scholarly journals Trump, memes and the Alt-right: Emotive and affective criticism and praise

2021 ◽  
Vol 25 (3) ◽  
pp. 789-809
Author(s):  
Lyndon C.S. Way
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Critical Discourse ◽  
Donald Trump ◽  
New Politics ◽  
Political Processes ◽  
Authority Figures ◽  
Critical Discourse Studies ◽  
Discourse Studies ◽  
Political Decisions ◽  
The Ideal

Internet memes are the most pervasive and malleable form of digital popular culture (Wiggins 2019: vii). They are a way a society expresses and thinks of itself (Denisova 2019: 2) used for the purpose of satire, parody, critique to posit an argument (Wiggins 2019, see also Ponton 2021, this issue). The acts of viewing, creating, sharing and commenting on memes that criticise or troll authority figures have become central to our political processes becom[ing] one of the most important forms of political participation and activism today (Merrin 2019: 201). However, memes do not communicate to us in logical arguments, but emotionally and affectively through short quips and images that entertain. Memes are part of a new politics of affectivity, identification, emotion and humour (Merrin 2019: 222). In this paper, we examine not only what politics memes communicate to us, but how this is done. We analyse memes, some in mainstream social media circulation, that praise and criticise the authoritarian tendencies of former US President Donald Trump, taken from 4Chan, a home of many alt-right ideas. Through a Multimodal Critical Discourse Studies approach, we demonstrate how images and lexical choices in memes do not communicate to us in logical, well-structured arguments, but lean on affective and emotional discourses of racism, nationalism and power. As such, though memes have the potential to emotionally engage with their intended audiences, this is done at the expense of communicating nuanced and detailed information on political players and issues. This works against the ideal of a public sphere where debate and discussion inform political decisions in a population, essential pillars of a democratic society (Habermas 1991).

In the theater of political style: Touches of populism, pluralism and elitism in speeches of politicians

2017 ◽  
Vol 28 (6) ◽  
pp. 657-676 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carola Schoor
Keyword(s):  
Critical Discourse ◽  
Style Analysis ◽  
Hillary Clinton ◽  
Donald Trump ◽  
Critical Discourse Studies ◽  
Discourse Studies ◽  
Social Style ◽  
Individual Style

Up to date, the concept of political style is underdeveloped, obstructing a profound understanding of political performances. This article disentangles the components of political style by analyzing the concept systematically. It is argued that instead of one single style, it has to be regarded as a cooperation of three styles: rhetorical, social and ideological. While approaches to reviewing rhetorical and social style are available, it lacks a method to assess ideological style. In this article, such a method is provided in a set of tools based on critical discourse studies. It defines ideological style in five traits that can be styled in a populist, elitist or pluralist manner. As an example, an ideological style analysis of six speeches of US politicians Donald Trump, Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton is performed. The analysis shows Trump having a full populist style in these speeches, Sanders a populist-pluralist style and Clinton an elitist-pluralist style. Comparison of the three individual style profiles gives a clarification of otherwise unexplained differences and similarities between the three politicians.

scholarly journals The Politics of Voice in the Stereotypical Representation of the Pashtuns: A Critical Study of Khaled Hosseini’s Novels

2018 ◽  
Vol III (II) ◽  
pp. 385-399 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rab Nawaz Khan ◽  
Abdul Waheed Qureshi
Keyword(s):  
Critical Discourse ◽  
Critical Study ◽  
The Social ◽  
Critical Discourse Studies ◽  
Discourse Studies

The current study is an attempt to critically analyze the role and politics of voice in Khaled Hosseini's The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns in terms of categorical and stereotypical representation of the Pashtuns. It is a critical discourse study (Norman Fairclough, 1989, 2018) of the selected data. Moreover, the data is viewed from the perspective of critical discourse studies. The novels under study are polyphonic in nature, and the characters belong to various Afghan ethnic backgrounds, like the Pashtuns, the Tajiks and the Hazaras. The study concludes that the novelist's choice of the characters with their respective voices and the roles assigned to them are political, ideological and somewhat biased. The Pashtuns have been stereotypically represented by categorizing them as the social, well-educated and more or less liberal Pashtuns, the tribal and traditionalist Pashtuns, extremist and fundamentalist Pashtuns, like Taliban. Misrepresentation of the tribal and fundamentalist Pashtuns as racists, ethnic nationalists, ideologists, sexists, exclusionists, traditionalists and power-abusers is indicative of the novelist's biasedness and exaggeration.

Study on utterances of administrative law enforcement in van Dijk’s critical discourse analysis

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 217-236
Author(s):  
Jingjing Wu ◽  
Yuxiu Sun
Keyword(s):  
Law Enforcement ◽  
Critical Discourse Analysis ◽  
Administrative Law ◽  
Role Expectations ◽  
Critical Discourse ◽  
Social Variables ◽  
The Social ◽  
Critical Discourse Studies ◽  
Discourse Studies ◽  
Normative Factors

AbstractThis study explores the administrative law enforcement from three perspectives, namely, discourse, cognition and society, according to van Dijk’s theory of critical discourse studies. “Discourse” is the essential linguistic analysis of administrative law enforcement, which may lead to the tension between law-executors and law-breakers, as well as to ease the conflicts and achieve the balance, so that the discourse mode with considerable tolerance and explanation is of great significance for improving the current practice of administrative law enforcement. “Cognition” deals with psychological model based on cognitive and social psychology. In the interaction of administrative law enforcement, the social roles are institutionalized by the context, which is achieved through knowledge background, cognitive methods, communicative purpose, role expectations and information transmission. “Society” focuses on the investigation of institutions, powers and groups based on sociology. There are normative factors and non-normative variables in the administrative law enforcement: the former refers to superior will, judicial review, supervision and defense of law-breaker, while the latter involves administrative habits and experience, natural emotions, interest and mass media. In the institutional context, social variables affect the implementation of administrative law enforcement in different discourse modes.

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