supporters behind a cause. Moreover, the blended hashtags, catchphrases, and visual aids in his messages maximize emotional resonance and spread, amplifying influence within the online sphere. These insights highlight social media's growing capacity to define discussions and determine outcomes and multimodality's power in modern political communication. Future studies comparing the multimodal strategies employed by different political figures can help us better understand how the dynamics of online political communication are changing.