Article published in:
Discourses of Fake News
Edited by Scott Wright
[Journal of Language and Politics 20:5] 2021
► pp. 803–823

Fighting an indestructible monster

Journalism’s legitimacy narratives during the Trump Era

| Universität Hamburg
U.S. journalism during the Trump era has experienced numerous legitimacy attacks by the leading political figure. Building on the concepts of institutional legitimacy and intentional trust, this study analyzes legitimation narratives in projections of journalism’s future, using the Harvard University’s NiemanLab Predictions of Journalism from 2017 to 2021. Projectory narratives are meaningful constructions of a field’s future and provide guidance for its actors. The qualitative analysis of a Trump-related subset of predictions (ca. n = 130) convey (1) confrontational narratives of threat, self-reproach, and epistemological authority loss. Confrontational narratives serve to secure consent for suggested transparency and audience relationship building solutions. These (2) solution narratives represent trustification strategies. Lastly, (3) survival narratives aim at regaining authority and agency through legacy mythopoesis and the construction of a cautiously optimistic post-Trump outlook for journalism. Hence, the analysis of projectory narratives reveals how an organizational field collectively prepares for change to regain legitimacy.
Keywords: digital journalism, discourse, disinformation, fake news, future, legitimacy, politics, renewal, Trump, truth
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Literature review
    • 2.1Legitimacy
    • 2.2Journalism legitimacy
    • 2.3Discursive legitimacy signaling
  • 3.Method
    • 3.1Case selection
    • 3.2Material selection
    • 3.3Analysis
  • 4.Findings
    • 4.1Confrontation
    • 4.2Solution
    • 4.3Survival
  • 5.Discussion
  • 6.Conclusion
  • Note
  • References
Available under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial (CC BY-NC) 4.0 license.

For any use beyond this license, please contact the publisher at rights@benjamins.nl.

Published online: 07 July 2021
https://doi.org/10.1075/jlp.21031.lis
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Fighting an indestructible monster