Olena Leipnik – Författare

Trump and Putin in Media Mythologies provides an account of the media portrayal of two presidents—Donald Trump of the United States and Vladimir Putin of the Russian Federation—as mythologized figures.The book delineates the mythologizing strategies media employ to build these two leaders’ narratives and the logic of mythologization of the overall political process. It addresses the construction of the two presidential imageries and the political and cultural needs fulfilled by the archetypes they embody. The volume provides a comparative analysis of two culture-specific narrating strategies that resonate with the two—American and Russian—electorates.This interdisciplinary account combines the areas of media studies, myth studies, political anthropology, and cultural studies. It will also be an essential read for scholars and graduate students interested in political communication, public relations, and cognitive marketing.

This book explores the presidential image of Donald Trump as it is constructed by the media within American national mythology, precisely the frontier myth.By offering an account of three milestones in the development of the frontier mythology in its intersection with presidential imagery, the book shows how the image of Donald Trump fits into the line of "cowboy presidents," together with Theodore Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan. It also offers insights into the reasons for making Russian president Vladimir Putin a part of Trump’s story and a routinely mentioned figure in American presidential politics.Applying the means of philosophical anthropology to this topical issue at the intersection of politics and the media, this volume will appeal to those working and studying in the areas of media studies, political anthropology, American studies, and myth studies.