Representation of Social Actors in US Egress from Afghanistan: A Critical Discourse Analysis

Abstract

Media through discursive representation as contended by Van Leeuwen (2008) shapes the identity of the participants positively or negatively by their purposeful inclusion or exclusion in a text to gain desired results. Hence, readers' sympathy, cooperation, acceptance or rejection, contempt, and criticism primarily depend on how a social actor (Henceforth SA) has been represented. The objective of this study is to reveal how, at the time of US withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021, the New York Times and USA TODAY have represented the Afghan army, the Afghan government, the US army, the US government as In-group and the Taliban as Out-group in the news. The findings reveal that both newspapers reported the event discursively by building a positive image of the In-group and creating a negative image of the Out-group to influence the perception of the readers.