A CURENT PARADIGM: EUROPEAN COMUNICATION- STRATEGIES OF COMMUNICATION: CONTROL AND MANIPULATION IN POLITICAL DISCOURSE

Abstract

Taking into consideration the role that power plays within the context of social life, it becomes obvious that without this attribute called ?power? there could be no ordinate human activity (Bordeiu, 2006). Seen as a political phenomenon, power seems to be the most important component of political institutions. In this regard, it is being used for keeping and consolidating a certain social order, for ensuring the functionality of all social institutions, for keeping the social cohesion in a society, for controlling the citizens? behavior, as well as for unwanted behavior prevention (Mihailescu, 2000). The most general and well-known form of power is social power and the literature of the field (Downing, 1998; Hastings, 2000; Balandier, 1998; Valsan, 1997) describes it as the means through which society adjusts itself and self-regulates its mechanism with the purpose of ensuring and sustaining its optimum functionality. Bordeiu (2006) sees it as the element that sets in motion all the social gearing towards historical progress, the propelling force which accomplishes social and sustainable development, the binding concept among all the social structures and phenomena, which it definitely organizes (forming its hierarchical systems), coordinates and orchestrates according to the target agenda. Like any other social phenomena, the social power phenomenon distinguishes itself through a series of specific traits and the question is whether these traits that personalize social power do need the use of language or not, and if they do, at what level? In what follows, I will briefly summarize the traits of social power as proposed by Bordeiu (2006) and the diverse manifestations of power forms in society, trying to determine (via logical assumptions) the relevance of language for each category:→ Display as social relation ? social power relies invariably on the existence of a specific social relation (subordination: leader to obedient, also co-operation for achieving conjoint goals) between people or groups of people, typical of any community, no matter its size (family, tribe, nation). Among the members of any groups appear different relations based on interests (power, solidarity, collaboration, conflict, etc), relations that come into being according to a specific context and are submitted to the filter of language. → Display as organization and management of social life ? power constitutes the most important element in organizing, ruling and adjustment setting of social life. It imposes the goals of human activity, the necessary means and strategies for achieving them and in this way power becomes the vital component that establishes and applies social order on the social level, an order that in its turn generates the phenomenon of power. So, social order depends on organization in order to validate power and vice versa, but neither of them can materialize themselves without the support of language. → Essentiality and Permanence - power is an essential and a permanent element for social relations and therefore ensures the normal functioning of society. But the normal functioning of a society could never be achieved without the patterns of communication and verbal interaction. Language itself becomes this way essential and permanent to society. → Global Display ? power has, among other things, the quality of a global factor and becomes an integrator that orchestrates and incorporates all the other forms of ruling and organization of social activities. During the integration process, language plays a decisive role, as it ensures the uniformity of the system (language performing values). → Social Values Synthesis Display ? The values promoted by power represent a synthesis of the other values manifested on the social level, which reflect the interests of the social majority, taking into consideration those related to the historical, moral or cultural tradition. In this case, language has the capacity to store these values, ensures fluency in passing on specific values and provides the opportunity to form a majority which will share the same ideological language. → Roles Asymmetry within Power Relationships ? The need for organizing and ruling different forms of activity (within complex human groups) determines social divisions, respectively asymmetries in the roles assumed by different categories of individuals (leaders and obeyers).