{"id":3598,"date":"2026-03-08T19:06:49","date_gmt":"2026-03-08T19:06:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/iranians.global\/news\/?p=3598"},"modified":"2026-03-08T19:34:54","modified_gmt":"2026-03-08T19:34:54","slug":"how-trump-plays-with-new-media-says-a-lot-about-him-as-it-did-with-fdr-kennedy-and-obama","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/iranians.global\/news\/how-trump-plays-with-new-media-says-a-lot-about-him-as-it-did-with-fdr-kennedy-and-obama\/","title":{"rendered":"How Trump plays with new media says a lot about him \u2013 as it did with FDR, Kennedy and Obama"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Sara Polak, University Lecturer in American Studies, Leiden University<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

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\n There is a strange and worrying parallel between the breakneck speed at which Donald Trump has operated in the first few months of his presidency and the ever-accelerating pace at which information moves on social media platforms. Where in his first term he used Twitter, now, the 47th US president is using his own platform, TruthSocial, to announce changes of direction that are sometimes so fundamental that they change decades of US policy.<\/p>\n

Social media has become a key tool of governing for Trump\u2019s administration. He uses it both to make announcements and to drum up support for those announcements. His social media posts can move the markets and make or break careers. They can even, it seems, stop wars<\/a>.<\/p>\n

So when he used TruthSocial<\/a> to announce a ceasefire between Israel and Iran on June 23, giving the two countries a deadline to stop firing missiles, it appears that neither of the antagonists were fully aware of the situation, given they carried on attacking each other. So an all-caps message followed: \u201cISRAEL. DO NOT DROP THOSE BOMBS,\u201d he posted. \u201cBRING YOUR PILOTS HOME, NOW!\u201d<\/a> \u2013 adding, just in case anyone had any doubt he was serious: \u201cDONALD J. TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s use of his TruthSocial platform<\/a> began as he sought to re-establish himself from the political wilderness after the insurrection of January 6 2021. It has now become a tool of his extreme power and his willingness to use (and abuse) it \u2013 globally as well as domestically. <\/p>\n\n

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He\u2019s the latest in a string of US presidents known for their adroit use of whichever is the medium most guaranteed to connect with the greatest number of people. From Theodore \u201cTeddy\u201d Roosevelt\u2019s adept cultivation of print journalists<\/a> in the early 20th century through Franklin D. Roosevelt\u2019s comforting use of radio<\/a> as it gained popularity and John F. Kennedy\u2019s mastery of the rising medium of television<\/a>, presidents have expanded their reach and influence through adept use of media.<\/p>\n

FDR\u2019s \u201cfireside chats\u201d<\/a>, broadcast on the radio throughout the US in the 1930s, reached an estimated 80% of the population, showing he understood the key media principle of reach. Roosevelt would address his listeners as \u201cmy friends\u201d and Americans came to understand them as seemingly intimate conversations with their president. <\/p>\n

FDR dominated the airwaves at a time when many Americans hardly understood the important role that the federal government played in their own lives \u2013 and millions of households were only just getting mains electricity (thanks to the Rural Electrification Act of 1936<\/a>). But radios were becoming a common mass medium<\/a> and FDR perfectly understood how to use it. If you listen to the fireside chats, FDR may sound patrician \u2013 and at times formal \u2013 but his tone is also friendly, thoughtful and reassuring. <\/p>\n

In Germany at around the same time, Adolf Hitler\u2019s massive stadium speeches were very effective for people who were in the stadium and being lifted by the intensity of the crowd and all the carefully thought out visual cues. But when broadcast on radio, Hitler had nothing like Roosevelt\u2019s ability to connect with people on a personal level. <\/p>\n

Roosevelt was hardly the first leader \u2013 or even the first US president \u2013 to speak on the radio. But he was the first to master the medium. He figured out how to use its potential to deliver a key implicit message: that his government should and did take on a central role in people\u2019s lives.<\/p>\n

Equally, John F. Kennedy can be said to have \u201cdiscovered\u201d political television<\/a>. Not just as a medium for political campaigns, debates and speeches \u2013 but also for putting across to a mass audience his role as the embodiment of American decency, beauty and masculinity: JFK\u2019s White House as Camelot.<\/p>\n

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