What Goes Around Comes Around

Sammanfattning: Title: What Goes Around Comes Around Seminar date: 15th of January 2021 Course: FEKH49, Business Administration: Bachelor Degree Project in Organization, Undergraduate level, 15 University Credits Points Authors: Frida Briggner, David Mirosavic, Rebecca Tisén, Carolina Wester Advisor: Nadja Sörgärde Keywords: Leadership, Donald Trump, Media, Social constructionism, and Social Contagion Purpose: The purpose of the thesis is to investigate how two equally strong perceptions of the same leader are created based on the media's role in society. To examine this, we will study CNN and Fox News’s portrayals of Donald Trump´s leadership. More precisely, we intend to increase the understanding of how there can be such different images of the same person´s leadership. Research question: How do CNN and Fox News portray Donald Trump´s leadership? Methodology: To actualize the purpose of this thesis a qualitative document study with an abductive approach has been conducted. Further, a discourse analysis with a narrative orientation was implemented. Theoretical perspective: The theoretical framework consists of an introduction to leadership. Further, a follower-centric perspective is conducted with a focus on the social construction of leadership by the media. In addition, Grint's Conceptualization, Social contagion, as the use of Stories are described. Result: We found that the two news media relate to different perceptions of what constitutes leadership and used dissimilar narrations in their portrayal of Donald Trump, which enabled them to present two competing stories. In addition, contrasting to the Social Contagion model, their interaction made the portrayals distinguish even more. Conclusions: To understand how the interaction between the news media enabled them to draw further apart we suggest a nuance to the Social Contagion model that separates positive and negative Social contagion.