ABSTRACT
In some ways, the 2016 election simply amplified the patterns of earlier presidential elections, but in other instances, what happened was historic and unprecedented. For millennials, social media is the most cited vehicle for learning about the 2016 presidential politics, while traditional national newspapers are barely mentioned. The 2016 election was replete with disinformation and fake news. The 2016 election saw an enormous increase in the amount and traffic in lies, conspiracies, and warnings of imminent danger. Since the 1960s, presidential candidates have increasingly turned to professional political consultants to help steer them through the primaries and general election. Long before Election Day, Trump was charging that the elections were going to be rigged against him, that the results would be fraudulent. With just three weeks remaining, Trump claimed that the 2016 election would be "a big ugly lie". In 1993, media scholar Thomas E. Patterson wrote a trenchant analysis of the media's coverage of presidential elections.
