scholarly journals How brands care: rhetorics of self-care in contemporary consumer culture

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kristina Pantalone
Keyword(s):  
Popular Culture ◽  
Critical Discourse Analysis ◽  
Self Care ◽  
Critical Discourse ◽  
Feminist Activism ◽  
Discursive Strategies ◽  
Temporary Relief ◽  
Survival Skill ◽  
Predominantly Female ◽  
Everyday Stress

Rooted in feminist activism, self-care has become a commodified survival skill, practiced by individuals seeking temporary relief from everyday stress and exhaustion and to prevent or mitigate burnout. Under today’s challenging political and economic circumstances, the term ‘self-care’ has permeated popular culture and has shaped the discursive strategies of pro-care / lifestyle brands such as lululemon, the popular fitness apparel company. Through a review of the feminist and mainstream rhetorics of self-care as well as a critical discourse analysis (CDA) of lululemon’s brand communication, this Masters Research Paper (MRP) analyzes how lululemon communicates self-care as a means of restorative pleasure and optimization to their predominantly female demographic. Keywords: self-care, collective care, corporate care, neoliberalism, lululemon, exhaustion, optimization, retail resilience

scholarly journals How brands care: rhetorics of self-care in contemporary consumer culture

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kristina Pantalone
Keyword(s):  
Popular Culture ◽  
Critical Discourse Analysis ◽  
Self Care ◽  
Critical Discourse ◽  
Feminist Activism ◽  
Discursive Strategies ◽  
Temporary Relief ◽  
Survival Skill ◽  
Predominantly Female ◽  
Everyday Stress

Rooted in feminist activism, self-care has become a commodified survival skill, practiced by individuals seeking temporary relief from everyday stress and exhaustion and to prevent or mitigate burnout. Under today’s challenging political and economic circumstances, the term ‘self-care’ has permeated popular culture and has shaped the discursive strategies of pro-care / lifestyle brands such as lululemon, the popular fitness apparel company. Through a review of the feminist and mainstream rhetorics of self-care as well as a critical discourse analysis (CDA) of lululemon’s brand communication, this Masters Research Paper (MRP) analyzes how lululemon communicates self-care as a means of restorative pleasure and optimization to their predominantly female demographic. Keywords: self-care, collective care, corporate care, neoliberalism, lululemon, exhaustion, optimization, retail resilience

scholarly journals The Enemy Next Door: The Image of Russia in Georgian and Ukrainian Political Discourses Amid Conflicts Escalation

2021 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 194-203
Author(s):  
Aram Terzyan
Keyword(s):  
Discourse Analysis ◽  
Critical Discourse Analysis ◽  
Identity Construction ◽  
Image Representation ◽  
Critical Discourse ◽  
Democratic Values ◽  
Discursive Strategies ◽  
Political Discourses ◽  
The Core ◽  
Standing Up

Abstract This article presents an analysis of the evolution of Russia’s image representation in Georgian and Ukrainian political discourses amid Russian-Georgian and Russian-Ukrainian conflicts escalation. Even though Georgia’s and Ukraine’s troubled relations with neighboring Russia have been extensively studied, there has been little attention to the ideational dimensions of the confrontations, manifested in elite narratives, that would redraw the discursive boundaries between “Us” and “Them.” This study represents an attempt to fill the void, by examining the core narratives of the enemy, along with the discursive strategies of its othering in Georgian and Ukrainian presidential discourses through critical discourse analysis. The findings suggest that the image of the enemy has become a part of “New Georgia’s” and “New Ukraine’s” identity construction - inherently linked to the two countries’ “choice for Europe.” Russia has been largely framed as Europe’s other, with its “inherently imperial,” “irremediably aggressive” nature and adherence to illiberal, non-democratic values. The axiological and moral evaluations have been accompanied by the claims that the most effective way of standing up to the enemy’s aggression is the “consolidation of democratic nations,” coming down to the two countries’ quests for EU and NATO membership.

Constructing the myth of protest masculinity in Chinese English language news media

2021 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Yating Yu ◽  
Mark Nartey
Keyword(s):  
Critical Discourse Analysis ◽  
News Media ◽  
English Language ◽  
Critical Discourse ◽  
Social Harmony ◽  
Chinese Media ◽  
Research Attention ◽  
Discursive Strategies ◽  
News Reports ◽  
The Media

Although the Chinese media’s construction of unmarried citizens as ‘leftover’ has incited much controversy, little research attention has been given to the ways ‘leftover men’ are represented in discourse. To fill this gap, this study performs a critical discourse analysis of 65 English language news reports in Chinese media to investigate the predominant gendered discourses underlying representations of leftover men and the discursive strategies used to construct their identities. The findings show that the media perpetuate a myth of ‘protest masculinity’ by suggesting that poor, single men may become a threat to social harmony due to the shortage of marriageable women in China. Leftover men are represented as poor men, troublemakers and victims via discursive processes that include referential, predicational and aggregation strategies as well as metaphor. This study sheds light on the issues and concerns of a marginalised group whose predicament has not been given much attention in the literature.

scholarly journals The Journalistic Representations of Saudi Women in the Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA): A Corpus Critical Discourse Analysis

2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (6) ◽  
pp. 320
Author(s):  
Waheed M. A. Altohami ◽  
Amir H. Y. Salama
Keyword(s):  
Discourse Analysis ◽  
Critical Discourse Analysis ◽  
Cultural Context ◽  
American English ◽  
Critical Discourse ◽  
Context Model ◽  
Specific Context ◽  
Social Actors ◽  
Discursive Strategies ◽  
Saudi Women

This paper is a corpus critical discourse analysis of the journalistic representations of Saudi women as they appear in the Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA) (Davies, 2008). It follows a sociocognitive approach (van Dijk, 2008) to explore the thematic foci discussing issues related to Saudi women and to discuss the discursive strategies implemented to propagate such issues. The study has reached four findings. First, the thematic foci related to Saudi women are textually and referentially coherent as they were meant to provide a grand narrative underlying a specific context model. Second, Saudi women are negatively represented as no social roles are ascribed to them throughout the corpus. Third, different social actors are also represented alongside Saudi women to put them in a wider socio-cultural context to aggravate their problems. Finally, the most effective discursive strategies which mediated the running context model included victimization, categorization, stereotyping, normalization, and exaggeration.

An introduction to the special issue on “Language, politics and media: The Hong Kong protests”

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Liu Ming ◽  
Guofeng Wang
Keyword(s):  
Hong Kong ◽  
Critical Discourse Analysis ◽  
Local Politics ◽  
Mass Movement ◽  
Media Representations ◽  
Critical Discourse ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Republic Of China ◽  
Discursive Strategies ◽  
Shed Light

Abstract Protests and social movements have become part of Hong Kong’s local politics since the 1970s. However, protests against the proposed extradition bill in 2019‒20 turned out to be the most violent political mass movement in Hong Kong after its return to the People’s Republic of China in 1997. It not only drew wide international attention but also evoked another round of “news war” over Hong Kong (Lee et al. 2002). This special issue collects six articles which address the representations of the protests in Hong Kong by different parties on different media platforms. Adopting a critical discourse analysis approach, these studies examine discursive strategies employed in media representations of the protests and the ideologies and power struggles at play. It aims to present different perspectives towards the issue and shed light on the complex relations between language, media and politics in the representations of the Hong Kong protests.

scholarly journals The Failure of Gender Equality Initiatives in Academia: Exploring Defensive Institutional Work in Flemish Universities

2020 ◽  
Vol 34 (3) ◽  
pp. 467-495 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hannelore Roos ◽  
Jelle Mampaey ◽  
Jeroen Huisman ◽  
Joost Luyckx
Keyword(s):  
Critical Discourse Analysis ◽  
Gender Equality ◽  
Gender Inequality ◽  
Critical Discourse ◽  
Institutional Work ◽  
Temporal Dimension ◽  
Discursive Strategies ◽  
Gender Policy ◽  
Fundamental Process ◽  
Gender Change

Although a large number of studies have explored the main causes of gender inequality in academia, less attention has been given to the processes underlying the failure of gender equality initiatives to enhance gender representation, especially at the professorial level. We offer a critical discourse analysis of recently promulgated gender policy documents of the five Flemish universities, and demonstrate that defensive institutional work is a fundamental process underlying resistance to gender equality in the academic profession. That is, powerful organizational actors resist gender change by (un)intentionally deploying a combination of discursive strategies that legitimate what we describe as non–time-bound gender equality initiatives: The expected outcomes are undetermined in time, and they delegitimate concrete, time-bound measures that define specific outcomes against well-defined deadlines. By explicitly bringing a temporal dimension into our analysis, we argue that defensive institutional work deflects questions regarding what ought to be achieved when, and contributes to the slow pace of gender change in academia.

The dual causes of fragmentation: Democratic security and the communitarian state in Colombian politics

2019 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
pp. 64-84
Author(s):  
Neyla G Pardo
Keyword(s):  
National Security ◽  
Critical Discourse Analysis ◽  
Critical Discourse ◽  
Crimes Against Humanity ◽  
The Political ◽  
Discursive Strategies ◽  
The Media ◽  
Extrajudicial Killings ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Democratic Security

This chapter analyzes speeches delivered by former Colombian President, Álvaro Uribe Vélez, between August 2002 and August 2009, which can be found on the official website of the presidency: ( http://web.presidencia.gov.co/discursos/ ). We attempt to identify the webs of meaning surrounding the concepts of ‘Democratic Security’ and ‘Communitarian State’ with awareness of the relationship between discourse, ideology and power. The aim is to better understand the political power of the plans, programs and projects developed by Uribe’s administration, and how this was affected by widespread deployment of the media. These policies are conditioned by a set of colonialist principles that are embodied in symbolic-discursive strategies that result in representations, by means of which mechanisms of marginalization, discrimination and polarized hierarchy are legitimized from the different social spheres. During the 7-year period analyzed there were controversial debates over the commission of crimes against humanity by national security agents, as well as corruption scandals over topics like ‘para-politics’, ‘false positives’, selective arrests, extrajudicial killings and violations of the sovereignty of bordering countries. Within this political context, we attempt to identify the inherent tensions and social conflicts. It is argued that the analyzed discourses reproduce colonialist thoughts, in relation to neoliberal principles and the application of global policies. Using the principles of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), we explore the strategies and resources used in Uribe’s speeches and how major themes are positioned to reproduce systems of beliefs, values and attitudes.

Constructing contentious and noncontentious facts: How gynecology textbooks create certainty around pharma-contraceptive safety

2019 ◽  
Vol 49 (2) ◽  
pp. 245-263 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrea M Bertotti ◽  
Skye A Miner
Keyword(s):  
Discourse Analysis ◽  
Critical Discourse Analysis ◽  
Health Effects ◽  
Medical Practice ◽  
Critical Discourse ◽  
Medical Community ◽  
Discursive Strategies ◽  
Neutral Language

Using critical discourse analysis, we examine how seven popular gynecology textbooks use sociolinguistic devices to describe the health effects of pharma-contraception (intrauterine and hormonal methods). Though previous studies have noted that textbooks generally use neutral language, we find that gynecology textbooks differentially deployed linguistic devices, framing pharma-contraceptive benefits as certain and risks as doubtful. These discursive strategies transform pharma-contraceptive safety into fact. We expand on Latour and Woolgar’s concept of noncontentious facts by showing how some facts that are taken for granted by the medical community still require discursive fortification to counter potential negative accusations from outside the profession. We call these contentious facts. Our findings suggest that a pro-pharma orientation exists in gynecology textbooks, which may influence physicians’ understanding of pharmaceutical safety. As such, these texts may affect medical practice by normalizing pharma-contraceptives without full considerations of their risks.

“We must unite now or perish!”

2019 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 252-271 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Nartey
Keyword(s):  
Discourse Analysis ◽  
Critical Discourse Analysis ◽  
Critical Discourse ◽  
Historical Approach ◽  
Discursive Strategies ◽  
Kwame Nkrumah ◽  
Pan African ◽  
The World ◽  
Discourse Historical Approach

Abstract This paper presents a discourse-mythological analysis of the rhetoric of a pioneering Pan-African and Ghana’s independence leader, Kwame Nkrumah, drawing on Ruth Wodak’s discourse-historical approach to critical discourse analysis. The thesis of the paper is that Nkrumah’s discourse, in its focus on the emancipation and unification of Africa, can be characterized as mythic, a discursive exhortation of Africa to demonstrate to the world that it can better govern itself than the colonizers. In this vein, the paper analyzes four discursive strategies employed by Nkrumah in the creation and projection of his mythology: the introduction or creation of new discourse events, presupposition and implication, involvement (the use of indexicals) and lexical structuring and reiteration. This study is, therefore, presented as a case study of mythic discourse within the domain of politics.

Discursive strategies for disinformation on WhatsApp and Twitter during the 2018 Brazilian presidential election

First Monday ◽  
2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Raquel Recuero ◽  
Felipe Soares ◽  
Otávio Vinhas
Keyword(s):  
Discourse Analysis ◽  
Mixed Methods ◽  
Critical Discourse Analysis ◽  
Presidential Election ◽  
Critical Discourse ◽  
Conspiracy Theories ◽  
Mixed Methods Approach ◽  
Discursive Strategies ◽  
Rational Explanation

This paper aims to analyze and compare the discursive strategies used to spread and legitimate disinformation on Twitter and WhatsApp during the 2018 Brazilian presidential election. Our case study is the disinformation campaign used to discredit the electronic ballot that was used for the election. In this paper, we use a mixed methods approach that combined critical discourse analysis and a quantitative aggregate approach to discuss a dataset of 53 original tweets and 54 original WhatsApp messages. We focused on identifying the most used strategies in each platform. Our results show that: (1) messages on both platforms used structural strategies to portray urgency and create a negative emotional framing; (2) tweets often framed disinformation as a “rational” explanation; and, (3) while WhatsApp messages frequently relied on authorities and shared conspiracy theories, spreading less truthful stories than tweets.

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