MEDIA DIAGNOSIS: A NEWS AGGREGATOR’S COVERAGE REGARDING HILLARY CLINTON’S HEALTH DURING THE 2016 U.S. PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION CAMPAIGN

This paper will explore how the online news aggregator Drudge Report presented stories about Hillary Clinton’s health by repeatedly referencing a “cough”. While the website linked to a story highlighting coughing by Clinton at one point in 2007, and to a video on a blog again in 2008, there was little mainstream news coverage until Drudge Report increasingly ran headlines about the subject. Clinton’s health became something highlighted regularly in linked sites and in original content posted on Drudge Report. Without arguing the accuracy of the coverage, nor the veracity of subsequent coverage about Clinton’s or any other candidate’s health, this paper will examine the timing and frequency of such stories. This is a unique study of how a news aggregator eventually set the agenda for other online, print and broadcast media and will be an exploration of how Drudge Report specifically emphasized a particular health angle for its millions for readers. This paper will also detail how the response of other online, print and broadcast outlets, whether complicit or contradictory may have demonstrated cultivation theory, which has been typically researched in respect to film and television entertainment. Studying this specific time frame for this specific story will potentially shed new light on how popular online news organizations can set the conversation and coverage for other media

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