Does swapping the race and gender of Communicators affect perspectives on Leadership & Securitization? Donald Trump and how people feel about his words coming out of other peoples mouths.

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to delve further into the social experiment undertaken by associate professor of economics and political science at Insead, Maria Guadalupe, and associate Professor of Educational theater at New York University Joe Salvatore, in their breakthrough ethnodrama gender swapping study titled “Her Opponent”, and see if through a quantitative analysis it showed us similar results, when the dynamics of not only gender swapping, but also race swapping were applied. The present research examines the perception of Donald Trump through the interpretive guides and theoretical lenses of Symbolic Interaction Theory, Communication leadership, Critical Theory of Communication in Organizations, and Securitization theory, to see if what Donald Trump says and his ideologies would be perceived differently, if what he says was stated by individuals of a different gender and/or race. This research wanted to find out: Does swapping race and gender of Communicators affect perspectives on Leadership & Securitization? The method used to test this research question were two online surveys created using actual Donald Trump quotes concerning leadership or securitization as their field of reference. The research was conducted with the participation of 30 respondents divided evenly into two groups, Group A and group B, with each group given a different survey. Each survey contained 12 questions asking survey respondents on their 6 feelings on each Donald Trump quote or scenario. Group A was given the Donald Trump Survey, which had 11 Trump quotes and one scenario all accompanied by a Trump picture. Group B was given the Gender/Race Swap Survey which had the same Donald Trump quotes and scenario, but was accompanied by a picture of an individual of a different race and/or gender. Also the Donald Trump quotes in Group B’s survey were assigned and designated as originating from the particular individual in the picture, with survey takers in group B not made aware that the quote originally came from Donald Trump. The questions revolved around leadership communication and securitization. The results showed that gender and race both played a large role in altering viewpoints on leadership and securitization when survey respondents were asked their opinions on specific quotes and statements from Donald Trump, versus when they read the same quotes and statements but these quotes and statements were assigned to an individual of a different race and/ or gender. The findings suggest that when the exact same remarks that were stated by President Donald Trump were attributed to another individual of a different gender and/or race, negative bias accredited to Donald Trump from group A was significantly reduced in Group B, and the remark was in many cases seen as a positive proclamation and point of view. Thus the gender and/or race, of the source of the viewpoint, may change interpersonal communication response attitudes, and therefore represent a compelling insight for examining communication phenomena, such as leadership, securitization, and intercultural communication.