Issue And Attribute Agenda In The 2016 American Presidential Election:Exploring The RT-candidate Relationship

Although the 2016 U.S.presidential election has passed for a long time,the accusations of Russia interfering the election and the discussions about the Russia Gate have become increasingly fierce.Meanwhile,as an important international media of Russia,RT has been regarded as a media tool for the Russian government interfering the election.Starting from the agenda setting theory,this paper made a comparative analysis between the media agenda of RT and the agenda of the two presidential candidates during the 2016 U.S.presidential election,exploring the above issues from the perspective of media agenda.The study found that in the 2016 U.S.presidential election,RT's agenda was highly consistent with Donald Trump's agenda,while the agenda of RT was irrelevant to Hillary Clinton's agenda.Specifically,on the issue agenda,RT was highly consistent with Trump at both self and attack levels.Furthermore,the main issues and attentiveness between RT and Trump were also consistent.On the attribute agenda,both RT and Trump focused on Trump's ideological attributes and positive news,while they both released a lot of negative news about Hillary.By contrast,there were huge differences between RT and Hillary not only in the substantive attributes but also in the emotional attributes.In a conclusion,the high correlation between RT and Trump's agenda showed that RT may interfere with the 2016 U.S.presidential election and tried to help Trump to win,however,the results could not prove the existence of the Russia Gate.