President Donald Trump and CNN have an ongoing "Twitter war," and it actually carries significance beyond Internet memes.
Trump reposting a video of him physically assaulting CNN.
Trump and CNN often use langauge that indicates distaste toward each other.
Does Trump really attack CNN, and does CNN really report neutrally? This can be analyzed using Aylien, a sentiment analysis program based on natural language.
Aylien provides a positive or negative rating on the text, with a confidence score between 0 (not confident) to 1 (100% accurate). Don't believe it? Read tweets for yourself.
If Trump mentioned "CNN" in his most recent tweets from personal account (@realDonaldTrump), they'll populate below with sentiment analysis.
On the flipside, if CNN mentioned "Trump" recently from their main account (@CNN), international account (@CNNi) or breaking news account (@CNNbrk), they'll populate below with sentiment analysis.
Thirty tweets at maximum are analyzed in order to not reach the cap that Aylien allows. CNN tends to mention Trump more than Trump mentions CNN, as CNN is a news network.
Here are the most recent tweets that include "Trump" or "CNN," including mentions. These tweets are often polarized. Tweets that include "fake," "fradulent", "lie," "lying," "stupid" or "idiot" are highlighted.*
CNN is one of the largest news companies in both the United States and the world. Given CNN's size, Trump saying CNN is fradulent without solid evidence could be interpreted as an attack on journalism.
Here are the locations of CNN's bureaus for context. Headquarters are shown as stars, with the world headquarters in red.
The Twitter war between Trump and CNN indicate more than just the tensions that stemmed from the 2016 national elections. They're symptomatic of a larger problem.
On the other hand, one could consider that CNN wasn't flourishing before the 2016 national elections. In a "weird symbiosis," giving Trump media attention helped CNN regain footing. Could that mean that Trump's comments aren't a bad thing after all?
Probably not. Trump tweets videos of CNN getting beat up. CNN boycotts the White House Christmas party. One of these actions is violent and encourages the American public to be violent.
Look again at the tweets from the live feed. Many users accuse CNN of being "fake." Although most commonly directed toward CNN, many other media outlets have been called "fake news." There is a larger-scale devaluation of journalism. People are feeling more inclined to call news "fake" simply because they don't like it.
Finally, the Trump-CNN feud is indication that the public is becoming more polarized. Many tweets in the live feed are intense. People type in capital letters and swear. Journalism is getting caught in the crossfire. █