Frames of Wall Street – How America’s Candidates Perceived Financial Markets During the Presidential Campaign in 2016 – Reconnaissance

Abstract

In this article, the author presents the concept of framing and analyzes various frames of Wall Street which occurred during the 2016 presidential elections in presidential candidates’ statements. Referring to Robert M. Entman (1993), the author of the article comments on how presidential candidates were perceiving Wall Street (the role, function and challenges) during the 2016 presidential campaign in the United States and, ipso facto, trying to set in public discourse, through media, using specific frames of capital market. What kind of frames did they use when they were discussing about financial markets in the campaign? Thanks to such sources like Investopedia.com or Ballotopedia.org, the author has gathered and analysed several (almost 80) presidential candidates’ speeches and statements dedicated to Wall Street. The author came to the main conclusion that almost each of the presidential candidates proposed to media and, in consequence to voters, mostly negative perception of Wall Street by using – according to Russell Neuman, Marion R. Just and Ann Crigler (1992) as well as Holli Semetko and Patti Valkenburg (2002) – "conflict", "attribution of responsibility", "morality" and "economic consequences" frames.