Donald Trump is many things: a real estate mogul, a celebrity with a hit reality TV show and, possibly, a Republican presidential candidate.
In a media world driven by clicks and search engines, is Trump also the first presidential hopeful egged on by Google trends?
The answer: Maybe.
"He's good copy," says Robert Lichter, director of the Center for Media and Public Affairs at George Mason University. "There's an unspoken collusion between journalists who are happy to have someone like this to sell papers and increase clicks and Trump happy to raise his image, which he leverages to make more money."
Dan Kennedy, an assistant professor of journalism at Northeastern University, attributes the spike in Trump's media coverage to his celebrity status. But does that mean Trump is being taken seriously? He says no.
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By John W. Adkisson, Getty Images
"It doesn't hurt that he says outrageous things," Kennedy says. "We're at the early stage of a presidential campaign. No one feels guilty to giving attention to a non-serious, but entertaining, prospective candidate."
Last week, the economy and President Obama were the top news story and newsmaker, according to a Project for Excellence in Journalism analysis of April 11-17.
Trump was the fourth-biggest newsmaker, according to the project's analysis, driven in part by his persistence in news media interviews that there's something wrong with President Obama's citizenship and birth certificate. Obama was born in Hawaii and his birth certificate has been certified as real by state officials.
The so-called birther issue has driven many of Trump's TV appearances, including a much-talked about interview with NBC's Today Show on April 7. He's been a semi-regular on ABC, CNN, Fox News and other networks for weeks.
For the last 30 days, according to Google's Insight for Search tool, searches for Donald Trump far exceed those for potential GOP presidential candidates Sarah Palin, Mitt Romney, Ron Paul and Michele Bachmann. (Of this group, only Romney has formed a presidential exploratory committee.) Searches using "donald trump obama" have jumped 700%.
Trump "is savvy enough to know that there is an audience segment out there that likes thinking about Obama being an alien," says Andrew Rojecki, a communications professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago. "There's a certain emotional satisfaction in hearing this given legitimacy on TV and in the press. It makes people angry and insecure and gives them a ready target for their anxieties."
Al Tompkins, who teaches at The Poynter Institute, described Trump's appeal as not unusual for a provocateur.
"The fact is he is shaping the conversation right now, especially on the birther issue," Tompkins says. "He is an opinion shaper, even if he shapes it by making people disagree with him. It's not a new thing."
Source : http://content.usatoday.com/communities/onpolitics/post/2011/04/donald-trump-presidential-race-google-trends-seo/1
