Critical Discourse Research Articles

Media representations of the ‘little fresh meat’ phenomenon in China: a feminist critical discourse analysis of the masculine nonconformity discourse

ABSTRACT ‘Little fresh meat’ (LFM or xiǎo xiān ròu), which describes a masculine aesthetic rooted in ‘soft masculinity’, is a phenomenon across Asia that challenges prevailing concepts of masculinity and patriarchal discourse. This study furthers previous research by using feminist critical discourse analysis to evaluate the construction of LFM masculine nonconformity, via data collected from 42 news articles from China’s English-language news media, including: China Daily, Global Times, People’s Daily Online, Shanghai Daily, and Xinhua News Agency. The analysis generated three key themes: (1) market driving a female consumer fan base, (2) challenging hegemonic masculinities when men wear makeup to imitate their ‘idols’, and (3) criticisms of gender stereotypes. These themes show how a masculine nonconformity discourse is developed by using a variety of discursive strategies in China. This study highlights the need for increased awareness and education regarding gender diversity and the harmful impacts of gender stereotypes on Chinese society.

Fostering empathy through critical literacy in early childhood education in Colombia

ABSTRACT In Colombia, some educational settings, particularly territories with high levels of educational inequality, uphold conventional teaching strategies where emotional education and critical thinking receive little attention. This study is rooted in our intention to contribute to peace education in early childhood educational environments by fostering critical thinking and empathy, a predictor of prosocial behavior in children. The aim of this study is, first, that young children develop empathy by recognizing situations of oppression and injustice in children’s literature using critical literacy practices; and second, to contribute to young children’s development of critical thinking. Utilizing Critical Discourse Analysis, we suggest that critical literacy practices enhance empathy and critical thinking in young children through three strategies: reading selected children’s literature aloud, responding through multimodal texts, and having an open dialogue about critical issues that affect children in local communities. This article contributes to the literature about literacy, empathy development, and peace education with young children.

Culturalism and Religious fundamentalism: Lexicalisation of counter-ideologies on same-sex sexualities in selected Nigerian newspapers

Against the backdrop of cultural conservatism and legal restrictions on same-sex relationships, this study examines how language use foregrounds cultural and religious ideologies surrounding same-sex sexualities as depicted in selected Nigerian newspapers. Drawing on Fairclough’s approach to critical discourse analysis (CDA), the study explores how language is used to construct, represent, and perpetuate specific ideologies regarding same-sex sexualities within the Nigerian context. A total of 50 opinion articles on same-sex sexualities were randomly sampled from five purposively selected Nigerian newspapers (Vanguard, The Punch, The Guardian, Nigerian Tribune and The Sun). The newspapers were selected based on their preponderant coverage of the discourses on same-sex sexualities between 2013 and 2015. Data were subjected to critical discourse analysis. Findings reveal that different lexical strategies, such as lexical relations, repetition, negative evaluative adjectives foreground pro- and anti-culturalist ideologies as well as religious fundamentalism and secularism. The study reveals the conflicting ideologies surrounding same-sex sexualities in the Nigerian context.

Beyond victim and hero representations? A comparative analysis of UNHCR’s Instagram communication strategies for the Syrian and Ukrainian crises

Abstract The Ukrainian crisis has received substantial Global Northern policy support and favourable news coverage, contrasting sharply with Global Southern crises. Nevertheless, refugee organizations can influence public perceptions through social media. This study comparatively analyses UNHCR’s Instagram communication strategies for the Ukrainian and Syrian crises (2022–2023). Applying a multimodal critical discourse analysis on UNHCR’s Instagram posts (N = 90), we discern interacting humanitarian and post-humanitarian appeals, involving inter- and intra-group hierarchies of deservingness, expanding research on humanitarian communication. While UNHCR mainly represents forcibly displaced Ukrainians as victims and focuses on ‘ideal victims’, it mostly portrays forcibly displaced Syrians as empowered individuals, likely due to context-specific differences and partially countering news and policy narratives. Both humanitarian representations often intersect with post-humanitarian strategies, facilitated by Instagram affordances. This study thus contributes to the literature on humanitarian communication with comparative crisis-specific and platform-specific insights and causes. Moreover, it nuances the often-assumed importance of post-humanitarian imageries on social media.

Journalistic Storytelling for Social Justice: A CDA of Global News Coverage of the Otodo Gbame Forced Evictions in Nigeria

ABSTRACT Despite the growing discourse on forced evictions around the world, very limited scholarship has explored the constitution, replication and/or transformation of a discourse of urban development and forced evictions in journalistic work. This study investigates the global news coverage of state-sanctioned forced evictions of Otodo Gbame community in Lagos, Nigeria—with specific attention to journalistic discursive construction of urban development and the reproduction of hierarchies of worth in journalistic work. Critical discourse analysis of 17 journalistic texts published online by national and foreign news media organisations during the Otodo Gbame forced evictions (November 2016–April 2017) revealed journalists positioned Otodo Gbame residents at the bottom of a hierarchical social order and as victims of an unfortunate circumstance without transforming that discourse into possibilities for social and environmental justice. Journalists prioritised institutional voices, used passive construction and detached expressive mode to downplay the social implications of state-sanctioned forced evictions, and reproduced hierarchies of worth in journalism and broader society. Considering journalism plays a crucial role in the social construction of reality, this study offers insights and directions for journalistic role expansion and the transformation of conceived journalistic roles into meaningful practice.

Discursive and photographic representations of migrants in the media: the case of Ceuta and Melilla

ABSTRACT The Spanish autonomous cities of Ceuta and Melilla have long been sites of undocumented migration to Spain. Owing to both anti-immigration attitudes often perpetuated in political discourse and the challenges involved in blocking migration in cities that are geographically separated from Spain’s mainland, this migratory context has been heavily debated in Spain. However, it is critical to examine attitudes towards migrant populations of different legal statuses, and particularly essential to look at widely disseminated discourse such as mass media, which has the power to be impactful in shaping popular opinions. In this study, I analyse such discourse, and examine how migrants are represented in Spanish media. Using critical discourse analysis (Fairclough 2003) and media framing (Littlejohn, Foss, and Oetzel [2021]. “The Medium.” In Theories of Human Communication, 151–154. Waveland Press), this study looks at 100 online news articles published over a 10-year period (2013–2022). Findings indicate that news outlets use both text and photos to dehumanise and criminalise migrant populations.

Indigenous climate justice in Aotearoa New Zealand: the dangers of (mis)recognition within climate policymaking

This paper explores Indigenous climate justice in the settler-colonial context of Aotearoa New Zealand. We adopt the interdisciplinary approach of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) to examine the extent to which Māori knowledge systems (mātauranga Māori) and Māori status as Treaty partners with the Crown (New Zealand Government) were recognised included in New Zealand’s Zero Carbon Act (ZCA). Through our exploration we reflect on and explore Māori experiences of climate injustice through lack of recognition or misrecognition. CDA helps to identify whose voices dominated the ZCA process, revealing unequal power relations between stakeholder groups, the Crown, and Māori. By analysing policy documents, long-form submissions from Māori, and interviews with Māori we shed light on the power dynamics which shaped the ZCA process and the implicit assumptions regarding Māori participation in climate policy decision-making. The misrepresentation of Māori as stakeholders rather than treaty partners perpetuates historical legacies of colonization. By applying CDA within the context of climate justice, we highlight tensions between Māori aspirations for partnership and the actual treatment of Māori as stakeholders rather than Treaty partners. By closely examining the narratives surrounding the formation of the ZCA, CDA reveals the ways in which Māori voices are side-lined, their aspirations and concerns dismissed, their Indigenous knowledge systems (mātauranga-a-iwi and mātauranga-a-hapu) marginalized, and their rights to retain their tino rangatiratanga (sovereignty) violated.

Imagining the End of Official Social Work: Thinking Beyond the Possible and Probable

Abstract This article seeks to critically engage Chris Maylea’s 2020 provocative call to end official social work by suggesting that the debate it sparked has the potential to expand the contemporary social work discourse. This article explores the complexities and potential dangers of Maylea’s radical call, particularly its susceptibility to co-option by neo-conservative agendas. Whilst the idea of calling for the end of official social work may seem absurd, the article maintains that it might serve as an intellectual tool to overcome the ‘imaginary inertia’ that arguably plagues discussions about reforming the profession. Drawing on Michel Foucault’s concept of ‘episteme’ and Gaston Bachelard’s ‘categories of the real’, it suggests that Maylea’s call for abolition challenges the established boundaries of what is considered possible and probable in the critical social work discourse. This might open new avenues that might otherwise remain invisible to reimagine the future of the profession. Consequently, it is posited that imagining the end of official social work may align with and expand opposing calls for reformation of the profession.

Feeling a little uneasy: A comparative discourse analysis of White and BIPOC college students’ reflective writing about systemic racism

AbstractThis critical discourse analysis compares the ways in which White and BIPOC college students discuss their experiences of an educational intervention meant to promote better understanding of systemic racism. We analyzed reflective writing produced by 11 White psychology students from a private liberal arts college in the eastern United States and 17 BIPOC students from a Human Services program at a public university in the western United States. White students engaged in whiteness discourse that distanced themselves from the realities of systemic racism and/or relieved the cognitive dissonance associated with the self‐ and group‐image threat related to learning about systemic racism. In so doing, they unwittingly upheld white supremacy. BIPOC students, in contrast, engaged an antiracist discourse that employed critiques of the social systems that produce systemic racism and destabilized dominant colorblind narratives, often by drawing on lived experience. From the Critical Race Theory perspective that the centrality of lived experience is a legitimate lens through which to analyze racial subordination, we discuss the importance of attending to the action orientation and constructed nature of discourse in antiracist education.

Critical conscious leadership for decolonisation: a Black consciousness perspective of authentically transforming leadership

PurposeThis paper draws on African anti-colonial thought and Black consciousness to propose critical conscious leadership (CCL) as a decolonising leadership approach appropriate for pursuing emancipation, social justice and innovation in a new African university.Design/methodology/approachI utilised the method of critical discourse analysis to study Ihron Rensburg’s language as he reflected on his leadership at the University of Johannesburg (UJ). The study engaged with Rensburg’s writings and texts on his account of leading the merger and transformation of UJ. The primary text draws from his book “Serving Higher Purposes” (2020).FindingsThrough the construction of CCL, the paper proposes alternative tenets for leading transformation towards a new African university. CCL grounds a decolonised and pluriversal new African university’s character premised on a consciously revitalised alternative thinking that will carry the communitarian spirit of Africa in knowledge production, dissemination and consumption in humanising all and serving the greater good. And it operates within the dialectical tensions of the social and economic purpose of higher education (HE), African and global relevance, African and Western paradigms, excellent performance and attainment of social justice.Originality/valueThe proposed CCL offers an alternative leadership approach that responds to the call to “Dethrone the Empire” by centring Blackness in HE leadership, which is crucial for authentic transformation and decolonisation.

The Case for Multidisciplinary Frameworks for Developing Effective Solutions to Complex Human Problems: An Illustration Based on Development Education, Corporate Social Responsibility and Social Marketing

Education, especially development education (DE), and a number of socially focused disciplines, including corporate social responsibility (CSR) and social marketing (SM), have long been targeted by policy makers for deriving advice on the ‘wisdom’ of levelling up differences and addressing sources of disadvantages at individual, group and/or regional levels. Additionally, the combined wisdom of such disciplines can also be a great source of advice to effectively address perennial universal problems. This paper is conceptual in nature with a multidisciplinary outlook. It contrasts DE, CSR and SM, with the view to deriving common grounds as well as strengths and areas for further development that can produce more comprehensive explanations and solutions to social problems. Such inclusive, more comprehensive explanations would help advise social-cause-focused workers, including researchers, learners and policy makers, about how each discipline can contribute to the resolution of multifaceted problems, the so-called ‘wicked problems’, that each discipline may not be fully equipped to address. The method of analysis used is an adjusted version of critical discourse analysis. It is used to explore the disciplines at four levels, namely definitional, philosophical, methodological and performance levels, thus giving a comprehensive view of each discipline’s nature, philosophical outlook, methodology and perceived efficacy in achieving its aims. The derived arguments also benefitted from comments provided by seven experienced representatives from the three disciplines. Overall, the outcomes suggest a relative maturity of critical ability in DE but also more effective and efficient methodological and evaluative perspectives in CSR and SM. Although the outcome of the analysis is open for debate, it nevertheless suggests several opportunities for mutual learning at all four levels. The paper suggests a novel integrated ‘supra-level’ framework that may help workers, in these three areas of knowledge, gain valuable insights from each of the three disciplines and highlight valuable opportunities for capitalising on their respective strengths.

Soraya Antonius’s Arab awakening: Palestinian identity, activism, and Anglophone literature

ABSTRACT While scholarship on Anglophone Palestinian literature has burgeoned in recent years, there has been no attempt to retrieve and assess the work of Soraya Antonius (1932–2017), author of two remarkable English-language novels depicting British-ruled Palestine from the 1910s to 1948, The Lord (1986) and Where the Jinn Consult (1987). Exploring and contextualising Antonius’s contribution to this literary corpus, this article examines the cultural, political and linguistic forces shaping her writings. It begins by tracing the fusion of Anglophile mimicry and anti-colonial resistance typical of her parents – George Antonius, author of The Arab Awakening (1938) and Katy Antonius, Mandatory Jerusalem’s leading socialite. While her parents funnelled their Levantine-cosmopolitan options into a distinctive Palestinian identity, the Nakba compelled their daughter to take the opposite trajectory, leaving Palestine to pursue cosmopolitan possibilities elsewhere. The article’s second section thus considers her work in 1960s and 1970s Beirut, first as a journalist and editor, committed to developing a critical discourse on Western Orientalism, and subsequently as an activist and spokesperson, advocating the Palestinian cause. Probing how these biographical and professional strands shaped her fiction, the final section demonstrates how the first novel’s Anglophile fascination with the coloniser’s mindset is replaced, in the second novel, with a decided focus on Palestinians’ perspectives. Echoing Albert Hourani’s critique of the ‘Politics of Notables’, Where the Jinn Consult thus offers a loving yet bitter account of her parents’ generation, complacent and ineffectual in the face of looming catastrophe.

Are family-friendly organisations friendly for children? Navigating work, families with children, and discursive power use within organisations

ABSTRACT Organisations benefit from promoting a family-friendly approach and offering a variety of work-family practices, yet this understanding is not monolithic. A critical discourse analysis is applied herein to interpret the manners of talk and meaning-making around work and families with children and the constructions of (un)family-friendliness in organisations. Particularly, we focus on how the family-friendliness is connected with power configurations within organisations. Focus group research data were gathered from 32 participants in two companies (industry and service). Consequently, we introduce three discourses: (1) optimatisation, (2) leaning on the rules and (3) moral reasoning. These discourses highlight the variance and complexity of how family-friendly approaches are interlinked with organisations’ power use. A more profound understanding of children is needed when theorizing and promoting family-friendly approach in organisations.

Exploring political topics that connect to antisemitism on Twitter: U.S. midterm Pennsylvania gubernatorial race 2022

Online antisemitism rears its head during times of political instability, especially during contentious elections. This paper uses the 2022 Pennsylvania Gubernational governor race as a case study to examine what political topics spur antisemitic expression on Twitter. Both rich political and antisemitism discourses are offered by this election that featured a Jewish Democrat candidate Josh Shapiro and far-right Republican candidate Doug Mastriano. Over 800 tweets were qualitatively analyzed through critical discourse analysis to understand both Shapiro’s political tweets and the antisemitic reply tweets. This study addresses the gap of what online political contexts leads to instances of antisemitism on Twitter during political elections. Grounded in antisemitism and political propaganda literature, this study shows that particularly controversial topics of abortion rights and extremism in politics led to the highest amount of antisemitic expression. Dominantly, Jewish political control conspiracies were used as simple explanations for particularly turbulent political topics.

Oversharing the super safe stuff: “Privacy-washing” in Apple iPhone and Google Pixel commercials

Inspired by the ever-evolving concerns surrounding data privacy, this study analyzes Apple’s and Google’s ads for their iPhone and Android devices, respectively, as well as each company’s privacy policies. Findings via critical discourse analysis reveal that the ads conflate privacy with security, relying on powerful imageries that depict the phones as safes from which data cannot travel. These depictions, however, do not align with the policies that provide separate sections for privacy and security. With these findings in mind, I propose a widespread adoption of “privacy-washing” to promote a newfound literacy of granular data types.

TRANSLANGUAGING PRACTICES AND RECONTEXTUALIZING LEARNING MATERIAL: A CORPUS-BASED STUDY OF GLOBAL CHINESE LANGUAGE TEXTBOOKS USED IN SRI LANKA

Despite the abundance of studies investigating translanguaging pedagogy, recontextualizing learning material has rarely been a concern of recent studies. The present study employs content analysis and critical discourse analysis to examine two global CFL textbooks used in Sri Lanka to evaluate their compliance with translanguaging practices. Three imperative aspects of translanguaging pedagogy, namely representation of culture, instruction language, and nationalism and socio-cultural polarization were the key areas of concern in content analysis. In the culture domain analysis, references from the textbooks were fed into 10 child codes and 3 parental codes in NVivo12. The results demonstrated that there is a critical inequity in the representation of local and global cultures in the textbooks which is especially distinct in the interlocutors and their nationality options. Socio-cultural polarization of the source culture with the West was evident in the critical discourse analysis and adaptation was predominantly promoted as a unilateral affair where the foreign learner continually adapts to the target culture. The study proposes that contextual sensitivity and ideological impartiality should be ensured in recontextualizing textbooks for translanguaging practices in Sri Lanka from three aspects, namely incorporation of L1 into textbooks, integration of multiculturalism and freeing textbooks of ideological and hegemonic practices.

Volunteer translators in non-governmental organizations: exploring their identity and power through discourse analysis

The need for immediate communication in a world characterized by an ever-increasing flow of information has led to a rapid increase in volunteer translation in recent decades. While previous studies have focused on aspects such as volunteer translators’ motivation and the attendant ethical issues of voluntary translation, comparatively little research has explored the phenomenon from a discursive perspective. The research reported in this article explored the discursive construction of the volunteer translator in non-governmental organizations (NGOs) active in Spain using critical discourse analysis. Drawn from analysis of 25 semi-structured individual interviews with volunteer translators in five different NGOs, the findings reveal that volunteer translators are seen either as an agent and actor of social change who facilitates communication and possesses a strong sense of identity and social status, or as someone who is interfering in a sector traditionally limited to professional translators and who consequently has a weaker sense of identity and social status. This suggests that the role of the volunteer translator currently lacks definition, and that further research is needed to better understand the relationship between volunteer and professional translators in the 21st century.

Pandemic politics and public sphere: A critical discourse analysis of COVID-19 in letters to the editor of leading Odia newspapers

Pandemic politics and public sphere: A critical discourse analysis of COVID-19 in letters to the editor of leading Odia newspapers

Neoliberal Feminism and Political Leadership: The Representation of Giorgia Meloni and Elly Schlein in Popular Culture

Building on a long tradition of studies on the intertwining of politics and popular culture, the article examines the representation of the two Italian political leaders of the moment, Giorgia Meloni and Elly Schlein, offered by women’s magazines. The study focuses in particular on two interrelated aspects: on the one hand, the extent to which the discursive strategies to talk about the leaders, their personal lives, careers and ideas contribute to strengthen the contemporary hegemony on feminism; on the other hand, the discursive strategies used to represent the leaders through a frame of competition typical of the neoliberalism. Indeed, we refer to the most recent trends in feminism research, contested among post-feminism, neoliberal feminism and celebrity feminism. Within this framework, we examined whether and how female political leaders can become icons of life, style and power in a way that is functional to the neoliberal narrative. The critical discourse analysis conducted on eight Italian women’s magazines over the course of a year makes it possible to highlight some results that contribute to the reflection on neoliberal feminism and female leadership. In particular, leaders are presented through argumentative strategies of genealogism, exceptionalism and compensation: the ways in which magazines justify their position of power refer to family relationships and character qualities, emphasizing the characteristics closest to the neoliberal model and overshadowing all others, including political ideas. Rather, leaders are deradicalized and depoliticized to favour instead a reassuring narrative in which women have broken the glass ceiling. In that way, women’s magazines renounce representing women leaders for their ideas and ideologies, and instead focus on their unique mark of difference: their gender.

Despite good intentions: The elusiveness of social justice in health and physical education curricula across different contexts

This paper draws on critical discourse analysis to examine how health and physical education (HPE) curricula from Sweden, Norway, South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand may influence possibilities for the enactment of social justice in schools. The findings highlight the presence of social justice intentions across the five curricula as related to embodied movement experiences, social cohesion, and activism. That said, the findings simultaneously suggest that the language used to orient teaching towards social justice objectives is often elusive. In this paper, we contend that despite the presence of social justice intentions in these five HPE curricula, the articulation and function of the language within the curriculum documents do not necessarily support the enactment of this in practice. To conclude, we therefore suggest that more work is needed to ensure that curricula and other supporting artefacts and resources can better support both teachers’ practice and students’ learning in raising awareness of, and addressing, social justice outcomes in HPE.