Abstract
A growing number of books deal with Donald Trump’s attitude to liberal media and his use (and abuse) of the fake news concept. The editors of this volume add to this growing body of literature. They claim that what Trump has ‘achieved’ is to turn reality into a
weaponizable force for anyone with the power to seize and lay claim to it . . . Reality itself was seized, and the valid claims of ‘fake news’ were reversed back against the mainstream media themselves, sucking the reality out of their journalism and out of their profession to leave the accusation and appearance of hollow ‘fakery’. (p. 20)
The book consists of 15 essays on the topic, organised into five parts. Part 1, ‘Killing the Media’, includes the introductory chapter and a chapter on Trump and the press, entitled ‘a murder-suicide pact’ (p. 23). Part 2, ‘Fake News’, comprises of three chapters: on ‘how Trump turned fake news from a weapon of mass deception to a weapon of mass destruction’ (p. 33), on Trump’s war against the media, fake news and social media, and on the war of images. Part 3, ‘Reporting Trump: Building the Brand’, focuses on the coverage of Trump. Part 4, ‘The Politics of Performance’, consists of four chapters discussing various aspects of Trump’s ‘performance’ such as celebrity, authenticity and accountability, Trump’s handshakes, Trump and satire as well as ‘professional theatre’s resistance to hegemonic power over the Trump presidential election and Brexit referendum’ (p. 159). The final part, ‘Media Out of the Margins’, includes three chapters on Trump and memetic warfare, Trump and Facebook, and conspiratorialism in the Arab media sphere. All in all, the book consists of an interesting selection of essays. There is no conclusion, unfortunately, so while the main themes are somewhat identified in the Introduction, the editors could have made a better job of linking and bringing the various contributions together in a concluding chapter.