The Croatian political scene is undergoing radical changes. Since the 2016 parliamentary election, the left-wing has gradually lost ground. One of the key roles in the political process is played by the media, which influence the voters and their choices. In this paper we analysed written texts collected during the 2016 election campaign. Among the most prominent Croatian newspapers the left-wing Novi list and the right-wing Večernji list are chosen as the focal publications. We conducted a text linguistic analysis of the political catchword (phrase, slogan) and its role in creating the political opinions of voters. The analysis provided data about the verbal, nonverbal and paraverbal text segments. These phenomena were abstracted as communicational-pragmatic and language-stylistic entities which are necessary for the successful cognitive framing of the political opinions of the public. In order to create and frame political opinions, the text producer uses subtle persuasive messages. Furthermore, at the content-related level of the text structure analysis, the communicative intention of the producer is shown, while the text function analysis shows the most common text indicators used to transmit the desired content and identifies a potential persuasive message “hidden” in the words. As a result, the number of catchwords published in line with each newspaper’s own political orientation is slightly higher than that of the other option, which shows that political neutrality is lacking in the Croatian media.
{"title":"Cognitive framing through political catchwords","authors":"Suzana Jurin, Daniela Kružić","doi":"10.4312/ars.14.1.89-103","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4312/ars.14.1.89-103","url":null,"abstract":"The Croatian political scene is undergoing radical changes. Since the 2016 parliamentary election, the left-wing has gradually lost ground. One of the key roles in the political process is played by the media, which influence the voters and their choices. In this paper we analysed written texts collected during the 2016 election campaign. Among the most prominent Croatian newspapers the left-wing Novi list and the right-wing Večernji list are chosen as the focal publications. We conducted a text linguistic analysis of the political catchword (phrase, slogan) and its role in creating the political opinions of voters. The analysis provided data about the verbal, nonverbal and paraverbal text segments. These phenomena were abstracted as communicational-pragmatic and language-stylistic entities which are necessary for the successful cognitive framing of the political opinions of the public. In order to create and frame political opinions, the text producer uses subtle persuasive messages. Furthermore, at the content-related level of the text structure analysis, the communicative intention of the producer is shown, while the text function analysis shows the most common text indicators used to transmit the desired content and identifies a potential persuasive message “hidden” in the words. As a result, the number of catchwords published in line with each newspaper’s own political orientation is slightly higher than that of the other option, which shows that political neutrality is lacking in the Croatian media.","PeriodicalId":40773,"journal":{"name":"Ars & Humanitas","volume":"14 1","pages":"89-103"},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2020-06-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43723952","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-06-23DOI: 10.4312/ars.14.1.157-170
Ana Zwitter Vitez
À l’époque des nouveaux médias, les utilisateurs de forums, de réseaux sociaux et de portails d’actualité ont la possibilité d’exprimer publiquement leur opinion sur le dynamisme politique, social ou personnel. Le discours politique, vivement présent sur les réseaux sociaux, suscite des réactions des récepteurs presque immédiates. L’objectif de la présente analyse est de dégager la structure linguistique des tweets par lesquels les utilisateurs réagissent au discours politique et qui révèlent des opinions très polarisées. Nous avons analysé 270 tweets qui ont été publiés en tant que réactions au tweet du président français Emmanuel Macron déclarant avoir régularisé la situation d’un migrant qui a sauvé la vie d’un enfant. L’analyse porte sur les niveaux de la syntaxe, du vocabulaire et de l’orthographe. Les résultats montrent que les tweets de support au message de Macron ont davantage tendance à avoir une structure de phrase exclamative simple, un vocabulaire de support explicite et une orthographe non-conventionnelle. De l’autre côté, les tweets qui révèlent les émotions négatives se caractérisent par une structure syntaxique complexe, des phrases interrogatives et un vocabulaire plutôt neutre. Cette recherche pourrait approfondir les connaissances existantes sur la structure linguistique de l’expression de l’opinion et complémenter les méthodes computationnelles de l’analyse de sentiment.
{"title":"Le discours politique et l’expression de l’opinion sur Twitter","authors":"Ana Zwitter Vitez","doi":"10.4312/ars.14.1.157-170","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4312/ars.14.1.157-170","url":null,"abstract":"À l’époque des nouveaux médias, les utilisateurs de forums, de réseaux sociaux et de portails d’actualité ont la possibilité d’exprimer publiquement leur opinion sur le dynamisme politique, social ou personnel. Le discours politique, vivement présent sur les réseaux sociaux, suscite des réactions des récepteurs presque immédiates. L’objectif de la présente analyse est de dégager la structure linguistique des tweets par lesquels les utilisateurs réagissent au discours politique et qui révèlent des opinions très polarisées. Nous avons analysé 270 tweets qui ont été publiés en tant que réactions au tweet du président français Emmanuel Macron déclarant avoir régularisé la situation d’un migrant qui a sauvé la vie d’un enfant. L’analyse porte sur les niveaux de la syntaxe, du vocabulaire et de l’orthographe. Les résultats montrent que les tweets de support au message de Macron ont davantage tendance à avoir une structure de phrase exclamative simple, un vocabulaire de support explicite et une orthographe non-conventionnelle. De l’autre côté, les tweets qui révèlent les émotions négatives se caractérisent par une structure syntaxique complexe, des phrases interrogatives et un vocabulaire plutôt neutre. Cette recherche pourrait approfondir les connaissances existantes sur la structure linguistique de l’expression de l’opinion et complémenter les méthodes computationnelles de l’analyse de sentiment.","PeriodicalId":40773,"journal":{"name":"Ars & Humanitas","volume":"14 1","pages":"157-170"},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2020-06-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46915222","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-06-23DOI: 10.4312/ars.14.1.125-137
Nadine Rentel
Recent surveys and political research have shown that the acceptance of the political programmes of populist parties, such as the “Alternative für Deutschland (AfD)”, is relatively high amongst the population of the three eastern German federal states, especially in Saxony, where the AfD won nine of the 13 rural districts during the local elections in May 2019. Thus, it seems relevant to take a closer look at the persuasive discourse of a so-called populist party. In its public discourse, the AfD responds to the fears and concerns of those people who tend to use social media platforms to gain information when making political decisions. The aim of the article is to show which verbal and visual resources characterize the persuasive discourse of the AFD Saxony on their Facebook account. For this purpose, we propose a qualitative, multimodal analysis of selected entries which the party uploaded on its Facebook account between November 2018 and March 2019.
{"title":"Persuasive communication on the Facebook account of the “Alternative für Deutschland” Saxony","authors":"Nadine Rentel","doi":"10.4312/ars.14.1.125-137","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4312/ars.14.1.125-137","url":null,"abstract":"Recent surveys and political research have shown that the acceptance of the political programmes of populist parties, such as the “Alternative für Deutschland (AfD)”, is relatively high amongst the population of the three eastern German federal states, especially in Saxony, where the AfD won nine of the 13 rural districts during the local elections in May 2019. Thus, it seems relevant to take a closer look at the persuasive discourse of a so-called populist party. In its public discourse, the AfD responds to the fears and concerns of those people who tend to use social media platforms to gain information when making political decisions. The aim of the article is to show which verbal and visual resources characterize the persuasive discourse of the AFD Saxony on their Facebook account. For this purpose, we propose a qualitative, multimodal analysis of selected entries which the party uploaded on its Facebook account between November 2018 and March 2019.","PeriodicalId":40773,"journal":{"name":"Ars & Humanitas","volume":"14 1","pages":"125-137"},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2020-06-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47836841","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Repetition is a common linguistic element in literary as well as non-literary discourse. In A Dictionary of Stylistics, Katie Wales draws attention to the two sets of effects it can produce in everyday use: it can be an unwanted redundancy as well as a “powerful resource of interpersonal involvement and rapport” (2014, 366). While the former is not characteristic of quality literature, the latter can be a potent stylistic tool for achieving a range of effects. Paul Simpson (2004, 50) refers to repetition as one of the main principles in forming textual patterns (e.g., foregrounding), thus bringing certain features of the text to the front of the reader’s or – in the case of staged drama – viewer’s attention. Similarly, Michael Burke (2014, 25-28) sees repetition as one of the significant features in stylistics, next to parallelism and deviation, but suggests that the concepts concerning its function need to be further developed and researched. John Cuddon credits repetition in literature with a structural function, denoting it an “essential unifying element in nearly all poetry and much prose” (1999, 742), while understanding it in broad terms: as repetition of words, phrases, stanzas or longer excerpts, even sounds and other stylistic or linguistic phenomena. Edward Quinn (2006, 359-60) extends this definition to the employment of repeated images with an impact on the imagery of the work, as well as to visual context, by acknowledging repetition as a technique in film. This makes repetition applicable to all absolute genres, in Szondi’s (2000, 30-31) sense, and most particularly to drama. An extensive overview of research about repetition in spoken conversation was provided by Deborah Tannen (2007). Several authors she mentions (e.g., Schegloff, 1997; Rieger, 2003; Linell, 1982; Svennevig, 2004, and others, cit. in Tannen (15-16)) as well as Tannen herself emphasize the importance of considering the sound aspect – particularly intonation – in the analysis of repetition patterns: “the very notion that the repetition of words spoken in conversation is ‘exact’ repetition holds only if we think of words as they would appear in a dictionary, stripped of their sound” (2007, 16). This suggests that the semantic potential of voice quality, i.e., volume, intonation, stress and other phonetic aspects, is too often ignored. These findings are particularly
{"title":"Repetition as a means of verbal and psychological violence in interrogation scenes from contemporary drama","authors":"Tomaz Onic, Nastja Prajnč Kacijan","doi":"10.4312/ars.14.1.13-26","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4312/ars.14.1.13-26","url":null,"abstract":"Repetition is a common linguistic element in literary as well as non-literary discourse. In A Dictionary of Stylistics, Katie Wales draws attention to the two sets of effects it can produce in everyday use: it can be an unwanted redundancy as well as a “powerful resource of interpersonal involvement and rapport” (2014, 366). While the former is not characteristic of quality literature, the latter can be a potent stylistic tool for achieving a range of effects. Paul Simpson (2004, 50) refers to repetition as one of the main principles in forming textual patterns (e.g., foregrounding), thus bringing certain features of the text to the front of the reader’s or – in the case of staged drama – viewer’s attention. Similarly, Michael Burke (2014, 25-28) sees repetition as one of the significant features in stylistics, next to parallelism and deviation, but suggests that the concepts concerning its function need to be further developed and researched. John Cuddon credits repetition in literature with a structural function, denoting it an “essential unifying element in nearly all poetry and much prose” (1999, 742), while understanding it in broad terms: as repetition of words, phrases, stanzas or longer excerpts, even sounds and other stylistic or linguistic phenomena. Edward Quinn (2006, 359-60) extends this definition to the employment of repeated images with an impact on the imagery of the work, as well as to visual context, by acknowledging repetition as a technique in film. This makes repetition applicable to all absolute genres, in Szondi’s (2000, 30-31) sense, and most particularly to drama. An extensive overview of research about repetition in spoken conversation was provided by Deborah Tannen (2007). Several authors she mentions (e.g., Schegloff, 1997; Rieger, 2003; Linell, 1982; Svennevig, 2004, and others, cit. in Tannen (15-16)) as well as Tannen herself emphasize the importance of considering the sound aspect – particularly intonation – in the analysis of repetition patterns: “the very notion that the repetition of words spoken in conversation is ‘exact’ repetition holds only if we think of words as they would appear in a dictionary, stripped of their sound” (2007, 16). This suggests that the semantic potential of voice quality, i.e., volume, intonation, stress and other phonetic aspects, is too often ignored. These findings are particularly","PeriodicalId":40773,"journal":{"name":"Ars & Humanitas","volume":"14 1","pages":"13-26"},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2020-06-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47448949","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-06-23DOI: 10.4312/ars.14.1.139-155
Katja Plemenitaš
The paper discusses the characteristics of modern American presidential political rhetoric with special reference to Barack Obama’s speeches in which he addressed the highly publicized killings of black Americans. Three of the analysed speeches contain Obama’s rhetorical reaction to the judicial decisions not to indict the police officers responsible for the killings, while one speech gives his immediate reaction to the mass murder of black parishioners by a white supremacist. The study is based on the discourse-linguistic analysis of attitudinal meanings and their functions, which are conceptualized as evaluative frames. Evaluative frames are used to highlight different kinds of discourse participants through judgments of behaviour, attributions of emotions and evaluations of semiotic phenomena and objects. The theoretical framework for the different categories of evaluative frames is based on the theory of news framing and theory of evaluative language within systemic-functional linguistics. The findings of the analysis show that Obama uses an interplay of positive and negative evaluations of different kinds to transcend racial categorizations and avoid a direct attribution of blame. When he acknowledges the continuing relevance of the racial divide in US society, he often applies evaluative frames in such a way that they unify rather than divide the discourse participants on both sides of the divide.
{"title":"Framing violence in presidential discourse","authors":"Katja Plemenitaš","doi":"10.4312/ars.14.1.139-155","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4312/ars.14.1.139-155","url":null,"abstract":"The paper discusses the characteristics of modern American presidential political rhetoric with special reference to Barack Obama’s speeches in which he addressed the highly publicized killings of black Americans. Three of the analysed speeches contain Obama’s rhetorical reaction to the judicial decisions not to indict the police officers responsible for the killings, while one speech gives his immediate reaction to the mass murder of black parishioners by a white supremacist. The study is based on the discourse-linguistic analysis of attitudinal meanings and their functions, which are conceptualized as evaluative frames. Evaluative frames are used to highlight different kinds of discourse participants through judgments of behaviour, attributions of emotions and evaluations of semiotic phenomena and objects. The theoretical framework for the different categories of evaluative frames is based on the theory of news framing and theory of evaluative language within systemic-functional linguistics. The findings of the analysis show that Obama uses an interplay of positive and negative evaluations of different kinds to transcend racial categorizations and avoid a direct attribution of blame. When he acknowledges the continuing relevance of the racial divide in US society, he often applies evaluative frames in such a way that they unify rather than divide the discourse participants on both sides of the divide.","PeriodicalId":40773,"journal":{"name":"Ars & Humanitas","volume":"14 1","pages":"139-155"},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2020-06-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49147435","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This essay brings the example of Jonathan Swift’s literary personae to bear on current trends in satirical culture. A number of recent commentators have written of a crisis in contemporary British satire. They invoke Horkheimer and Adorno’s theory that comedy supports power interests which it purportedly undermines. The present essay maintains that Swift in a sense confirms this theory, but also that he sets another, more exacting standard for satire. Swiftian satire is singular if not unique in that it is openly self-disabling: in its highest form it deploys a persona that exhausts the resources of contemporary and classical theory. In doing so, it confronts its audiences with a complex and engaged expression of political helplessness. But it also uses irony to tell the truth. The standard Swift sets contemporary satire is an exacting one: to deliver an unflinching and, if necessary, vindictive testimony against injustice.
{"title":"Contemporary British satire and the problem of Jonathan Swift’s personae","authors":"J. Stubbs","doi":"10.4312/ars.14.1.27-40","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4312/ars.14.1.27-40","url":null,"abstract":"This essay brings the example of Jonathan Swift’s literary personae to bear on current trends in satirical culture. A number of recent commentators have written of a crisis in contemporary British satire. They invoke Horkheimer and Adorno’s theory that comedy supports power interests which it purportedly undermines. The present essay maintains that Swift in a sense confirms this theory, but also that he sets another, more exacting standard for satire. Swiftian satire is singular if not unique in that it is openly self-disabling: in its highest form it deploys a persona that exhausts the resources of contemporary and classical theory. In doing so, it confronts its audiences with a complex and engaged expression of political helplessness. But it also uses irony to tell the truth. The standard Swift sets contemporary satire is an exacting one: to deliver an unflinching and, if necessary, vindictive testimony against injustice.","PeriodicalId":40773,"journal":{"name":"Ars & Humanitas","volume":"14 1","pages":"27-40"},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2020-06-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41463163","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-06-23DOI: 10.4312/ars.14.1.171-185
A. Križan
As a genre, advertising is generally characterized by its persuasive and communicative rhetoric, i.e. it uses language and strategies effectively as a means of “structured” and “paid nonpersonal communication” to influence or persuade the potential consumer to buy the product (Wells et al., 2000, 6; Arens et al., 2008, 7). Persuasive rhetoric has its origins in Aristotle’s rhetorical theory; according to Barnes (1984), advertisements utilize three modes of persuasion: ethos (the appeal to one’s character), pathos (the appeal to emotion) and logos (the appeal to reason). As illustrated in the paper, it is the evaluative nature of appraisals in seemingly factual monoglossic propositions that helps realise those appeals, in particular pathos. Perloff (2010) and Jefkins and Yadin (2000, 13-15) define advertising persuasion in terms of changing and influencing the consumer’s attitudes or behaviour. This is principally achieved through the social values, norms and attitudes that they mirror and shape (White, 2000; Vestergaard, Schroder, 1985). The social activity of advertisements, as of most genre types, is managed particularly through interpersonal meanings1, which closely pertain to the persuasive rhetoric, since their realization reflects the participants’ (advertiser vs advertisee) interaction, their mutual influence, the construction and fulfilment of social roles, the adoption of attitudinal positions, and the establishment of relationships (White, 2000). One of the linguistic tools that realizes the interpersonal function is the appraisal, defined as “one of three major discourse-semantic resources for construing interpersonal meaning” (Martin, White, 2005). In the appraisal model, all utterances (verbal and print) are considered “dialogic”, i.e. they refer to, respond to, affirm or stay neutral toward value judgements: they also anticipate the possible responses of an actual and imagined reader, and so on (Martin, White, 2005, 92). Such a view is based on Bakhtin (1981, 281), who states that all utterances exist “... against backdrop of other concrete utterances on the same theme, a background made up of contradictory opinions,
{"title":"The persuasive mechanism of monoglossic propositions in advertisments","authors":"A. Križan","doi":"10.4312/ars.14.1.171-185","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4312/ars.14.1.171-185","url":null,"abstract":"As a genre, advertising is generally characterized by its persuasive and communicative rhetoric, i.e. it uses language and strategies effectively as a means of “structured” and “paid nonpersonal communication” to influence or persuade the potential consumer to buy the product (Wells et al., 2000, 6; Arens et al., 2008, 7). Persuasive rhetoric has its origins in Aristotle’s rhetorical theory; according to Barnes (1984), advertisements utilize three modes of persuasion: ethos (the appeal to one’s character), pathos (the appeal to emotion) and logos (the appeal to reason). As illustrated in the paper, it is the evaluative nature of appraisals in seemingly factual monoglossic propositions that helps realise those appeals, in particular pathos. Perloff (2010) and Jefkins and Yadin (2000, 13-15) define advertising persuasion in terms of changing and influencing the consumer’s attitudes or behaviour. This is principally achieved through the social values, norms and attitudes that they mirror and shape (White, 2000; Vestergaard, Schroder, 1985). The social activity of advertisements, as of most genre types, is managed particularly through interpersonal meanings1, which closely pertain to the persuasive rhetoric, since their realization reflects the participants’ (advertiser vs advertisee) interaction, their mutual influence, the construction and fulfilment of social roles, the adoption of attitudinal positions, and the establishment of relationships (White, 2000). One of the linguistic tools that realizes the interpersonal function is the appraisal, defined as “one of three major discourse-semantic resources for construing interpersonal meaning” (Martin, White, 2005). In the appraisal model, all utterances (verbal and print) are considered “dialogic”, i.e. they refer to, respond to, affirm or stay neutral toward value judgements: they also anticipate the possible responses of an actual and imagined reader, and so on (Martin, White, 2005, 92). Such a view is based on Bakhtin (1981, 281), who states that all utterances exist “... against backdrop of other concrete utterances on the same theme, a background made up of contradictory opinions,","PeriodicalId":40773,"journal":{"name":"Ars & Humanitas","volume":"14 1","pages":"171-185"},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2020-06-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42447493","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The research behind this paper is set in the context of the 2016 US presidential election that has come to symbolize the post-truth era. We conducted a literature review on the 2016 election, with the aim to better understand the impact of computational propaganda on the election outcome and on the behaviour of voters. The paper opens with a definition of post-truth society and related concepts such as fake news and computational propaganda. It explores the changes of political communication in a digital environment and analyses the role of social media in the 2016 election. It probes into phenomena such as the trivialization of politics and the loss of credibility of political actors, which are both common in post-truth societies. The reviewed literature seems to indicate that social media have become strong actors on the political stage, but so far not the predominant source of political information and influence on the behaviour of voters. The paper makes two important contributions. Firstly, drawing on the concept of post-truth society, it analyses the role of computational propaganda in the 2016 presidential election, and secondly, it attempts to explain the paradox of general political apathy on one hand, and increased political activism on the other. These are some of the challenges we are now facing, and in order to be able to cope with them it is important to acknowledge and understand them.
{"title":"Political communication in post-truth society","authors":"N. Gorenc","doi":"10.4312/ars.14.1.73-87","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4312/ars.14.1.73-87","url":null,"abstract":"The research behind this paper is set in the context of the 2016 US presidential election that has come to symbolize the post-truth era. We conducted a literature review on the 2016 election, with the aim to better understand the impact of computational propaganda on the election outcome and on the behaviour of voters. The paper opens with a definition of post-truth society and related concepts such as fake news and computational propaganda. It explores the changes of political communication in a digital environment and analyses the role of social media in the 2016 election. It probes into phenomena such as the trivialization of politics and the loss of credibility of political actors, which are both common in post-truth societies. The reviewed literature seems to indicate that social media have become strong actors on the political stage, but so far not the predominant source of political information and influence on the behaviour of voters. The paper makes two important contributions. Firstly, drawing on the concept of post-truth society, it analyses the role of computational propaganda in the 2016 presidential election, and secondly, it attempts to explain the paradox of general political apathy on one hand, and increased political activism on the other. These are some of the challenges we are now facing, and in order to be able to cope with them it is important to acknowledge and understand them.","PeriodicalId":40773,"journal":{"name":"Ars & Humanitas","volume":"14 1","pages":"73-87"},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2020-06-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49043419","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The paper interrogates the various discourse strategies adopted by the electorate on social media (SM) to delegitimize political opponents and engender rivalry in the build-up to the February 2019 presidential elections in Nigeria. A total of forty-two (42) Facebook (FB) posts on Nigerian political discourse were purposively selected between November 2018 and January 2019, and subjected to pragmatic and evaluative analysis, adopting Mey’s (2001) pragmatic acts theory and Martin and White’s (2005) appraisal theory.From our analysis, fourteen (14) different delegitimization strategies were found to have been utilized by the writers to achieve the pragmatic acts of discrediting political opponents as unworthy of being voted into powers, while concurrently persuading the electorate to support their side instead. These strategies include the following categories: facts and evidence, issue-based rhetorical question, frank issue-based opinion, contrastive engagement, and dysphemism. Others are implicit antithesis, direct verbal attack, allegations, irony, demonization, self-indictment, lexical gymnastics, sarcasm, and prophetism. The findings show overt and covert persuasive strategies and interactivity towards the pragmatic act of delegitimizing political opponents, showing words as the real weapons on the battlefield of politics. The analysis further reveals that people tend to support a SM post not necessarily because it is true, but because it supports the chances of their candidate or hurts the opposing side. Thus a platform has been provided for implicit and explicit political stance taking, which may be difficult outside SM due to certain insecurity and face threats. SM has become a site for a running, fierce, and open political discourse, the new voice for the voiceless, as well as for issue-based campaigns in Nigeria. It may well become a space where general elections are won and lost even before a vote is cast.
该论文质疑了选民在社交媒体（SM）上采取的各种话语策略，这些策略旨在剥夺政治对手的合法性，并在2019年2月尼日利亚总统选举的筹备过程中引发竞争。在2018年11月至2019年1月期间，共有四十二（42）条关于尼日利亚政治话语的脸书帖子被有意选择，并采用Mey（2001）的语用行为理论和Martin and White（2005）的评价理论进行了语用和评价分析。根据我们的分析，作者利用了十四（14）种不同的剥夺合法性策略来实现务实的行为，即诋毁政治对手不值得被投票上台，同时说服选民支持他们的一方。这些策略包括以下几类：事实和证据、基于问题的修辞问题、基于问题坦率的观点、对比参与和委婉语。其他的是隐含的对立、直接的言语攻击、指控、讽刺、妖魔化、自我控诉、词汇体操、讽刺和预言。研究结果表明，公开和隐蔽的说服策略以及对剥夺政治对手合法性的务实行为的互动，表明言语是政治战场上的真正武器。分析进一步表明，人们倾向于支持SM职位，不一定是因为这是真的，而是因为它支持了候选人的机会或伤害了对方。因此，为采取隐性和显性的政治立场提供了一个平台，这在SM之外可能很困难，因为存在一定的不安全感，并面临威胁。SM已经成为一个持续、激烈和开放的政治话语的网站，是无声者的新声音，也是尼日利亚基于问题的运动的新声音。甚至在投票之前，它很可能成为大选胜负的空间。
{"title":"Nigeria’s 2019 electioneering discourse","authors":"W. A. Bamigbade, Lawan Dalha","doi":"10.4312/ars.14.1.55-72","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4312/ars.14.1.55-72","url":null,"abstract":"The paper interrogates the various discourse strategies adopted by the electorate on social media (SM) to delegitimize political opponents and engender rivalry in the build-up to the February 2019 presidential elections in Nigeria. A total of forty-two (42) Facebook (FB) posts on Nigerian political discourse were purposively selected between November 2018 and January 2019, and subjected to pragmatic and evaluative analysis, adopting Mey’s (2001) pragmatic acts theory and Martin and White’s (2005) appraisal theory.From our analysis, fourteen (14) different delegitimization strategies were found to have been utilized by the writers to achieve the pragmatic acts of discrediting political opponents as unworthy of being voted into powers, while concurrently persuading the electorate to support their side instead. These strategies include the following categories: facts and evidence, issue-based rhetorical question, frank issue-based opinion, contrastive engagement, and dysphemism. Others are implicit antithesis, direct verbal attack, allegations, irony, demonization, self-indictment, lexical gymnastics, sarcasm, and prophetism. The findings show overt and covert persuasive strategies and interactivity towards the pragmatic act of delegitimizing political opponents, showing words as the real weapons on the battlefield of politics. The analysis further reveals that people tend to support a SM post not necessarily because it is true, but because it supports the chances of their candidate or hurts the opposing side. Thus a platform has been provided for implicit and explicit political stance taking, which may be difficult outside SM due to certain insecurity and face threats. SM has become a site for a running, fierce, and open political discourse, the new voice for the voiceless, as well as for issue-based campaigns in Nigeria. It may well become a space where general elections are won and lost even before a vote is cast.","PeriodicalId":40773,"journal":{"name":"Ars & Humanitas","volume":"14 1","pages":"55-72"},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2020-06-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47335588","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-06-23DOI: 10.4312/ars.14.1.105-124
Maiken Ana Kores
Given the rise in far-right and populist rhetoric in Europe, particularly in light of the 2015 refugee crisis and the racist and xenophobic responses to it, this paper provides a multimodal analysis of the campaign slogans and posters of Slovenian political parties that gained parliamentary seats during the 2018 parliamentary elections that were, alongside focusing on issues pertaining to the Slovenian political landscape, heavily infused with concerns and potential solutions on how to tackle the challenges currently faced by Europe. The aim is to examine the linguistic and visual tools used by parties across the political spectrum, and to find out if the use of certain elements is characteristic of a determined political orientation. A brief outline of Slovenian party dynamics and the conditions that have contributed to them is followed by an analysis of the parties’ political campaigns. Using the tools of political discourse analysis, the first part is centred around parties’ choice of syntax and lexis in their political slogans, as well as the imagery on their posters, whereas the second is devoted to a linguistic analysis of how parties frame and address five key common issues in their political programmes: pensions, corruption, finance, healthcare and safety. Their stances and how these differ or coincide based on their place on the political spectrum are exemplified by short excerpts from the programmes.
{"title":"Powerful posters","authors":"Maiken Ana Kores","doi":"10.4312/ars.14.1.105-124","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4312/ars.14.1.105-124","url":null,"abstract":"Given the rise in far-right and populist rhetoric in Europe, particularly in light of the 2015 refugee crisis and the racist and xenophobic responses to it, this paper provides a multimodal analysis of the campaign slogans and posters of Slovenian political parties that gained parliamentary seats during the 2018 parliamentary elections that were, alongside focusing on issues pertaining to the Slovenian political landscape, heavily infused with concerns and potential solutions on how to tackle the challenges currently faced by Europe. The aim is to examine the linguistic and visual tools used by parties across the political spectrum, and to find out if the use of certain elements is characteristic of a determined political orientation. A brief outline of Slovenian party dynamics and the conditions that have contributed to them is followed by an analysis of the parties’ political campaigns. Using the tools of political discourse analysis, the first part is centred around parties’ choice of syntax and lexis in their political slogans, as well as the imagery on their posters, whereas the second is devoted to a linguistic analysis of how parties frame and address five key common issues in their political programmes: pensions, corruption, finance, healthcare and safety. Their stances and how these differ or coincide based on their place on the political spectrum are exemplified by short excerpts from the programmes.","PeriodicalId":40773,"journal":{"name":"Ars & Humanitas","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2020-06-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42194398","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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