ABSTRACT
This chapter describes and discusses how the digital and social media outlets disrupted political discourse and participation in 2016 presidential election and illustrates how communication technologies are impacting our continuously evolving digital democracy. After long and hard-fought primaries for both political parties, 2016 general-election candidates were chosen by a very polarized electorate. New York real estate billionaire Donald J. Trump clinched the Republican Party's nomination on July 22, 2016, and former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton clinched the Democratic Party nomination on July 26, 2016. Many anti-Clinton attacks came from and were amplified by emails and documents that were hacked from a cyberattack on the Democratic National Committee and an email phishing hack on Clinton campaign manager John Podesta, and subsequently released on the anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks. Both Clinton and Trump had digital teams who were very adept at using social media platforms to develop the right data-driven messages, more so than in any previous elections.
