False reasoning and argumentation in the Twitter discourse of the Prime Minister of Israel

2018 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 58-78 ◽  
Author(s):  
Salomi Boukala
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Political Discourse ◽  
Prime Minister ◽  
Political Agenda ◽  
Argumentative Discourse ◽  
Security Issues ◽  
Critical Discourse Studies ◽  
Discourse Studies ◽  
Islamist Terrorism ◽  
Discourse Historical Approach

Abstract This paper explores the Twitter discourse of the Prime Minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, regarding security issues and the threat of ‘Islamist terrorism’ as manifested in the latest election campaign (March 2015) and his tweets and statements on Operation Protective Edge (July – August 2014). By focusing on national security and the underlying threat of terrorism against Israel and the West on Twitter, I argue that Netanyahu disseminates his political agenda further and attempts to communicate political decisions on the Gaza conflict in a digital environment. By synthesizing Aristotle’s dialectic and rhetoric and the Discourse Historical Approach (DHA) to Critical Discourse Studies (CDS), and drawing on the concepts of topos and fallacy, I attempt to understand and explain how the Gaza conflict is communicated on social media by the Israeli Prime Minister. My aim is also to shed light on the validity of social media in political discourse and to examine whether and how social media can play a role in the propagation of political discourse in times of crisis through an argumentative discourse analysis of the tweets posted by the Prime Minister of Israel.

scholarly journals Far-right discourse as legitimacy? Analysing political rhetoric on the “migration issue” in Greece

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-13
Author(s):  
Salomi Boukala
Keyword(s):  
Critical Discourse ◽  
Political Agenda ◽  
Law And Order ◽  
Far Right ◽  
Political Discourses ◽  
Depth Analysis ◽  
Critical Discourse Studies ◽  
Discourse Studies ◽  
New Democracy ◽  
Discourse Historical Approach

This article advances research on the normalisation of far-right rhetoric on the “migration issue” by analysing statements from the current Greek prime minister, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, and the ruling political party New Democracy political figures. Having presented the discourse-historical approach (DHA) from critical discourse studies (CDS) as a suitable theory and method of analysis of political discourses, I use an argumentative-based DHA approach and add the argumentative schemes of Aristotelian topoi and fallacies to explore how the leadership of the conservative New Democracy government adopted far-right rhetoric on the refugee issue to justify its tough political agenda on security, law, and order. In particular, I focus on the representation of migration as a threat to national security and public health, the politics of hate, and theories of securitisation via an in-depth analysis of the current and former prime ministers’ discourses, the former government spokesman’s statement on the refugee issue and a popular journalist and New Democracy’s MP television interview, and intend to illustrate how extreme right rhetoric could serve the conservative New Democracy’s political strategies.

Rhetorical moves in political discourse: closing statements by presidential candidates in US primary election debates

2021 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Christoph Schubert
Keyword(s):  
Political Discourse ◽  
Political Agenda ◽  
Election Campaigns ◽  
Sample Analysis ◽  
Presidential Candidates ◽  
Primary Election ◽  
Presidential Primary ◽  
The Usa ◽  
Discourse Studies ◽  
Political Persuasion

Abstract Presidential primary debates in the USA are commonly concluded by brief closing statements, in which the competitors outline the central messages of their election campaigns. These statements constitute a subgenre characterized by a set of recurring rhetorical moves, which are defined as functional units geared towards the respective communicative objective, in this case political persuasion. Located at the interface of rhetorical move analysis and political discourse studies, this paper demonstrates that moves and embedded steps in closing statements fulfill the persuasive function of legitimizing the respective candidate as the most preferable presidential successor. The study is based on the transcripts of 98 closing statements, which were extracted from eight Democratic and eleven Republican primary debates held between August 2015 and April 2016. Typical moves, such as projecting the speaker’s future political agenda or diagnosing the current situation in America, are presented with the help of illustrative examples, frequencies of occurrence, and a sample analysis of a complete closing statement.

Welfare restrictions and ‘benefit tourists’: Representations and evaluations of EU migrants in the UK

2018 ◽  
Vol 43 (3) ◽  
pp. 379-401 ◽  
Author(s):  
Deanna Demetriou
Keyword(s):  
The Other ◽  
Critical Discourse ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Online Newspapers ◽  
Discursive Strategies ◽  
Public Comment ◽  
Critical Discourse Studies ◽  
Discourse Studies ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Discourse Historical Approach

Abstract This article investigates online representations and evaluations of EU migrants, focusing on the notion of ‘benefit tourism’ and discursive strategies used in the (de)legitimization of new welfare restrictions in the UK. Through the examination of online newspapers and corresponding public comment threads, this article adopts theoretical and methodological premises from Critical Discourse Studies (CDS), drawing upon the Discourse-Historical Approach (DHA) to provide both a politically motivated as well as reflexive account. Although new participatory structures allow for resistance to emerge, the openness, scalability and anonymity of the internet also allows for the spread of discrimination through the construction of EU migrants (in particular Bulgarians and Romanians) as the ‘Other’.

Subtle discriminatory political discourse on immigration

2020 ◽  
Vol 19 (6) ◽  
pp. 894-915
Author(s):  
Gema Rubio-Carbonero
Keyword(s):  
Social Psychology ◽  
Political Discourse ◽  
Political Sociology ◽  
Critical Discourse ◽  
Far Right ◽  
Political Analysis ◽  
Critical Discourse Studies ◽  
Discourse Studies

Abstract Overt constructions of discrimination in political discourse towards immigrants are easy to detect and have been traditionally associated with far-right parties. However, mainstream political discourse on immigration delivered by so-called center or center-left parties has transformed into more subtle forms of discursive discrimination, which might not be obvious and need a closer analysis in order to be spotted in discourse. Overt discriminatory discourse has been studied by disciplines, such as political sociology, social psychology and Critical Discourse Studies, but subtle discriminatory constructions have been rather neglected. By combining these three disciplines, we propose here a multidisciplinary and multitheorical framework to systematically analyze subtle discriminatory political discourse on immigration. It aims at contributing to the development of a methodology for a socio-political analysis that allows to detect subtle discriminatory political discourse on immigration. Such framework is composed by four strategies with different degrees of subtleness: highlighting, diminishing, homogenizing and normalizing.

Social Media and Youth Interest in Politics in Kenya

2013 ◽  
pp. 273-284 ◽  
Author(s):  
Auma Churchill Moses Otieno ◽  
Lusike Lynete Mukhongo
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Young People ◽  
Political Discourse ◽  
Political Information ◽  
Political Interest ◽  
Political Agenda ◽  
Age Group ◽  
Youth Engagement ◽  
Naturally Occurring ◽  
Post Test

The youth in Kenya are by far the majority age-group, yet their role in politics is hampered by their inability to access mainstream political information. The objective of the study is to determine whether there is any relationship between the level of youth engagement on social media and their level of interest in politics. The study uses the post-test quasi experiment to compare political interest between a naturally occurring group of Facebook users and a naturally occurring group of non-Facebook users. The findings of the study reveal that Facebook has provided the youth with a platform where they can access political information in formats that are appealing to them. Consequently, young people have been able to mobilise themselves online and push for a political agenda. There is, therefore, need to open up online exchanges in order to create a place for young people in mainstream political discourse in Kenya.

Bibi and Mr. Prime Minister: do different Facebook identities imply different messages for political leaders?

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Gal Yavetz
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Content Analysis ◽  
Political Parties ◽  
Peer Review ◽  
Design Methodology ◽  
Prime Minister ◽  
Political Agenda ◽  
Political Leaders ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Link Type

PurposeSocial media has been widely adopted by politicians and political parties during elections and routine times and has been discussed before. However, research in the field has so far not addressed how a political leader's private or official social media account affects their message, language and style. The current study examined how Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu uses his private Facebook account, compared to his use of his official Facebook page “Prime Minister of Israel.”Design/methodology/approachIn this study, the author identified the differences between these two digital entities using in-depth content analysis based on all posts (N = 1,484) published on the two pages over a 12-month period between 2018 and 2019.FindingsThe study’s findings indicate that Netanyahu regularly uses his personal page to address topics that are not represented on his official page, such as mentioning and attacking political rivals, presenting political agenda, and criticizing Israeli journalists and media organizations. Netanyahu's private Facebook account is also used to comment on personal events such as the criminal indictments he is facing and family affairs.Originality/valueThe findings highlight the need to investigate the different identities that politicians maintain on social media when they use personal or official accounts, sometimes on the same platform. The medium matters, yet the author also discovered that a leader's choice of account and its title are also important.Peer reviewThe peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/OIR-01-2021-0004.

scholarly journals Online hate, digital discourse and critique: Exploring digitally-mediated discursive practices of gender-based hostility

2018 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 45-68 ◽  
Author(s):  
Majid KhosraviNik ◽  
Eleonora Esposito
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Digital Media ◽  
Meaning Making ◽  
Critical Discourse ◽  
Research Findings ◽  
Critical Discourse Studies ◽  
Discourse Studies ◽  
Gender Based ◽  
Media And Technology ◽  
Online Misogyny

AbstractThe communicative affordances of the participatory web have opened up new and multifarious channels for the proliferation of hate. In particular, women navigating the cybersphere seem to be the target of a disproportionate amount of hostility. This paper explores the contexts, approaches and conceptual synergies around research on online misogyny within the new communicative paradigm of social media communication (KhosraviNik 2017a: 582). The paper builds on the core principle that online misogyny is demonstrably and inherently a discourse; therefore, the field is envisaged at the intersection of digital media scholarship, discourse theorization and critical feminist explications. As an ever-burgeoning phenomenon, online hate has been approached from a range of disciplinary perspectives but has only been partially mapped at the interface of meaning making contents/processes and new mediation technologies. The paper aims to advance the state of the art by investigating online hate in general, and misogyny in particular, from the vantage point of Social Media Critical Discourse Studies (SM-CDS); an emerging model of theorization and operationalization of research combining tenets from Critical Discourse Studies with scholarship in digital media and technology research (KhosraviNik 2014, 2017a, 2018). Our SM-CDS approach to online misogyny demarcates itself from insinuation whereby the phenomenon is reduced to digital communicative affordancesper seand argues in favor of a double critical contextualization of research findings at both digital participatory as well as social and cultural levels.

Complex texts: Analysing, understanding, explaining and interpreting meanings

2011 ◽  
Vol 13 (5) ◽  
pp. 623-633 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ruth Wodak
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Critical Discourse ◽  
Critical Hermeneutics ◽  
Self Reflection ◽  
The Social ◽  
Objective Hermeneutics ◽  
Critical Discourse Studies ◽  
Interdisciplinary Framework ◽  
Discourse Studies ◽  
Discourse Historical Approach

This article discusses different theoretical and methodological approaches in the humanities and social sciences which strive to analyse and understand, interpret and explain texts and discourses in systematic, qualitative ways. After reviewing some of the salient theories in the social sciences (such as objective hermeneutics and critical hermeneutics), I argue that critical discourse studies require a ‘trichotomy’ consisting of explanation, interpretation and critique. Other approaches such as Ricoeur’s ‘hermeneutic arc’ seem to neglect important structural and material dimensions of context as well as critical self-reflection. Moreover, I argue that much intuitive and non-transparent speculation in Hermeneutics might be transcended if more historical, cultural, linguistic and philological knowledges would be systematically and explicitly integrated into the analysis of text and discourse, in a retroductable manner. The latter possibility is illustrated by applying an interdisciplinary framework to some brief examples (e.g. intercultural and historical translation studies; the discourse-historical approach in critical discourse studies).

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