scholarly journals Head in the clouds: a critical discourse analysis of American cloud computing and state surveillance in Post-Snowden press coverage

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stefan Milosevic

The National Security Agency (NSA) revelations leaked by Edward Snowden on June 6, 2013 regarding the digital surveillance tactics of the United States government were a series of profoundly disruptive discursive events that signaled an uncomfortably cozy relationship between US technology companies and the US government for the maintenance of US national security. Leaked internal NSA slides revealed a host of domestic and foreign clandestine spying programs, including PRISM and MUSCULAR, which suggested the unscrupulous collection of data from US technology giant Google’s cloud servers and private networks, among other technology companies. Google’s cloud computing services particularly became implicated in a crisis of global proportions, as the technology giant and US technology industry writ large faced a global loss of confidence and future revenue from cloud computing customers unhappy with the implications the NSA revelations had for the security of their personal and corporate data. This paper conducts a multi-layer critical discourse analysis about the effect the NSA revelations had on US cloud computing with a specific focus on Google’s cloud computing services. By focusing on the sociopolitical and economic functions of surveillance as established within surveillance literature, this project examines how the crisis was discursively constructed in order to paint a larger picture about how popular press coverage framed the NSA revelations and the relationship of this rhetoric to the technology companies it implicates.

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stefan Milosevic

The National Security Agency (NSA) revelations leaked by Edward Snowden on June 6, 2013 regarding the digital surveillance tactics of the United States government were a series of profoundly disruptive discursive events that signaled an uncomfortably cozy relationship between US technology companies and the US government for the maintenance of US national security. Leaked internal NSA slides revealed a host of domestic and foreign clandestine spying programs, including PRISM and MUSCULAR, which suggested the unscrupulous collection of data from US technology giant Google’s cloud servers and private networks, among other technology companies. Google’s cloud computing services particularly became implicated in a crisis of global proportions, as the technology giant and US technology industry writ large faced a global loss of confidence and future revenue from cloud computing customers unhappy with the implications the NSA revelations had for the security of their personal and corporate data. This paper conducts a multi-layer critical discourse analysis about the effect the NSA revelations had on US cloud computing with a specific focus on Google’s cloud computing services. By focusing on the sociopolitical and economic functions of surveillance as established within surveillance literature, this project examines how the crisis was discursively constructed in order to paint a larger picture about how popular press coverage framed the NSA revelations and the relationship of this rhetoric to the technology companies it implicates.


2021 ◽  
pp. 233264922098109
Author(s):  
Shannon K. Carter ◽  
Ashley Stone ◽  
Lain Graham ◽  
Jonathan M. Cox

Reducing race disparities in breastfeeding has become a health objective in the United States, spurring research aimed to identify causes and consequences of disparate rates. This study uses critical discourse analysis to assess how Black women are constructed in 80 quantitative health science research articles on breastfeeding disparities in the United States. Our analysis is grounded in critical race and intersectionality scholarship, which argues that researchers often incorrectly treat race and its intersections as causal mechanisms. Our findings reveal two distinct representations. Most commonly, race, gender, and their intersection are portrayed as essential characteristics of individuals. Black women are portrayed as a fixed category, possessing characteristics that inhibit breastfeeding; policy implications focus on modifying Black women’s characteristics to increase breastfeeding. Less commonly, Black women are portrayed as a diverse group who occupy a social position in society resulting from similar social and material conditions, seeking to identify factors that facilitate or inhibit breastfeeding. Policy implications emphasize mitigating structural barriers that disproportionately impact some Black women. We contribute to existing knowledge by demonstrating how dominant health science approaches provide evidence for health promotion campaigns that are unlikely to reduce health disparities and may do more harm than good to Black women. We also demonstrate the existence of a problematic knowledge set about Black women’s reproductive and infant feeding practices that is both ahistorical and decontextualized.


2021 ◽  
pp. 147821032110016
Author(s):  
Jessica Cira Rubin ◽  
Susan Tily

The early phases of teachers’ professional careers are multi-layered and informed by many factors, including teachers’ values, their own experiences in schools, and the nested contexts of their professional employment. While in teachers’ everyday lives government policies sometimes operate beneath the surface rather than overtly, these policies influence many teachers’ experiences, contributing significantly to what critical discourse analysis scholars call the ‘issue’ of teachers’ available subjectivities being influenced by prevailing ideologies as they are newly entering the profession. In this analysis, we activate critical discourse analysis in order to offer new understandings about policies and contexts associated with new teachers entering the profession. Our analysis is significant in its co-consideration of policies from contexts that we see as experiencing the influence of neoliberal ideologies in different ways. As critical discourse analysis is transdisciplinary, it also offers chances to transcend boundaries of politics and culture to inquire into social wrongs as we actually experience them in a world that is globally connected and globally influenced. The significance of this analysis, then, lies with the continued questioning we hope that it, and others like it, make possible.


Author(s):  
Marina Dekavalla

This paper presents preliminary findings from a wider study into the form that political debate takes in Scottish and English/UK newspapers’ reporting of the 2001 and the 2005 UK Elections. The research project aims to contribute to the discussion regarding the role played by the Scottish press in political deliberation after devolution and compares its contribution to the electoral debate with that of newspapers bought in England. This paper explores the results of a content analysis of articles from daily Scottish and UK newspapers during the four weeks of each election campaign period. This reveals that, despite some differences, the overall picture of the coverage of major election issues is consistent. A selection of the coverage of taxation, the most mentioned reserved issue in the 2001 campaign, is subsequently analysed using critical discourse analysis, and the results suggest more distinction between the two sets of newspapers.


2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Rize Rahmi Rahmi

Although there were many studies of Political Discourse had been done in CDA approach, but still few studies concern withrelation of ideology and language in the discourse. This study aims to, 1) find the ideological discourse structureswhich are used to enhance ideology in political speeches delivered by Donald Trump and 2) reveal the ideologies found in the speeches of Donald Trump about National Security. The analysis in this study is based on Fairclough’s(1992 )framework of Critical Discourse Analysis which consists of three levels of analysis; textual, discursive practice and socio-cultural practice. Then, for textual analysis, the writer used one analytical tool that is the theory of Ideological Discourse Structure of the discourse by Van Dijk (2000). The results showed that Donald Trump used language tactfully to achieve his goal on politics. The conclusion obtained is that Donald Trump enhances fascist ideology in his speeches which can be seen through the ideological structure of discourse which is found in his political speech on National Security.


2021 ◽  
Vol 29 ◽  
pp. 52
Author(s):  
Nicholas Tapia-Fuselier ◽  
Veronica A. Jones ◽  
Clifford P. Harbour

Undocumented college students in the United States encounter a number of structural barriers to postsecondary education success, including disparate in-state resident tuition (ISRT) policies across the country. Texas, the first state to establish ISRT benefits for undocumented college students, has been a site of tension respective to this issue over the last 20 years. In fact, there have been eight legislative attempts to repeal the state’s affirmative ISRT policy. In order to investigate this ongoing ISRT debate in Texas, we used critical discourse analysis methods to analyze the implicit and explicit messages communicated in the policy and surrounding policy discourse. Our conceptual framework, grounded in three constructs of critical whiteness studies including ontological expansiveness, color evasiveness, and individualization, allowed us to uncover whiteness as a pernicious undergirding force within this policy discourse.


2019 ◽  
Vol 69 (3) ◽  
pp. 163-183 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jaran Shin ◽  
Liz Ging

Historical and legislative evolutions of education policy have repurposed federally funded adult education programs in the United States. The 2014 passage of the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) has considerable repercussions for everyone involved in the field because it controls the funding, assessment, and structure of these programs. Using critical discourse analysis, this study examines the public law and a Program Memorandum from the federal government. It demonstrates how the language used in the documents characterizes Title II of WIOA (the Adult Education and Family Literacy Act), the goals of adult education, eligible adult learners, and the process by which programs are held accountable for federal funding. The findings show the ways in which Title II tactically legitimizes the U.S. government’s neoliberal capitalist desire within a democratic society: The idealistic language of opportunity acts as a camouflage for the further infiltration of market-oriented practices into the public sector.


2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 52-74
Author(s):  
Amy Burden

EN Gender equality in language learning has received considerable attention in research on classroom policy and materials. Within studies of materials like language learning texts, most research focuses on content analyses of character roles and images, with sometimes purposeful exclusion of non-human characters. However, non-humans in children’s picture books comprise almost 60% of the characters children read. Therefore, their representations of gender, including biases, overt sexism, and covert sexism should be examined. In this study, I examine gendering of non-human characters using corpus linguistics and critical discourse analysis. Additionally, I use critical image analysis to discuss pictorial gendering of non-human characters within 12 textbooks in two of the United States’ most widely used textbook series for language learning in elementary schools. Results indicate a strong preference for aggressive and adventurous male characters, male supremacist ideologies, and the suppression of female agency. Key words: CORPUS LINGUISTICS, CRITICAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS, TEXTBOOK ANALYSIS, GENDER AND LANGUAGE, ENGLISH AS A SECOND LANGUAGE (ESL), CRITICAL IMAGE ANALYSIS ES La igualdad de género en el aprendizaje de idiomas ha recibido una atención considerable en la investigación sobre la política y los materiales en el aula. Dentro de los estudios sobre materiales como los textos para el aprendizaje de idiomas, la mayoría de las investigaciones se centran en el análisis del contenido de los roles y las imágenes de los personajes, con una exclusión de los personajes no humanos. Sin embargo, los personajes no humanos de los libros ilustrados para niños representan casi el 60% de los personajes que leen los niños. Por lo tanto, deben examinarse sus representaciones de género, incluyendo los prejuicios, el sexismo manifiesto y el sexismo encubierto. En este estudio, examino la representación de género de los personajes no humanos utilizando la lingüística de corpus y el análisis crítico del discurso. Además, utilizo el análisis crítico de la imagen para analizar el género pictórico de los personajes no humanos en 12 libros de texto de dos de las series de libros de texto más utilizados en Estados Unidos para el aprendizaje de idiomas en las escuelas primarias. Los resultados indican una fuerte preferencia por personajes masculinos agresivos y aventureros, ideologías de supremacía masculina y la supresión de la agencia femenina. Palabras clave: LINGÜÍSTICA DE CORPUS, ANÁLISIS CRÍTICO DEL DISCURSO, ANÁLISIS DE LIBROS DE TEXTO, GÉNERO E LINGUAJE, INGLÉS COMO SEGUNDA LENGUA (ESL), ANÁLISIS CRÍTICO DE LA IMAGEN IT L’uguaglianza di genere nell'apprendimento delle lingue ha ricevuto una notevole attenzione nella ricerca sulle norme di comportamento nelle classi così come nei materiali didattici. All'interno degli studi su materiali didattici come i testi per l'apprendimento delle lingue, la maggior parte della ricerca si concentra sull'analisi del contenuto dei ruoli e delle immagini dei personaggi con l'esclusione, a volte intenzionale, di personaggi non umani. Tuttavia, i non umani nei libri illustrati per bambini costituiscono quasi il 60% dei personaggi. Pertanto, dovrebbero essere esaminate le loro rappresentazioni di genere, inclusi pregiudizi, sessismo palese e sessismo nascosto. In questo studio si esamina la sessuazione di personaggi non umani usando la linguistica dei corpora e l’analisi critica del discorso. Inoltre, viene utilizzata l'analisi critica delle immagini per discutere la sessuazione di personaggi non umani all'interno di 12 libri in due delle serie di libri di testo più utilizzate negli Stati Uniti per l'apprendimento delle lingue nelle scuole elementari. I risultati indicano una forte preferenza per personaggi maschili aggressivi e avventurosi, ideologie suprematiste maschili e soppressione dell'agire femminile. Parole chiave: LINGUISTICA DEI CORPORA, ANALISI CRITICA DEL DISCORSO, ANALISI DEI LIBRI DI TESTO, GENERE E LINGUAGGIO, INGLESE COME SECONDA LINGUA, ANALISI CRITICA DELLE IMMAGINI


2017 ◽  
Vol 20 ◽  
pp. 1-17
Author(s):  
Johanne Berge Kalsaas

This article studies Russia’s news discourse on the refugee crisis of 2015–2016. Employing critical discourse analysis and the concept of news as discourse, the study explores representations of the refugee issue in four Russian newspapers. A predominant feature in the discourse is the use of apocalyptic rhetoric. Elaborating on the concept of post-Soviet aphasia (Oushakine 2000), however, the study also finds that the foremost characteristic of Russian public conversation on refugees is, perhaps, the lack thereof. The apparent discursive “black hole” concerning Russia’s role in the refugee situation is a central finding in the study.


Author(s):  
Grace Karram

The migration of post-secondary students is an increasingly debated phenomenon as the number of students living outside of their home country has risen to more than three million in the past decade. Governments, regions and institutions have developed new structures and strategies to facilitate and benefit from this worldwide student movement. This research article uses Fairclough’s (1993) notion of critical discourse analysis to explore the relationship between two distinct discourses on foreign students: national-level economic competitiveness and institutional-level student success. A comparative approach examines these discursive events in the four leading, Anglophone destination countries: Australia, Britain, Canada and the United States. The findings suggest that foreign students are objectified as tradable units in the market-driven discourse of economic development with student support literature providing a buffer that limits the critique of the economic discourse. At the same time, potential exists for current events to highlight the tension surrounding the two discourses and provide new opportunities for dialogue.


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