Journal articleIssue 12025
Harris vs. Trump: A cross-platform analysis on the 2024 US presidential election through the lens of affordance and self-presentation theory
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authors
Anıl Atay*, Chloé Heyart, Jinzhuo Li, Xi Zeng, Xiao Han*contact author
abstract
This paper presents a cross-platform analysis of the 2024 U.S. presidential election, investigating how the platform affordances of Twitter/X and TikTok influence the self-presentation strategies of candidates Kamala Harris and Donald Trump. Guided by affordance theory, self-presentation theory, and a critical analytics framework, the study comparatively examines the candidates' communication and branding. Using a combination of manual and automated content analysis of official account data collected after the September 10, 2024 debate, the research identifies platform-specific patterns in content, tone, and visual strategy. The findings indicate that candidates adapt their self-presentation to each platform's affordances. On the text-centric Twitter/X, both candidates employ a more formal, professional, and policy-driven approach, using features like threads and retweets to build narratives and critique opponents. Conversely, on the video-based, memetic TikTok, they adopt informal, personality-driven personas, leveraging trends, humor, and influencer collaborations to engage younger audiences. Despite these platform-specific adaptations, the candidates maintain consistent core brands: Trump as a combative, dominant leader and Harris as a collaborative, solution-oriented changemaker. The study concludes that while platform affordances shape the form and style of political communication, a candidate's fundamental self-branding remains consistent, confirming and extending existing theories on digital political strategy.