Title
FAKE NEWS AND INDIFFERENCE TO TRUTH:DISSECTING TWEETS AND STATE OF THE UNION ADDRESSES BY PRESIDENTS OBAMA AND TRUMP
Authors
Abstract
State of the Union Addresses (SOUA) by two recent US Presidents, PresidentObama (2016) and President Trump (2018), and a series of recent of tweets by
President Trump, are analysed by means of the data mining technique, sentiment analysis. The intention is to explore the contents and sentiments of the
messages contained, the degree to which they differ, and their potential implications for the national mood and state of the economy. President Trump’s 2018
SOUA and his sample tweets are identified as being more positive in sentiment
than President Obama’s 2016 SOUA. This is confirmed by bootstrapped t tests
and non-parametric sign tests on components of the respective sentiment scores.
The issue of whether overly positive pronouncements amount to self-promotion,
rather than intrinsic merit or sentiment, is a topic for future research.
Keywords
Sentiment Analysis, Polarity, Bootstrapped t tests, Sign tests
Classification-JEL
A1, C88, C44, Z0
Pages
180-203