The representation of Donald Trump`s presidency: liberal vs conservative leaning media

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THE REPRESENTATION OF DONALD TRUMP'S PRESIDENCY: LIBERAL VS CONSERVATIVE LEANING MEDIA

Shenina E. I.

Annotation

This paper is aimed to examine the way liberal and conservative leaning media represent Donald Trump and his presidency. The results of content analysis showed that they portrayed him differently. While The New York Times was more negative towards Trump, emphasizing the reasons he is unfit for office and is a cold person lacking sympathy, Fox News was more supportive of Trump, showing his capability to successfully perform presidential duties as well as his caring and empathetic side.

Keywords: Donald Trump, American presidency, framing, liberal leaning media, conservative leaning media.

Аннотация

РЕПРЕЗЕНТАЦИЯ ПРЕЗИДЕНТСВА ДОНАЛЬДА ТРАМПА: ЛИБЕРАЛЬНО- VS КОНСЕРВАТИВНО-НАПРАВЛЕННЫЕ МЕДИА

Шенина Елизавета Игоревна - студентка 4-го курса Национального исследовательского университета «Высшая школа экономики».

Данная работа направлена на изучение того, как либерально- и консервативнонаправленные медиа представляют Дональда Трампа и его президентство. Результаты контент-анализа показали, что они изображают его по-разному. The New York Times относится к Трампу негативно, подчеркивая причины, по которым он не подходит для президентства, а также его холодность и безразличие, тогда как Fox News поддерживает Трампа, показывая его способность успешно выполнять президентские обязанности, а также его заботу и сочувствие

Ключевые слова: Дональд Трамп, Американское президентсво, фрэйминг, либерально-направленные медиа, консервативно-направленные медиа.

INTRODUCTION

American presidency is found to be a popular topic in the media, seeing as the president holds a high position, making him a frequently discussed figure that brings a substantial profit to the media [9, 121]. The media itself has a significant role with the power to decide the importance of issues and their depictions, influencing the perceptions of people [23, 2425]. The appearance of Trump phenomenon with his presidential candidacy became a widely discussed topic among scholars. His unique and controversial style prompted intense reaction among people, which was especially beneficial to the American media that took the controversial material Trump offered and provided an extensive coverage of Trump [30, 7-8]. The coverage, however, can be influenced by ideology [14, 8-9]. American media bias was widely discussed by scholars, such as T. T. Lee [25, 4364], R. A. Hackett [17, 229-259], S. J. Farnsworth and S. R. Lichter [10, 91-108]. Historically, liberal leaning media favored democrats and criticized republicans, while conservative leaning media did the opposite [25, 43]. Previous studies, though, showed that since the occurrence of new Trump phenomenon all media, even the media considered conservative and favoring republicans, has been highly negative and critical towards Trump in the beginning of his presidency [29, 1-19]. However, there are no studies on the representation of Trump in the media in his late presidency, and the possible difference in representation between liberal and conservative leaning media. Since the Trump phenomenon is still salient and influential on people's lives, it is interesting to know, how media portray Trump further on in his presidency, and whether they frame him differently. It can contribute to the studies of American presidency, showing the effect presidents like Trump have on the media and American presidency. Thus, the research question is as follows: How do liberal and conservative leaning media represent Donald Trump and his presidency? Consequently, the aim of this paper is to determine the way liberal and conservative leaning media portray Trump and his presidency. The hypothesis is that the liberal and conservative leaning media represent Trump and his presidency in different ways, with the liberal media being more negative and critical towards Trump, and conservative being more positive and favoring. Since there are many types of media, this paper will focus on analyzing one type - newspapers (The New York Times and Fox News).

In this paper, constructivism as a theoretical framework and framing theory are used. Content analysis of the articles published on the web pages of The New York Times and Fox News is offered in order to reveal the ways these media portray Trump and his presidency and possible differences between them. The tasks of this paper correspond to its structure. Firstly, theoretical framework, previous research and method for the analysis are provided to give an insight to the problem. Secondly, a content analysis of The New York Times and Fox News articles on Trump is offered based on predefined frames. Lastly, conclusion describes the results of analysis.

THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

trump liberal presidency media

The process of political communication was first coined by H. Lasswell, who understood it in terms of "who says what, in which channel, to whom and with what effect"[24, 39]. According to S. Chaffee, the structure of politics is affected and shaped by the structure of communication, because communication is an essential part of political activity, moreover, putting constraints on communication leads to limiting the exercise of power [8, 237-238]. Many researchers considered understanding the meaning of events the main direction of political communication, thus, arguing the importance of the use of symbols [23, 24]. Consequently, media was stressed as the main agent in that process as it constructs the reality and meanings using symbols. This environment created by media, where people understand information and reality through media, can have an impact on political reality perceptions, and on politics itself [23, 25]. Therefore, as political communication is directly connected to the use of symbols and constructing the reality, constructivism as a theoretical framework is used in this paper. Constructivism is essentially about the construction of the world, and it is concerned with the political roles of ideas, norms, knowledge, and culture, as well as language and discourse. Moreover, it pays attention to the role of collective understandings of reality and intersubjective meanings and ideas [11, 392, 405]. It states that reality is constantly interpreted and perceived in different ways, and some interpretations can be more powerful and prevalent than others [11, 395]. According to constructivism, the world is socially constructed and agents and structures are mutually constituted [32, 197-198]. Thus, this theoretical framework can be applied to news media in the sense that constructivism perceives the importance of news as an essential part of framing political issues and shaping the debate around them [28, 70].

As can be drawn from the above, political communication theory pays close attention to the connection and interaction between the media and politics. Media has a crucial role in constructing and regulating political culture [6, 426-427]. The relationships of media institutions to political and other societal institutions underwent a major change in 1991, when the technological development took place and new sources of information appeared and expanded among the population. Before that, people had relatively limited interaction with the political sphere and media, whereas after that they became more active, receiving the possibility to interact with each other as well as journalists and politicians. That created a new stage in the political communication, where the digital sphere became the dominant one in the communication, and its influence on politics became of great interest. It stimulated the appearance of the new theories of political communication effects [6, 426-427].

There are three main theories on media effects in the field of political communication: agenda-setting, priming and framing. Agendasetting function of media points to issues and events the audience should think about and consider important; thus, journalists direct attention of the public to concerns that they consider important and deserving of more media coverage. Consequently, the more media coverage issues receive, the more people are concerned about these issues [21, 62]. Another media effect is priming. It is argued that by priming certain aspects of reality and ignoring others news media creates the terms by which political opinions are represented and political choices are made [22, 4]. It has been applied to the research of voting, stating that the public perceive some issues as more important and give them higher weight than other issues when they form their political opinion and evaluate the candidates based on this. The weight of opinions on policy issues is assigned in proportion to the perceived significance of these issues, which derives from the media coverage. The more important the issue is perceived, the more influential opinions about that issue are [21, 63].

These theories, however, do not focus on the news specifically or take into account the tone, particular usage of symbols and structure of the news coverage or the content of texts [27, 13-14]. These important elements of the news are considered in the theory of framing. In contrast to other theories, framing theory pays attention to how people think and talk about issues [28, 70]. As framing theory is the most effective in regard to the presentation of news in media, it is chosen as a theory in the paper. The framing analysis was first proposed by E. Goffman, who argued that a frame is a combination of basic elements that define a social situation according to a set of organizing principles [15, 10-11]. Frames are tools for interpreting the world, and they help people identify and label information [15, 10-11]. It was further developed by W. E. Gamson, who claimed that a frame is a central organizing idea that provides the audience with meaning of events related to a given issue. Therefore, a frame is the way in which newsmakers construct and organize a given story and give the discussed issue a context recognizable by the mass audience [13, 143].

Framing theory was largely developed by Z. Pan and G. M. Kosicki, who claimed the importance of political language. Word choices and their composition in the news texts help identify issues, give them certain meaning, communicate them and induce different representations concerning the given issues in the readers' minds. Journalists use these tools to appeal to their readers' emotions and create a certain atmosphere, which would be auspicious to some political actors and ideologies, but not the others [28, 70]. News media frame can be seen as a tool for interpreting and navigating the news discourse, and this process involves three players - sources, journalists and audience, which construct and develop the news discourse [28, 57-58]. The central place is given to the news texts created by journalists, who put meaning into it. Journalists in turn are guided by their own perceptions of news media and its organization, existing rules concerning the news coverage, and expected responses from the audience. The news presented in media are then interpreted by the audience [28, 5758].

There are some types of framing devices in news discourse that can help in the framing. For instance, syntactical structure of news coverage is connected to the arrangement of structural elements such as a headline, lead, episodes, background, and closure in the text [28, 59]. A headline is the most powerful framing device as it is the most noticeable part of the text that induces the appearance of certain concepts in the minds of audience [28, 59]. Lexical choices of words and labels are important signi- fiers of the presence of a certain frame. The labels used by journalists indicate their own categorizations intended to provoke a particular response from the audience, and in this regard, ideological position plays an important role [28, 62-63].

Ideology influences framing and reinforces it, thus, organization and presentation of information in the news are considered tools for ideology spreading [14, 8-9]. Frames are created through interpreting the issues from different perspectives, and if the angle is the dominant one in the society, the others are then depicted in a biased manner [31, 93-94]. The way information is framed depends on the way journalists choose to present it in their news stories, how they organize it and what they highlight. This presentation, in turn, depends on their own biases and beliefs that affect their readers' perceptions [31, 93-94]. Emerged frames contribute to the creation of ideologies and later become common sense, through which actors, events, their causes and results are identified and judged, thus, influencing the readers' perceptions [14, 10]. The research on the media bias often uses the concept of framing, as it can be quite useful in this instance and reveal hidden biases and assumptions in the news coverage. Bias in news media reinforces its ideology, which creates a framework through which newspapers present events and issues [17, 245248]. Framing, therefore, has significant effects on people, which include shaping as well as alteration of perception and judgement of politicians, political institutions and issues [33, 94].

MEDIA, AMERICAN PRESIDENCY AND TRUMP

Using framing theory with regards to news media helps understand the perception of American presidency in the news, and consequently among the readers, as well as uncover any biases that may be present in the news. Media is found to be a powerful political actor. For instance, W. L. Bennett's theory of press- state relations posits that the media in the case of elite disagreement that results in a debate over an issue, will offer opposing perspectives in the news overage as well, while in the case of elite agreement over an issue, the media will present the summary only of this particular view. Thus, this theory considers media as dependent from and influenced by elite communication [3, 113-124]. However, another view is expressed in the mediatization of politics theory, which states that as the media becomes more independent from the influence of political institutions and turns to be the most important source of information, it starts to become highly influential in politics, and as a result, political actors need to consider the media logic and adjust to it, seeing that their publicity and image largely depend on the media coverage [26, 250-252]. These processes can lead to the increased negativity in media, which tends to turn political news coverage into a planned strategical tactics that affects public perception of politicians and politics in a way that it becomes more cynical and less communicative [7, 51-52]. In addition, it is argued that the critical portrayal of politicians in the news media as well as coverage of conflicts and crises can lead to the creation of mistrust among the public towards the government and alienation from politics [6, 428]. Therefore, the role of news media in politics is becoming more significant.

One of the main topics for discussion among researchers concerns media bias, which essentially means preferential and unbalanced treatment of a given issue or actor [25, 45]. With the emergence of the Internet, it became easier for the public to get the news online through the newspapers' web pages and elsewhere [10, 91-92]. It is a common practice for American newspapers to convince their readers of their trustworthiness and impartiality, for instance, the New York Times and Fox News distinguish their stories by marking some as opinion articles that contain journalists' own perceptions and interpretations with the intention to increase the legitimacy of other news articles and their claims of factuality. As a result, frames in the newspaper's coverage become more truthful in the readers' eyes and accepted by them [28, 62-63]. Overall, newspapers that are considered to be traditionally liberal include, for instance, the New York Times and MSNBC, and those considered to be conservative include the Chicago Tribune and Fox News [57, 348]. Conservatives and liberals in the USA believe that media in the country is biased. Conservatives claim that most journalists hold liberal views and the news coverage is strongly affected by their ideological views, which are against Republicans, capitalism, business and military [25, 43]. They argue that the media coverage is liberal leaning and favors liberal presidential candidates [10, 94]. This claim was supported by some evidence that revealed Democratic candidates being favored over their opponents in some cases, like in 1992 and 1996 [10, 94]. On the other hand, liberals state that news media is largely conservative and promotes conservative status quo as most of it is controlled by the government and large corporations [25, 43]. Still, the journalists as well as the public and even political elites tend to believe that news media is pro-Democratic [25, 44].

American presidents are found to receive a lot of media coverage due to their high position representing the American government and the world superpower. Therefore, this topic brings a substantial profit to the media [9, 121]. The content and the coverage tone of the news concerning the American presidents and the government can have different effects on the politics. Positive coverage can contribute to the success in pursuing their policies. Moreover, if the president administration is presented as an effective one, it is more likely to get high approval ratings, which helps pursue their goals [10, 93]. Strategic and negative coverage, on the other hand, can increase public cynicism and inability to examine the presidency and president's administration [10, 93-94]. Party affiliation of government officials plays a role in the tone of the American presidency coverage. Research shows that those officials not belonging to the president's party are likely to be more negative towards the president. As such, Republican officials are expected to offer more critical and negative comments to newspapers about Democratic presidents and vice versa. It can be said, therefore, that if a news story contains comments from a lot of nonpresidential party sources, the coverage of the story is likely to be negative [9, 126].

Thus, American presidency is a common topic for a news coverage, seeing as the president is the face of American nation. There are three roles of the president, which can be covered in the news and serve as frames, and these are chief executive, political candidate, and private citizen [18, 506]. News coverage of the presidency usually pays attention to events that contribute to the role of the president as a chief executive, such as press conferences and meetings [18, 506]. According to W. L. Benoit and J. P. McHale, voters pay a lot of attention to the personal characteristics and character of the candidate as it is perceived as an important factor in the elections process and functioning of the American presidency. They analyzed personality characteristics commonly raised in American presidential campaigns [4, 319, 331332]. Based on their typology two personal characteristics groups has been found that can be generally applied when discussing the portrayal of American presidents - principled and engaging. The first one corresponds with such traits as honesty, trustworthiness, responsibility, determination etc. Another embodies characteristics like compassion, sense of humor, warmness, lovingness etc. [5, 265]. It is argued that when portrayed in a role of a chief executive or political candidate, presidents are more likely to be depicted in terms of principled characteristics, as they represent a more professional and serious side of the presidency, while engaging traits are more likely to occur when portraying presidents in a role of the private citizen, since they represent a personal side [18, 512-513].

During the 2016 presidential elections, the candidacy of Donald Trump received the highest amount of attention in the news coverage compared to other candidates, making him a dominant figure in the news [16, 2-3]. News media was more interested in the personal lives and characteristics of the candidates as well as the controversies and scandals that surrounded them. Thus, the high news coverage of Trump can be explained by the fact that he provided everything journalists seek for in the story, his actions and words received a response profitable to newspapers, creating a perfect atmosphere for news coverage [30, 7-8]. The tone of news coverage of Trump during general election was extremely negative, even in conservative leaning newspapers that usually support Republican candidates, like Fox News, which was due to all the controversial things he said and done. His experience and abilities for presidency and leadership, on the other hand, were only slightly discussed in the news stories, but received the most negative coverage [30, 10-13]. Moreover, it is proved that presidents in the modern world do not enjoy a positive news coverage in their first 100 days in office as it was before, rather they experience a harsh treatment from the news media, and Trump was no exclusion from this trend [29, 8]. Liberal leaning newspapers, such as The New York Times, offered a highly negative coverage of Trump, and the only newspaper that came close to the favorable coverage of Trump was Fox News [29, 9-12]. Thus, the beginning of Trump's presidency received negative coverage in all news outlets, with a slight exception from Fox News, however, the recent situation remains unexplored.

METHOD

Content analysis is considered the most appropriate method to analyze texts, thus, it is used in the paper. Content analysis is useful in the framing research in political communication as it focuses on the language and analyzes different characteristics of texts and messages that can have a value for the research [34, 32]. Thus, it can be effectively applied to the news coverage analysis. Framing approach to content analysis of news coverage has some distinctive features. Firstly, rather than suppose the meanings in news texts are identified objectively, it perceives news texts as symbolic devices that communicate with individuals who construct the meanings. Secondly, it views the existence of frames in news texts as connected to and dependent on the audience that reads the texts [28, 58]. As was mentioned above, Fox News is one of the biggest news sources, which is considered to be conservative leaning. The New York Times is arguably the leading news source in America, which also has a liberal leaning [3, 113-114]. Moreover, previous research found some differences in tone between these news sources, when covering 2016 elections and Trump's early presidency. Thus, both sources offer interesting insights and were chosen for the analysis. For news stories retrieval official webpages of newspapers were used. The included news articles about Trump's presidency were chosen from one month - March 2019. Opinion articles were excluded from the analysis to focus only on what readers perceive as factual news. Deductive approach to framing implies using predefined frames in order to make the analysis of different sources and their comparison efficient [33, 94-95]. Based on the previous research, two frames were used in the analysis: chief executive and private citizen. The candidate frame is not used, because as of March 2019, 2020 election campaigns have not started. Articles were considered appropriate for the analysis if, firstly, in the title the word "Trump" was used and he was the central figure of the story, and secondly, the word "Trump" appeared at least 5 times in the text. In total 164 articles were analyzed, 71 from The New York Times and 93 from Fox News. The list of the links to all analyzed articles can be found by this link [1]. Titles and lexical choices in the articles were analyzed for the indications of certain frame characteristics existence. These characteristics were then compared between The New York Times and Fox News.

TRUMP AS A CHIEF EXECUTIVE: THE NEW YORK TIMES

As was mentioned previously in the paper, the title of the news story can be an important framing tool. For the big part, article titles in The New York Times paper remained neutral, stating the facts without implying any particular frame characteristics on Trump. However, there were still a lot of titles that offered to frame Trump in a specific way. For instance, some titles described Trump as a dishonest president, who twists facts and provides false claims. ("Trump's Inaccurate Claims on Mueller, Health Care and the Great Lakes"[54]) Many article titles portrayed him as an aggressive and impulsive leader, who is constantly having personal feuds, attacking, insulting and threatening his opponents, as well as accusing them of wrongdoing against him. ("Trump Again Attacks a Dead Senator: 'I Never Will Be' a Fan of John McCain"[36]) He is depicted failing to successfully achieve results due to his own miscalculations and disregard of potential risks. ("How the Trump-Kim Summit Failed: Big Threats, Big Egos, Bad Bets"[19]) By portraying him in these ways, The New York Times article titles frame him as an incompetent, irresponsible and dishonest chief executive, who cannot successfully perform his presidential duties.

Turning to the texts and lexical and stylistic choices used in the articles, similar results can be found. Most of the stories are negative in tone, providing criticism of Trump and portraying him as incapable of fulfilling his duties and performing the role of a chief executive. Some news stories emphasized his difference from any other president, presenting him as an outsider and pointing to his own personalized style of presidency. To Trump, every matter becomes personal, from diplomacy to feuds. In diplomacy, Trump prefers to rely on his own skills of communication, however, such strategy is highly criticized and presented as unprofessionalism from the president's side, which ultimately leads to failure:

"The president is relying on his charm, as well as his ability to read people and improvise, to persuade his counterpart to agree to a difficult structural change... The debacle in Hanoi, the Vietnamese capital, where Mr. Trump... failed to strike a disarmament deal... laid bare a fundamental weakness in his deal making: his belief that bluster and force of personality can bridge deep-rooted differences and lack of preparation" [40].

Another difference in his presidential style is his aggressiveness and impulsiveness, which tend to be expressed in the form of harsh insults and accusations of others. That is the image that Trump himself formed and intends to maintain, but it is seen as another unprecedented strategy, which is not considered fit by The New York Times for the president of the US. He takes all attacks and criticism personally and is always ready to clap back and respond by insulting his opponents:

"President Donald Trump accused backers of the investigation of trying to overturn the 2016 election and attempting "illegally" to claim power. Declaring the country "hurt" by the probe, Trump called his opponents "losers" [2].

Likewise, he keeps having heated personal feuds, which also became a part of his image as a president. However, such personal attacks only deepen the negative tone of his framing and provide more reasons to view Trump as an inadequate president. It is considered as going too far, especially as he continued to insult the dead war hero, John McCain, which caused outrageous reaction and revulsion among people:

"President Trump demonstrated that not even death provides a respite from his wrath on Twitter... The comments... sparked swift condemnation, showing that the president abandons conventional boundaries of civility like not speaking ill of the dead at his peril" [47].

Moreover, Trump's style for presidency is to do everything in his own way, which often means disregarding previous American policies and not listening to his advisors and counselors. This leads him to not thoroughly considering the risks and consequences of his actions and ignoring long-standing traditions and achievements, which was the case, for instance, when Trump recognized Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights:

“Mr. Trump's announcement puts him at odds with international law and decades of American policy" [20].

In addition, The New York Times showed that such style of presidency could result in his own actions coming at odds with the work of his administration, putting it at risk and creating diplomatic problems, which is considered to be careless and irresponsible and does not speak in favor of Trump's capability to successfully fulfil the presidential duties:

“<Trump> accused Mexican and Central American leaders of doing "nothing" to prevent illegal immigrants from coming to the United States - one day after his administration signed an agreement with some of those same leaders aimed at reducing the number of migrants streaming north. Trump's tweets risked undermining his administration's diplomatic efforts on immigration."[45]

Another point for his depiction in the role of a chief executive is his constant need to prove he is doing a better job than the previous administration, promising to make things better, even though there is no evidence of him realizing the claims:

<Trump said> “we're doing something that is going to be much less expensive than Obamacare for the people... There's no sign that his administration has a comprehensive health care plan..." [53].

Furthermore, The New York Times illustrates how he accuses others of doing nothing or not enough to deal with the current problems, at the same time boasting about the impressive results of his own actions, even though these claims are false, and the reality is completely the opposite. Providing false and inaccurate claims is found to be a common case for Trump, who constantly misrepresents the truth and twists the facts. It points to one of the most negative things about the Trump's presidency, which is dishonesty:

“The president lamented that Mexico was making a “fortune" off the United States, and said Mexico's immigration laws were the “strongest immigration laws of anywhere in the world." (Mexico is much weaker than the United States at enforcing its border laws. )" [39].

There was also one article that suggested the comparison between Trump and Brazil's President, whom The New York Times described as an authoritarian leader and nationalist:

“Like other authoritarian leaders Mr. Trump has embraced since taking office, Mr. Bolsonaro is an echo of the American president: a brash nationalist whose populist appeal comes partly from his use of Twitter and his history of making crude statements about women, gay people and indigenous groups" [12].

By pointing to the similarities between them, it can be interpreted as ambiguously calling Trump an authoritarian ruler, especially when the article also showed his affection for authoritarian leaders and contradictions with democratic ones:

“Mr. Trump has repeatedly confronted and challenged the United States' closest democratic allies, including the leaders of Canada, Germany and France, while speaking with glowing admiration about some of the globe's most brutal dictators: Kim Jong-un of North Korea, Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, Xi Jinping of China..." [12].

Thus, framing Trump as a chief executive, The New York Times describes him as unlike any other president, who is constantly defying and breaking norms and doing everything in his own way. His personal feuds and personal diplomacy are highly criticized as being unprofessional and irresponsible, followed with his harsh insults of others as well as disregard of advices, previous policies and even laws, which leaded to highly negative results and risked undermining the work and achievement of the administration. Moreover, Trump is portrayed as a dishonest president, who constantly provided false and inaccurate claims, took credit for the results he did not achieve and did not follow through with his promises. One article even came close to calling Trump an authoritarian leader. Thus, The New York Times is highly negative towards Trump as a chief executive, pointing to his incompetence and failure to perform presidential duties.

TRUMP AS A CHIEF EXECUTIVE: FOX NEWS

Similar to the New York Times, the titles in Fox News, for a big part, showed impartiality and factuality; however, many article titles suggested framing him in different ways. In line with The New York Times, some titles pointed to Trump's impulsive and aggressive nature and hot temper, which often took the form of accusing and insulting others. ("Trump calls Schiff a 'disgrace' for pushing collusion agenda, says Dem may have broken law" [38]) Other titles implied criticism and negative assessment of his actions and presidential style. ("Trump's personalized diplomacy fails as Korea talks collapse" [55]) Still, Fox News provided many titles, which defended Trump and showed his successful accomplishments, determination to fulfill promises and push forward policies beneficial to the country and American people. ("Trump signs executive order aimed at lowering veterans' suicide rate"[48]) Such depictions in the titles show that Fox News is not as negative about Trump as The New York Times and frames him as a different and sometimes hard to deal with, but competent and determined president, who is doing his best to fulfill the promises and contribute to the development of the US.

Turning to the texts, Fox News also pointed to Trump's difference from other presidents, referring to his style to personalize everything. Thus, they portrayed his harshness and aggressiveness taking form of insulting and mocking his opponents and seeking revenge, which is a part of his image:

"<Trump> proceeded to tear into Democrats and the FBI as unintelligent "frauds" who tried desperately to undermine the results of the 2016 election" [44].

Every criticism Trump takes personally and always reacts to it clapping back, which sometimes is seen as a necessary thing by Fox News, however, in other situations continuing such personal feuds is becoming completely unreasonable, indecent and unacceptable, as was the case with the John McCain feud, which caused disapproval of the president and highly negative response towards Trump:

"President Trump is picking a whole lot of fights in recent days, including one with a dead senator. Some of these are battles he should be engaging in, despite what much of the media say. And some are the kind he would be better off avoiding... whether Trump's grievances against McCain are justified is beside the point. He was a war hero who served his country for decades. He is no longer with us. Perhaps it's time for the president to let it go" [42].

He is portrayed as following his own way, when it comes to presidency, which sometimes makes him hard to deal with as he often does not listen to his advisors and, thus, does not thoroughly consider possible consequences of his actions. It shows his determination, however, it also points to his disregard of the risks that occur with the following of such strategy:

"President Trump's fresh push for the elimination of ObamaCare followed a disagreement within the administration, with top officials and Vice President Pence advising against such a move... <cautioning> about the risks of pursuing the case without a "strategy or a plan to handle the suddenly uninsured if the suit succeeds" [46].

Fox News also concurred with The New York Times on the matter of Trump's style of presidency coming at odds with the actions and achievements of his administration, however, it did not explicitly mention negative consequences his actions may have on diplomacy, thus, it was not as critical towards Trump:

"President Trump abruptly announced Friday that he was withdrawing sanctions on North Korea, immediately after his own Treasury Department imposed them..." [50].

In contrast to The New York Times, Fox News offered many articles that portrayed Trump as a capable chief executive, indicating his successful presidential performance, ability to score some impressive achievements, and determination to serve and benefit the country by doing what he considers best. For instance, it provided justification for Trump's intention to fulfil his promise and close the border:

"U.S. Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Kevin McAlleenan... said this week that the border was at its "breaking point," noting that there are not enough agents to respond to the flow of illegal immigrants crossing the U.S.-Mexico border... His agency also tweeted that they saw the highest number of "apprehensions and encounters" in over a decade this week... the president, whose paramount 2016 campaign promise was to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, declared a national emergency in a bid to free up funding for the barrier along the border."[52]

Fox News also had different view on the Golan Heights case, suggesting its positive effect on diplomacy and historic significance, rather than contradiction to the international law and American policy:

"President Trump... signed a proclamation officially recognizing the contested Golan Heights region as part of Israel - marking another unprecedented move by Trump in strengthening U.S.-Israeli relations " [49].

In addition, Fox News defended Trump against critics, who tried to discredit him by showing the flaws in their arguments and indicating that in some cases Trump actually did a better job than his predecessors, for instance, when it came to women in politics:

"President Trump, often criticized for his stance toward women, employs more women as senior advisers than former presidents Barack Obama, George W. Bush, and Bill Clinton did at the similar points in their presidencies... Trump's employment of women as key advisers at this early point in his presidency may be higher than any other president's in history" [43].

Moreover, he is portrayed as concerned about the welfare of people, focusing on protecting Americans and contributing to the development of the country, which showed his fitness for the presidency:

"President Trump signed a new executive order on Tuesday aimed at decreasing the number of veteran suicides and creating a task force of state and local groups to raise awareness of the crisis" [48].

Even though Fox News offered some criticism to Trump's presidential style, it also defended his personal involvement, stating that it benefits the country and makes him a better, more respectable president. His unique style that differs so much from other presidents is what makes him more successful in performing his duties as a chief executive and receives the approval of people: