Defending the nation: The discourse on youth nationalist organizations in the Polish press

Abstract

The article presents the results of press discourse analysis on selected youth organizations in the context of the celebrations of the centenary of Poland’s independence in 2018. It focuses on two nationalist organizations: the All-Polish Youth (APY) and the National Radical Camp (NRC), which most often appeared in 2018 press materials in the context of Poland’s Independence Day. The analysis covers eight press titles: five dailies and three weeklies. The article tries to answer the following research questions: how are these organizations presented in press discourse; who are their members; what characteristics are attributed to them; how are they assessed and from what perspective analysed discourse is conducted? A qualitative research method was used together with an analysis of the discursive strategies: nomination, predication and perspectivization. The results show that press titles fight for symbolic power over the readers in the same way (using the same discursive strategies), having the same aim (defending the nation), but using different arguments. This battle for power is between the press that is favourable to the ruling party or hostile to it.