scholarly journals A War on War Metaphor

2021 ◽  
Vol 47 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Kristina Štrkalj Despot ◽  
Ana Ostroški Anić
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Qualitative Analysis ◽  
Structure Function ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
Research Community ◽  
Media Discourse ◽  
Conceptual Metaphors ◽  
The Media ◽  
Corpus Data ◽  
War Metaphor

Previous studies show that public discourse and social media discourse around the Covid-19 pandemic heavily use war framing, despite the fact that its misuse and inaptness to elaborate all aspects of the pandemic were already noted. This paper analyses conceptual metaphors in the Croatian (social) media discourse on the pandemic, focusing on the war metaphor. Using a specialized corpus of manually chosen relevant texts in Croatian, compiled for this purpose, we investigate how frequent war framing is in the Croatian media compared to alternative figurative framings. In a qualitative analysis, we outline the conceptual and inferential structure of the Covid-19 pandemic concept and discuss the structure, function, and (in)aptness of the war metaphor in pandemic circumstances. Additionally, by detecting other source frames used in this discourse, we offer other, possibly more apt (or less resisted) framing options – or a so-called metaphor menu – designed specifically for the Croatian language based on corpus data. We show that the Covid-19 pandemic is predominantly framed as combat or war in Croatian media and social media. Even though a ‘war’ on the war metaphor has been declared both by the media and research community, we show that the use of certain other source frames (e.g. the religion frame) may be even more dangerous than the war framing. The paper also discusses the aptness and omnipresence of the war metaphor, as well as its inaptness to refer to all aspects of this pandemic, concluding that it is rarely the type of metaphor that is harmful or inappropriate – it is rather the effect of the context and how it is used.

scholarly journals Migration Discourse in Sweden: Frames and Sentiments in Mainstream and Social Media

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Victoria Yantseva
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Media Discourse ◽  
Refugee Crisis ◽  
Long Term Effects ◽  
Data Set ◽  
Systematic Analysis ◽  
The Media ◽  
European Refugee Crisis

This study undertakes a systematic analysis of media discourse on migration in Sweden from 2012 to 2019. Using a novel data set consisting of mainstream newspapers, Twitter and forum data, the study answers two questions: What do Swedish media actually talk about when they talk about “migration”? And how do they talk about it? Using a combination of computational text analysis tools, I analyze a shift in the media discourse seen as one of the outcomes of the European refugee crisis in 2015 and try to understand the role of social media in this process. The results of the study indicate that messages on social media generally had negative tonality and suggest that some of the media frames can be attributed to a migration-hostile discourse. At the same time, the analysis of framing and sentiment dynamics provides little evidence for the discourse shift and any long-term effects of the European refugee crisis on the Swedish media discourse. Rather, one can hypothesize that the role of the crisis should be viewed in a broader political and historical context.

scholarly journals The Normalization of Hatred: Identity, Affective Polarization, and Dehumanization on Facebook in the Context of Intractable Political Conflict

2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 205630512091398
Author(s):  
Tal Orian Harel ◽  
Jessica Katz Jameson ◽  
Ifat Maoz
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Qualitative Analysis ◽  
Political Conflict ◽  
The Other ◽  
Media Discourse ◽  
Physical Separation ◽  
Intractable Conflict ◽  
Echo Chamber

Our study uses a qualitative analysis of social media discourse on a Facebook page to demonstrate how the phenomena of affective polarization and dehumanization are manifested through participation in a homogeneous enclave, or echo chamber. We employ Northrup’s theory of identity in intractable conflict to show how users express their desire for psychological and physical separation from the other and use dehumanizing language that normalizes potentially dangerous levels of hatred during their participation on a Facebook page. This study contributes to our understanding of the link between identity, affective polarization, and dehumanization.

Fear Control in Media Discourse

2013 ◽  
Vol 37 (2) ◽  
pp. 200-219
Author(s):  
Davor Marko
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Public Space ◽  
Power Relations ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
Media Discourse ◽  
Public Language ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Media ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
And Control

This article deals with how fear is misused in media discourse. Pursuing the claim that it is impossible to eliminate fear from the public sphere, this paper argues that fear control is a technique widely used by certain interest groups to generate and spread uncertainty among people in order to create an atmosphere in which their goals are easily reachable. This paper will discuss the concepts of discourse, hegemony, and power relations in order to show how public language (both written and spoken) in media discourse reflects, creates, and maintains power relations. In this sense, fear, which is a crucial “energizing fuel” of such public language, could be considered and further elaborated as both a contextual variable and as a tool for facilitating power relations by applying various techniques. Aiming to show how media use and control the nature and level of fear in public discourse, I will discuss two techniques – the commercialization of fear and the method of “othering.” While commercialization implies the mass (re)production and (re)appropriation of fear in a public space, “othering” has been applied when the object of reporting is an out-group individual or community and self-group is using the media as a tool for their negative portrayal, thus creating boundaries and provoking discrimination and violence. The case of Serbia will be used to indicate how techniques of “othering,” linked with the regime’s propaganda, may contribute to the creation of an atmosphere of fear, and make a people seek protection and become easy prey for manipulation.

scholarly journals The 2015 nationwide referendum in Poland memes

2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 26-42
Author(s):  
Maria Marczewska
Keyword(s):  
Public Space ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
Specific Problem ◽  
Research Process ◽  
Broad Sense ◽  
Media Discourse ◽  
The Public ◽  
Financial Costs ◽  
The Media

The aim of the article is to analyze memes associated with the nationwide referendum of 6 September 2015 in Poland. The memes are treated as part of the media discourse. Media discourse encompasses part of public discourse. In the broad sense, we are dealing with a collection of statements functioning in the public space and concerning a specific problem or its scope. There will be analyzed memes connected such issues as the reason/reasons for ordering the referendum, referendum questions, the financial costs incurred, and the referendum turnout. The article is divided into two parts: 1) theoretical consists of mem and referendum definition; 2) practical consists of the 6 September 2015 referendum in Poland in memes analyse. In the course of the research such questions will be answered: whether the memes became part of the general overtone of the discourse; whether they presented the main themes of the discourse and how they did this; which elements of the discourse were emphasized in the memes and which were omitted. In the research process the main themes of the discourse were distinguished, which were reflected in the memes.

scholarly journals The “Vulnerability” Discourse in Times of Covid-19: Between Abandonment and Protection of Canadian Francophone Older Adults

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martine Lagacé ◽  
Amélie Doucet ◽  
Pascale Dangoisse ◽  
Caroline D. Bergeron
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Older People ◽  
Aging Process ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
Social Representations ◽  
Media Discourse ◽  
Linguistic Minority ◽  
Stereotype Content ◽  
The Face ◽  
The Media

The Covid-19 pandemic has been particularly difficult for older Canadians who have experienced age discrimination. As the media can provide a powerful channel for conveying stereotypes, the current study aimed to explore how Canadian Francophone older adults and the aging process were depicted by the media during the first wave of the Covid-19 pandemic, and to examine if and how the media discourse contributed to ageist attitudes and behaviors. A content analysis of two French Canadian media op-eds and comment pieces (n = 85) published over the course of the first wave of the pandemic was conducted. Findings reveal that the aging process was mainly associated with words of decline, loss, and vulnerability. More so, older people were quasi-absent if not silent in the media discourse. Older adults were positioned as people to fight for and not as people to fight along with in the face of the pandemic. The findings from this study enhance the understanding of theories and concepts of the Theory of Social Representations and the Stereotype Content Model while outlining the importance of providing older people with a voice and a place in the shaping of public discourse around aging. Results also illustrate the transversality and influence of ageism in this linguistic minority context.

scholarly journals Network Propaganda

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yochai Benkler ◽  
Robert Farris ◽  
Hal Roberts
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Political Communication ◽  
Coming Out ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
The United States ◽  
Mainstream Media ◽  
Fox News ◽  
The Media ◽  
Political Media ◽  
Political Spectrum

This book examines the shape, composition, and practices of the United States political media landscape. It explores the roots of the current epistemic crisis in political communication with a focus on the remarkable 2016 U.S. president election culminating in the victory of Donald Trump and the first year of his presidency. The authors present a detailed map of the American political media landscape based on the analysis of millions of stories and social media posts, revealing a highly polarized and asymmetric media ecosystem. Detailed case studies track the emergence and propagation of disinformation in the American public sphere that took advantage of structural weaknesses in the media institutions across the political spectrum. This book describes how the conservative faction led by Steve Bannon and funded by Robert Mercer was able to inject opposition research into the mainstream media agenda that left an unsubstantiated but indelible stain of corruption on the Clinton campaign. The authors also document how Fox News deflects negative coverage of President Trump and has promoted a series of exaggerated and fabricated counter narratives to defend the president against the damaging news coming out of the Mueller investigation. Based on an analysis of the actors that sought to influence political public discourse, this book argues that the current problems of media and democracy are not the result of Russian interference, behavioral microtargeting and algorithms on social media, political clickbait, hackers, sockpuppets, or trolls, but of asymmetric media structures decades in the making. The crisis is political, not technological.

Police officer or social media star? Live PD and microcelebrity

2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 237-249 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alex McVey
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
New Media ◽  
Police Officers ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
Reality Tv ◽  
Self Presentation ◽  
Visual Access ◽  
The Media ◽  
Tv Show ◽  
Fan Engagement

This article examines the rhetorical strategies of microcelebrity in the reality TV show Live PD. Live PD is an important text for understanding how police work with the entertainment industry to create selective strategies of self-presentation in the wake of the media challenges posed by the Black Lives Matter movement. It shows how police draw on new media and social media to shape public discourse about police and promote alternative images of police officers. It also shows how police mobilize the techniques of reality TV, fan engagement and social media to respond to emergent crises of police credibility. This article argues that Live PD’s rhetorics of microcelebrity use intimate visual access and fan engagement to create new modes of cultural attachment to police power while also substituting affective sensations of intimacy for substantive demands of police accountability.

scholarly journals Conceptual Metaphors in Basketball Discourse

2013 ◽  
Vol 23 (28) ◽  
pp. 131-140
Author(s):  
Reda Toleikienė ◽  
Aina Būdvytytė-Gudienė
Keyword(s):  
Public Discourse ◽  
Research Council ◽  
Conceptual Metaphor ◽  
Target Concept ◽  
Web Portals ◽  
Conceptual Metaphors ◽  
National Project ◽  
War Metaphor

This article presents part of the research performed within the scope of the national project “Conceptual Metaphors in Public Discourse,”1 financed by the Research Council of Lithuania. The aim of the present paper is to analyze conceptual metaphors in the discourse of the European Basketball Championship which took place in Kaunas, Lithuania in 2011, as well as to determine the source concepts. The analysis allows certain features of the images which are used while conceptualizing the entities related to basketball to be described. The metaphorical collocations drawn from the Lithuanian language corpora and web portals (www.delfi.lt and www.lrytas.lt) were selected and analyzed from 31 August 2011 to 18 September 2011. A conceptual metaphor is defined as an interaction of two conceptual fields (source and target concepts). On the basis of the analyzed conceptual sayings, the reconstructed conceptual metaphors proved that the most prolific metaphors are of war, ontology, and scale. In basketball discourse, the war metaphor is characterized by the fact that the image of sport is war is supplemented by other source concepts (e.g.,a person, a building, a thing, a material, a scale). The features of two or sometimes even three source concepts are ascribed to the target concept. 

scholarly journals Representation of migrants in the Russian mass media and its dynamics (2010-2020)

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (4) ◽  
pp. 22-40
Author(s):  
Olga A. Iakimova
Keyword(s):  
Mass Media ◽  
Critical Discourse Analysis ◽  
Media Coverage ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
Empirical Support ◽  
Explanatory Models ◽  
Media Discourse ◽  
Russian Media ◽  
The Media ◽  
High Level

Over the last decades, scholars have reported a high level of xenophobia in Russia, which persists and spreads amidst all strata of the population. This shows the significance of the migration issue in the country and its topicality in the public discourse. However, the explanatory models used to analyze the perception of immigrants in Western countries do not find absolute empirical support in Russia. For this reason, researchers emphasize the importance of media discourse as a leading factor in constructing attitudes toward the foreign migrants in Russia. We take into account, firstly, the persistence of xenophobic attitudes among Russians, and secondly — the role of the migrants’ image, constructed by mass media, in shaping the perception of the immigrants among the locals. In this regard, this article hypothesizes that despite the official ban of the “hate language” and ethnization of crime, the negative representation of immigrants not only persists in the Russian media discourse, but is unfortunately increasing. To test this hypothesis, we utilize the results of research on the representation of immigration in Russian media discourse published between 2010 and 2020, which we analyze in the methodological framework of critical discourse analysis. We conclude that at the end of the current decade, there have been certain improvements in the media coverage of the migration issue, caused by the shift of the spotlight onto other problems, thus, the negative images of immigrants simply were not a part of the media agenda. On the one hand, this can help reduce ethnic tensions, although on the other, it complicates the development of the culture of interaction between the local and immigrant communities, since the national and cultural characteristics of migrants and their experience of living in Russia remain underrepresented in the media.

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