Campaign Discourse Research Articles

Anti-Populism of the Left, Right, and Centre: Varieties of Anti-Populist Party Politics in the European “Populist Moment”

AbstractThis paper examines varieties of anti-populist party politics from left to right that emerged against the backdrop of the much-discussed “populist moment” of the mid- to late 2010s in Europe. Situating the analysis in the special issue’s interest in an “anti-populist moment” that discursively co-constituted this “populist moment,” the paper keys in on the anti-populist campaign discourses of three political parties that took centre stage in the 2017 national parliamentary elections in their respective countries: GreenLeft in the Netherlands, the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) in Germany, and the Civic Democratic Party (ODS) in the Czech Republic. Drawing on and further developing a discursive approach to anti-populism as a political logic following Essex School or post-foundational discourse analysis, the paper identifies three distinct anti-populist constructions of the perceived threat of “populism”: a left-wing agonistic equating of populism with right-wing politics, a liberal-conservative claim to the centre ground against a horseshoe-like populist threat from left and right, and a right-wing appeal to resist an unholy alliance of “populists and communists.” The analysis situates each variety of anti-populism diachronically in these parties’ previous discursive-strategic orientations, especially their anti-far-right (GreenLeft) or anti-communist (CDU, ODS) appeals, as well as their subsequent developments over time.

The Pragmatics of Linguistic Creativity in Nigeria's 2023 Elections Campaign Discourse

The Pragmatics of Linguistic Creativity in Nigeria's 2023 Elections Campaign Discourse

Network Flow of Campaign Discourses and News Frames: The Changing Fortunes of Twitter/X as a Conduit for Frame-Building

ABSTRACT Periodic changes continue to impact the fortunes of Twitter as a political communication and news-sharing platform, particularly among diverse individual and institutional African users. Yet few studies provide empirical insights into Twitter’s changing role in campaign communication and its influence on news frame-building across the region, mainly in Nigeria. This study bridges the gap by analysing n = 763 tweets to determine how the political campaign discourse strategies in the tweeting activities of two prominent candidates influenced the news frame-building practices of mainstream newspapers during the four months of Nigeria’s 2019 presidential campaign. Findings affirm that the Twittersphere served as a playground where candidates deployed diverse discourse frames correlating with political agendas to show their intent to integrate Twitter into their campaign communication strategies. Moreover, the candidates’ tweets contribute to the journalistic frame-building process, although the newspapers tend to focus more on frame-setting than frame-sending due to the dynamic nature of journalistic content production across individual news outlets.

The power of words in political discourses of the general election campaigns in Kenya

This paper examines the power of words in political campaign discourses in Kenyan media. The study focuses on the several meanings of concepts employed by politicians in the run-up to the general elections of August 2022. Discursive practices and linguistic tactics are employed in discourses to achieve a particular political, social, psychological or linguistic goal. Critical theories of language see the use of language as a form of social practice. Critical discourse analysis claims that major social and political processes and movements have a partly linguistic and partly social and political character. Social relations of power are linguistic and discursive in nature. They are exercised and negotiated in discourse. The study utilised Mitchel Foucault’s approaches to political discourse and Norman Fairclough’s critical approaches to discourse analysis. Fairclough’s three-dimensional model of critical discourse analysis was employed in the study. First is the analysis of text; words are a part of the community, and texts contain interpretation. Secondly, language is viewed as a discursive practice, which is the production or the constitution of text and, finally, the analysis of language as a social practice, which includes the analysis of norms. The study sought to contribute to studies dealing with the discursive construction of power and ideology in political discourses. The study demonstrates that Kenyans do not vote independently; rather, they are persuaded to vote through the power exerted by the rhetoric of the politicians and the professional media practices that assist their presentation.

Agonal strategies in the american election campaign discourse (a case study of the political debates of the 2023 republican primary candidates)

The article analyses the methods of implementing the agonal strategies of political debate as one of the prototypical agonal genres of political discourse. For analysis, the speeches of politicians were selected during the 1st Republican primary debates held in the City of Milwaukee on August 23, 2023, streamed by the Fox News channel. The analysis allowed us to identify a 3-level structure of agonal strategies implemented by politicians within the framework of political debate. The 1st (basic) level of strategies – an introductive one – includes strategies for self-positioning, self-presentation and opponent defamation. The purpose of these strategies in terms of their agonal character is to position oneself as a leader worth winning the campaign, demonstrating individual undeniable advantages compared to other candidates and the expulsion of negative features of rivals. The verifying strategies of the 2nd level consist in operating with information received from the opponent aimed at producing an impact on the recipient, and include such strategies as self-defence and the opponent defamation. The additive strategy of the 3rd (highest) level combines the goals and objectives of the strategies of both lower levels; however, it has a special purpose inherent only to it – to give new meaning to the facts and phenomena reported by opponents, by introducing a new angle of tackling the problem. The main strategies at this level include ones of rational and emotional convictions realised by the tactics of introducing new facts and the new aspect ultimately aiming at establishing new semantic linkages in the recipient minds at the site of the destruction of semantic linkages, initially present in the speech of the political opponent. Thus, the study made it possible to ascertain that the genre of political debate, being a tactical repertoire of agonal behaviour strategies. is verbalised by various means, while strategies of a higher level can intersect with the lower ones’ strategies, nevertheless making explication of these strategies different, depending on the place of the strategy in the hierarchy.

Comparative Study of Hate Speech in the 2015 and 2019 General Elections in Three Selected Newspapers in Nigeria

The recent trend in journalism malpractice in the country is the dissemination of hate speech and vulgar language. Within this context, the paper analyzed the manifestation of hate speech in the 2015 and 2019 general elections in the Daily Trust, The Nation, and The Guardian newspapers. The variables of frequency, location, direction, as well as a journalistic genre were used to examine the manifestation of hate speech in the 2015 and 2019 general elections by the selected newspapers. Stratified random sampling by days of the week was used to select the editions in the newspapers. The Functional Theory of Campaign Discourse and Critical Race Theory was used as the theoretical framework. Based on the findings, to table the manifestation of hate speech was more frequent in 2015 than in the 2019 general elections by the selected newspapers. The findings reveal that the manifestation of hate speech by the selected newspapers in the 2015 and 2019 general elections was significantly high in the inside pages than in the front and back pages. The study found that the manifestation of hate speech by the selected newspapers was in a negative direction in 2015, and in a neutral direction in 2019. The study discovered that the manifestation of hate speech was on political news by the selected newspapers in the 2015 and 2019 general elections in Nigeria. The paper concludes that the manifestation of hate speech in the 2015 and 2019 general elections in Nigeria was significantly high, and this constituted a major problem in the 2015 and 2019 general elections.

Exploiting Sociocultural Issues in Election Campaign Discourse: The Case of Nyans in Sweden

The Swedish far-right party, the Sweden Democrats (SD), came to power in 2022 and is currently the second-largest party in the Swedish Parliament, the Riksdag. While it has been propagandizing an anti-migrant discourse, another newly founded party has been producing a counter-discourse. The newly created Nyans party claims to represent migrants and minorities in Sweden. However, its discourse uses controversial issues that could potentially misrepresent those communities. Our study aimed to analyze Nyans’ Facebook posts published in the month leading up to the 2022 elections. Through our analysis process, which lasted from January to August 2023, we applied a critical discourse analysis approach to uncover the relationship between sociocultural issues and their social, political, and ideological contexts. The results reveal that Nyans’ discourse focused on opposing left-wing parties and aligned itself with the far-right. The discourse aligned with misinformation campaigns on social media when addressing sociocultural issues. These issues include the childcare law, the burning of the Qur’an, and the veil, which are pertinent to a particular perspective in the Muslim community and do not necessarily represent immigrants or minorities.

Politicization of redistributive policies and political behavior of the poor in German elections

The socio-economic gradient in political participation is a growing concern in Germany and many other democracies. We investigate whether campaigns that politicize socio-economic conflicts can mobilize the poor to become more politically active. Using a mixed-methods design that draws on party manifestos, election surveys, and focus group discussions, we show that the 2021 election followed a trend of re-positioning of the SPD, shifting their focus again towards redistributive issues. However, these changes were only partly perceived by citizens on the micro level. While greater politicization of socio-economic issues was followed by greater political involvement of the poor in recent elections, the SPD could not capitalize much on that development. Our qualitative findings indicate that the poor paid little attention to the SPD campaign discourse outside the minimum wage issue. Furthermore, it becomes obvious that the SPD faces a greater credibility problem among its former electorate.

Strategic Manoeuvering in 2019 Campaign Speeches in the Eastern Cape Province in South Africa: Extended Pragma-Dialectical Perspective

This article investigates how political candidates in the Eastern Cape Province in South Africa employed means of strategic manoeuvring during the provincial election campaigns of 2019. It assumes the framework of the extended pragma-dialectical theory of argumentation, by first reconstructing the argumentation structure, identifying the means of strategic manoeuvring, and finally, critically analysing the prototypical speech acts in the political campaign discourse. The data were collected from the isiXhosa newspaper I’solezwe LesiXhosa during the campaign from February to April 2019. The findings demonstrate commissives and assertives as the prototypical speech acts in the political argumentative discourse in the Eastern Cape Province. In addition, dissociation is manifested in multiple contexts to persuade the audience of the standpoint that the opposition parties are more visionary than the incumbent party, African National Congress.

Plan International's Digital Empowerment Campaign

AbstractIn this article, we examine how postfeminist Girl Effect discourse is deployed and extended in Plan International's Digital Empowerment for Girls campaign. Based on critical discourse analysis of campaign texts, we outline how the campaign situates digital empowerment as a way of building girls’ capacity to overcome barriers of poverty and gender equality by allowing them to pursue careers, manage their health, and advocate for governmental change. Drawing on the theory of healthism, we argue that the campaign's discourses of economic empowerment are intertwined with, and scaffolded upon, girls’ perceived ability to manage their reproduction. We problematize how these constructions responsibilize girls for solving social and economic problems, even as the campaign acknowledges ongoing systems of oppression.

Misogyny in election discourse: Analysing the 2019 General Elections in India

This article examines misogynist comments on women politicians as part of the campaign discourse for the 2019 General Elections in India. The objective is to understand and critically examine the broad patterns of misogynist discourse during election times and the socio-cognitive interface that enables such misogyny. Using a Critical-Feminist-Socio-Cognitive-Discourse Analysis, which combines Lazar’s Feminist Critical Discourse Analysis and Van Dijk’s Socio-Cognitive Approach, we analyse the explicit stating and implied underpinnings of 22 misogynist comments and identify 4 broad patterns and 8 sub-patterns. We argue that, while sharing similarities with global patterns and stereotypes of misogyny, election misogyny in India originates in socio-cognitive and cultural tropes unique to its patriarchal society. When reproduced in misogynist verbal attacks directed at female politicians, these historically rooted misogynist tropes further reinforce the dominant patriarchal culture and add to the attempts to delegitimize Indian women’s political representation and agency.

RHETORICAL RESOURCES IN POLITICAL SPEECHES: A CASE OF 2022 PRESIDENTIAL SPEECH CAMPAIGN DISCOURSE IN KENYA

This paper analyzed rhetorical resources in political speeches of 2022 presidential speech campaign discourse in Kenya. The 9th August 2022 elections in Kenya reflected the new dynamics in political environment. Consequently, the new dynamics reshaped the political discourse in Kenya from ethnics rhetoric’s to real issue based rhetoric’s. The study applied Faircloughs (1989, 2001) Critical Discourse Analysis theory. The study focused on political campaign speeches of two candidates only; former Prime Minister Raila Odinga and Kenya’s Deputy President William Ruto then. The research adopted a descriptive qualitative research design. The study used purpose sampling to select the speeches. Primary data (speeches, party manifestos and campaign video clips) as well as secondary data (newspapers and online sources) were used to critically analyze the aspect of rhetorical resources in 2022 presidential speeches. Documentary reviews and checklist were used to collect the specific rhetorical devices. The findings of the study revealed that both the presidential candidates employed propagated their ideologies through rhetorical resources such as repetition, pronoun and voice, three part list, metaphor and analogies. It is hoped that the study is beneficial in terms of theory and practice and in discourse analysis, sociolinguistics, linguistic anthropology and applied linguistics. The study also provides useful insights to politicians, political analysts and researchers who have immense interest in political speeches.

Reinventing identity and resistance ideology in protest narratives

AbstractThe Oduduwa secessionist group is a good reminder that Nigeria’s nationhood is still highly contested. Unfortunately, there appears to be very little or no linguistic research on the discourses produced by this emerging group of activists. This study examines Oduduwa agitators’ Facebook activism as a form of political communication in order to identify their prevalent ideology and techniques for constructing their group’s identity and activities.Facebook data are studied by applying Critical Discourse Analysis, more specifically van Dijk’s ideological framework, to investigate the rhetorical and discourse structures of the campaign narratives. Findings indicate that, since the Oduduwa agitators are a group of individuals determined to secede from Nigeria, the structures of their campaign discourse contain crucial metaphorical expressions that construct the group’s identity. Among those expressions, we find prejudicial generalisations, emphasis on victimisation of ‘Us’, the use of number games to stress victimhood and ideological polarisation of individuals and groups.

From #Sexual Assault to #Political Campaign Issue: Understanding Sexual Assault Narratives on Social Media Platforms During Political Campaigns in India

In recent years, online election campaigns in India have evolved beyond using only Twitter and Facebook to take advantage of the population’s continuing interest in other social media platforms. Hashtag campaigns are now found on other platforms, such as Instagram, WhatsApp, and YouTube. With this development, online discourses on political campaigns have matured and become diverse. Several social movement issues in India, such as the anti-corruption movement, anti-caste movement, citizenship movement, and the #MeToo movement, have developed and been sustained on social media platforms in the past eight years. Since 2014, some of these movements have coexisted and intersected with election campaigns in India. This qualitative mixed-method study is an analysis of the influence of sexual assault narratives on online political campaigns in India. This study concerns the intersection of the theoretical frameworks of hashtag activism and locational identity, and it is based on the extensive interviews of eight citizen political volunteers and the thematic analysis of 60,195 Facebook posts during the election campaigns in Bihar and West Bengal elections in 2020 and 2021. The study finds that the political campaigns integrate sexual assault narratives into their online discourses if those narratives promote scandal frames and/or revenge frames. The campaign discourses on social media platforms seldom focus on the policy-related issue of sexual assault.

UNSUR SEMANTIK DEBAT PUBLIK PASANGAN CALON PADA PILGUB JATIM 2018: KAJIAN ANALISIS WACANA KRITIS [Semantic Elements of the Candidate Pair’s Public Debate in the 2018 East Java Governor Election A Study of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA)

The title of this article is "Semantic Elements / Meaning of the Words of the Public Debate of Candidate Pairs in the 2018 East Java Gubernatorial Election in conveying the East Java development program for the Next Five Years: A Study of Critical Discourse Analysis (AWK)." The issue raised is how the semantic element/meaning of the word public debate of the candidate pairs in the 2018 East Java Pilgub in conveying the East Java development program for the next five years: Critical Discourse Analysis (AWK). The objectives of this study are: to describe, interpret, and explain the semantic elements/meaning of words used by the candidate pairs in the 2018 gubernatorial election in conveying the East Java development program for the next five years. The theories used are public debate, campaign language, pilkada, and critical discourse analysis/awk: public debate, campaign, ideology, election, and critical discourse analysis/AWK. The research method used is the qualitative method. The results showed that the semantic elements/meaning of words (1) experience value: (a) ideologically fought words, (b) presented metaphors, (2) relational values: (a) euphemistic expressions, (b) choice of words formal, and (3) expressive value: (a) words that express positive evaluations, (b) words that express negative evaluations.

Newspeak revisited: an analysis of selected aspects of PiS speeches concerning the 2019 Polish parliamentary election

The study aims to examine the parliamentary campaign discourse of politicians of PiS(Prawo i Sprawiedliwość, lit. Law and Justice), the main right-wing Polish party, witha view to determining whether their language displays some similarities with PolishNewspeak used in the era of Communism. The research corpus consists of public statementsof the most important PiS politicians delivered in the election campaign from Juneto October 2019. The research material comes from a plethora of online media sources,especially records of PiS conventions and from online newspapers. The selected textsunderwent close scrutiny and stylistic analysis. This allowed for determining the patternsof Newspeak employed in this right-wing party parliamentary campaign.

Arguments linked to logos related to immigration in Obama and Biden's campaign discourses

As host to more immigrants than any other country, the United States has been shaped by immigration over the centuries, and illegal immigration is a constant problem, so is a topic to deal with in political campaigns. This research will show some rhetorical resources used in the political speeches given by Democratic leaders Barack Obama and Joe Biden when dealing with the issue of immigration in their campaigns. We will focus specifically on the different mechanisms related to logos or means of persuasion through the demonstration of logical proof, real or apparent, which can also be defined as the strategy of arguments that point directly to reason. Using Aristotle's Rhetoric, we will analyze how politicians try to convince, and we will compare the resources of both to see the similarities and differences. We selected four political speeches made by each Democratic candidate during the electoral campaigns to do this.

The Persuasive Effect of Legitimation Campaign Discourse

This paper is concerned with the persuasive effect of legitimation discourse on Tanzanians’ voting decisions. It examines how former President Jakaya Mrisho Kikwete and Dr Wilbroad Slaa deployed language during the 2010 presidential election campaign to elicit support from the electorate. It also looks at non-discursive/nonlinguistic factors that influenced the same decisions. The data analysed in this paper is from some of their campaign speeches, and from focus group discussions as well. In analysing the data and discussing the findings, the study draws on Theo van Leeuwen’s semantic-functional approach to critical discourse analysis (henceforth CDA). The results show that the candidates’ discursive strategies, as well as other factors such as one’s political affiliation, influenced the voting decisions of a fair number of respondents. The paper argues that this happened because most of the respondents lacked critical politico-discursive awareness, which would have opened their eyes if they had.

Book review: Colleen Elizabeth Kelley, A Rhetoric of Divisive Partisanship: The 2016 American Presidential Campaign Discourse of Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump

Book review: Colleen Elizabeth Kelley, <i>A Rhetoric of Divisive Partisanship: The 2016 American Presidential Campaign Discourse of Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump</i>

Феномен номадизма в англоязычной предвыборной политической рекламе начала XXI в.

With the advent of the postmodern era in the second half of the XX c. - the beginning of the XXI c. humankind faced such global challenges as informatization and digitalization of different spheres of life. The human need for “digital detox”, expansion of the world view and self-development resulted in popularization of the phenomenon of nomadism. The aim of the present article is to reveal means of realizing the phenomenon of nomadism in political campaign advertising. Nomadism is approached by us from the perspective of postmodern philosophy and is defined as a social strategy of counteracting modern problems, centred around movement through space and time. The research material is texts of English-language political commercials published before the 2020 US presidential elections on the candidates' official YouTube channels. The material was chosen because the political campaign discourse and the discourse of political advertising draw upon resources of marketing communication which includes manifestations of nomadism. In the course of the research, we selected texts with a retro-component which vividly illustrates the essence of nomadism, that is movement in space and time. The authentic examples were transcribed by us. In the article nomadism is treated from the point of view of the postmodern theory of nomadology developed by the French philosophers in the 1970s. Nomadism is described as a form of opposing orderliness, structurality and linearity of the “polis”. The main value of nomadism is freedom of movement in space and time. The nomadic culture has a rhizomatic character which manifests itself in the blurring of borders, deterritorialization and hybridization and determines the nomad's movement: they move without a specific aim and without a given direction. An analysis of the empirical material yielded that political campaign advertising has a rhizomatic character that manifests itself in the following discourse features: horizontality, blurred identity, hybridity, clip-like structure, virtuality, ecologicity and arithmetic organization. A range of verbal and non-verbal means of realizing each of the discourse features is revealed and described, for example, the non-linear presentation of information, the use of wide-meaning vocabulary, montage effects and etc. In a number of commercials two main nomadic motifs were detected, i.e. the journey motif and the motif of investigation. It is concluded that rhizomaticity of political campaign advertising is to be referred to means of increasing the persuasiveness of a message.