Discursive Articulation Research Articles

Emotions and policy change in the wake of political scandals: How did the Qatargate shake the European Parliament?

AbstractWhile there is an increasing interest in the role of emotions in policy studies, not much is known about how emotions unfold in one of the most emotional situations that can be encountered in politics: political scandals. To investigate how the discursive articulation of emotions shapes the policy responses to political misconduct from a constructivist perspective, this article delves into one of the most shocking corruption scandals hitting the European Union (EU) institutions in decades: the money‐for‐influence scandal, also popularly known as Qatargate. The article shows which emotions the Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) expressed in the wake of the scandal and how the discursive articulation of these emotions shaped their policy responses regarding transparency and accountability. This article combines the analysis of 28 EP plenary debates with interviews with six MEPs and high‐level EU officials.

Sexual abuse, celebrity bhaktas, and counterpublics in the digital sphere

This study examines social media discourse in connection with two separate high-profile statutory rape cases involving two male celebrities in Nepal: film and music video actor Paul Shah and cricket icon Sandeep Lamichhane. In the first case, we analyze the discursive actions of the actor’s fans and supporters, who uncritically back him by disputing the credibility of the rape allegation to protect him, all of which appear to further elevate his celebrity status. Conversely, in the second case, we investigate counterpublics’ discursive articulations aiming at giving extrajudicial punishment to the athlete through callouts and boycotts, which degrade his celebrity status. Data were primarily collected from Facebook and Twitter, including external images and hyperlinks shared on those platforms. By examining how individuals support male celebrities and perpetuate rape culture, while others generate counter-hegemonic discourses to combat it, the findings shed light on the interplay between technology, societal norms, and feminist activism.

The Destitute Working Class and the Rule-Abiding Citizen: The Contestation of Populist Tropes in the Gilets Jaunes Movement

Abstract This paper examines the discursive articulation and contestation of populist tropes for social movements. Where existing scholarship has regarded populism as a master frame for social movement mobilization, this paper foregrounds the precarity of “the people” in the case of the Gilets Jaunes (Yellow Vests) in France. To answer the question of how social and political actors (re)produce and challenge meanings about “the people,” we performed a discourse analysis of online news items (N = 100) about the Gilets Jaunes. We identify two oppositional discourses—the destitute working class and the rule-abiding citizen—through which the Gilets Jaunes become a polarized object of public discussion. Our findings suggest that the mobilizing potential of populist tropes can serve not only social movements, but also their political opponents. We conclude by exploring the political implications of the normalization of populist tropes in the context of social movements.

Podcasting the Truth: Challenging Journalistic Knowledge and Building Epistemic Authority in Independent YouTube Podcasts

The legitimacy of journalism as a truth-teller has become contested during the era of digitalisation and newly emerging platforms. Recently, the epistemic authority of legacy journalism has been challenged by right-wing podcasting. This article explores metajournalistic discussions on the identity of legacy journalism as a truth-oriented practice and institution in six Finnish podcasts published independently outside legacy media on YouTube. This metajournalistic discourse of truth is identified through topic modelling in 229 podcast episodes, of which 119 are scrutinised using qualitative discourse analysis. The discursive articulations in the YouTube podcast episodes are assessed in the light of realist and antirealist philosophies as well as epistemic theories of journalistic truth structured by critical realist and pragmatist philosophies. The results show that the epistemic authority of legacy journalism is challenged through three interconnected themes through which legacy journalism is articulated as an antirealist practice and institution. By contrast, YouTube podcasting is framed as a platform for a balanced, authentic, and uncut talk that realises the epistemic ideals of journalism. The challenges to the epistemic authority of legacy journalism presented by the Finnish YouTube podcasts are also similar to those identified in previous research on right-wing podcasting and online counter-media. The findings point to the need for legacy journalists and podcasting practitioners to adopt more nuanced and context-bound understandings of journalistic knowledge and truth structured by critical realist and pragmatist philosophies.

The transgressive aesthetics of populism

This article consolidates the emerging discursive-performative paradigm in populist studies by presenting the idea of populism as an aesthetic transgression, bridging the gap between discursive and sociocultural-performative strands. The article is broadly inspired by Jacques Rancière’s notion of aesthetics as the ‘partage du sensible’ and critically employs it to understand how populism transgresses the rules establishing what can appear in politics. The article claims that populism is aesthetically transgressive in two ways: (1) by making visible subalternised subjects through the discursive articulation of the ‘people’ and (2) by naming the ‘elite’ in a way that makes visible underlying modes of domination. The article argues that this framework allows for a more fruitful understanding of the relationship between populism and topics such as crisis and institutionalism. Moreover, the article employs this framework to differentiate between emancipatory and reactionary forms of populism, connecting emancipatory populism to queer aesthetic practices and explaining how it reinvigorates liberal democracy. Conversely, reactionary populism mobilises what Hannah Arendt called the ‘mob’ and ends up reinforcing modes of domination.

Not anxious enough: The discursive articulation of ontological security in the European Parliament

Abstract This paper makes the case for a discursive understanding of ontological security and demonstrates the utility of such an approach in an analysis of European Parliament (EP) debates between 1990 and 2020. We argue that articulations of ontological (in)security operate through the (re)inscription of a set of metanarratives in what we call ‘discursive nodal points’. Building on an extensive analysis of EP debates over 30 years, we demonstrate that in contrast to the prevailing view of the European Union (EU) as an ‘anxious community’, at least on the political level, EU actors remain surprisingly confident in the European project. While they do invoke challenges to the EU, they see these as incentives to strengthen the integration project and often consider operating in crisis mode as an essential EU characteristic. In doing so, they draw on modernist metanarratives of progress, control, and power to construct an ontologically secure EU. We argue that the future ontological security of the EU will partly depend on allowing for more ambiguity in this modernist narrative without accepting a nationalist counter-narrative that undermines the idea of European integration.

The (un)targeted gendered vulnerabilities in Norwegian development aid—a corpus‐assisted discourse analysis

AbstractMotivationGender is a central concept and a buzzword in the development aid discourse. Like many buzzwords, its meaning is malleable. If aid efforts really are to “leave no one behind,” as the Sustainable Development Goals proclaim, we must critically interrogate how the discursive articulation of buzzwords such as gender can both make visible and hide from view vulnerabilities that should be salient for aid programming. In this article, we focus on the extent to which the mobilization of “gender” by Norwegian development aid non‐governmental organizations' is able to bring vulnerabilities related to sexual orientation, gender identity, and expression (SOGIE) to the fore.PurposeThe purpose of this study is to examine a corpus of Norwegian NGO development aid policy and planning documents to analyse whether and how gender is articulated differently across different types of documents, and what this means in terms of which gendered vulnerabilities become visible.Approach and methodsWe draw on methods from corpus‐assisted discourse studies (CADS) to examine a purpose‐built corpus of 88 files pulled from framework funding applications submitted by four Norwegian aid NGOs to the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (NORAD). We analyse the results drawing on Laclau and Mouffe's discourse theory to examine how conceptual translation between policy and programme‐level documents opens up space for the concept to be assigned changing meanings.FindingsWhile the NGOs at policy level articulate a broad notion of gendered vulnerabilities that include recognition of SOGIE vulnerabilities, this is not translated into practical programme plans. At the programme plan level, gender is articulated as a subject field overwhelmingly concerned with women and firmly attached to a traditional binary sex‐gender construct.Policy implicationsAlthough SOGIE gendered vulnerabilities are increasingly acknowledged in NGO articulations of their priorities and values, this is not reflected in actual programme plans. We argue that this can lead to a misplaced expectation that these concerns are being addressed in the NGOs' activities, obscuring the neglect of SOGIE vulnerabilities in many development aid gender programmes.

How do we teach about ethnic and cultural diversity in PETE? A discourse analysis of interviews from Norway, Aotearoa/New Zealand and Canada

ABSTRACT Background Although social justice has been a topic of interest in physical education for over 40 years, research still shows that physical education excludes and marginalises students based on various identity dimensions. Presently, with societies becoming more diverse, there is heightened anticipation for teacher educators to demonstrate ‘cultural responsiveness’ or ‘cultural competence’. Purpose This paper investigates how Physical Education Teacher Education (PETE) educators in Norway, Aotearoa/New Zealand and Canada construct teaching about ethnic and cultural diversity. Methods This study’s data comprise 23 interviews with PETE educators from three countries. We analysed the interviews using concepts from discourse theory and a framework from multicultural education. Findings While the way teacher educators discuss teaching about issues of ethnic and cultural diversity in PETE highly depends on each country’s contexts, there still are overlaps encapsulated by discourses. Our analysis suggests most discursive articulations from interviews reproduced liberal discourses, with fewer discursive articulations from conservative and critical discourses. Furthermore, the discourses constructed certain subject positions for students and teacher educators that carry implications for practice. Conclusion Although there are consistent attempts to engage with critical discourses, the dominance of liberal discourses persists in PETE in all three countries. This prevalence poses a risk of perpetuating othering and marginalisation.

Scaling populism: the discursive articulation of spaces by Vox on Twitter

ABSTRACT While the division between the people and the elite created by populism is typically understood within a national framework, the aim of this article is to analyse how the understanding of the people and the elite is constructed by the use of interwoven scales. By focusing on the scalar politics of the Spanish party Vox, the discursive articulation of space through scales are analysed. By means of a qualitative discourse analysis of six Twitter (now X) accounts of the most prominent leaders, we argue that the use of political spaces is strictly connected to the party’s broader political narrative. Concretely, the analysis of the spatial imaginaries evoked by Vox on Twitter shows the importance of different scales – local, regional, national and global – to organize its populist antagonism spatially. In so doing, this paper makes a contribution to the literature on ‘scalar politics’ of radical right parties, which has recently focused on different geographical constituencies. We argue that the national scale maintains its predominance in opposition to the global scale (dominated by the cosmopolitan elites), the regional one (where separatism represents a threat against Spain's unity), the local scale which is nationalized against migrants and people who do not feel as Spaniards.

What’s left of the populist radical left? SYRIZA and Die Linke compared

ABSTRACT This paper examines the discursive articulations of populism with egalitarianism in the parties of the Greek Coalition of the Radical Left (SYRIZA) and the German The Left Party (Die Linke). I draw on tools of political discourse analysis and use a discursive-analytical perspective to develop an analytical framework for examining egalitarianism and populism as separate yet interconnected concepts in the examined cases. My data is drawn from speeches and interviews of each party’s leadership during the national and European Parliament elections from 2009 to 2019. The aim is to make an argument for the analytical utility of ‘the elite’ term and its importance within each party’s socio-political context to separate egalitarian from populist elements in each party’s discourse and offer a renewed understanding of the distinction between egalitarianism and populism as two concepts that are often conflated in radical left parties. The analysis showed that there was a distinction between egalitarian and populist discursive elements in both parties’ discourses, with each party employing them on different levels depending on their respective contexts.

The 1619 Project Moral Panic: The Role of Cable News

Abstract The U.S. right is in the throes of a moral panic over the study of race and racism in schools. This panic developed in part through the backlash to the 1619 Project, an effort by the New York Times to reframe American history around the legacy of slavery. How was a publication with anti-racist ambitions co-opted by a movement to reject the teaching of anti-racism? I argue that a key element is cable news coverage of the 1619 Project, which over a two-year period moved from explaining structural racism through references to the Project toward characterizing the Project as a threat to schoolchildren. To parse this Fox News-led transformation, I draw on Stuart Hall’s analysis of the media’s role in fomenting a mugging moral panic, which provides a model for integrating research on meaning-making with media routines. Analyzing an original archive of 567 news segments, I conceptualize three methods of discursive articulation, namely acts that connect distinct meanings with the Project, to explain this transformation. While “reverberations” initially echoed the 1619 Project’s structural arguments, “redirections” created connections to controversies and “reductions” tied the Project to terms laden with anti-American associations.

Textbook and curriculum policies: from the fetish object to discursive articulation

RESUMO Este estudo tem como foco discutir as relações do livro didático com políticas curriculares, com base em uma concepção de currículo como enunciação cultural. Argumenta-se que esse material pedagógico é partícipe de disputas pela significação da educação e do currículo, problematizando uma perspectiva representacional que o toma como materialização de disputas e sentidos que o antecedem. Discute-se a visão estereotipada numa leitura do estereótipo como fetiche, como estratégia discursiva que funciona como aparato de poder em função de sua ambivalência. Defende-se que o livro didático é uma produção híbrida que participa da produção curricular e, como currículo, é enunciação cultural.

As identidades regionais e papéis do Estado na retórica populista: os casos do Brasil e da Polônia

Abstract The focus of this study is directed to the way national-conservative decisionmakers envision their own neighborhood and its core cooperation platforms. Through a comparative analysis of the political rhetoric on their respective regions and the ties connecting Poland and Brazil with it, the article seeks to answer the following research questions: How do Brazilian and Polish ruling elites envision the regional belonging of the state? How do they depict major regional integration initiatives of which Brazil and Poland are members and how can regional identities affect those discursive articulations?

Dual discursive articulation: languages of persuasion and resistance in street library community

ABSTRACT This study examines the dual discursive articulation in the Instagram posts of the street library community, Literasi Trotoar (LIAR), in Purwakarta, Indonesia. The study focuses on two groups of posts: those directed towards the LIAR community and the general public, and those aimed at the Indonesian government. To analyse the posts, this study adopts ‘Multimodal Critical Discourse Analysis (MCDA),’ which focuses on both the language and visual elements of the posts. The findings reveal the presence of two integrated and inseparable types of articulation within the posts. Firstly, articulation serves as a discursive tool to persuade the public to embrace the ideology of anarchism within the context of in-group power relations. This articulation is strategically employed for positive in-group representation, in-group ideological glorification, subject interpellation, ideological legitimation, and power formation. Secondly, articulation functions as a discursive mechanism to challenge the authority of the government within the context of out-group power relations. This articulation is strategically utilized for negative out-group representation using a narrative model of populism, out-group ideological debasement, subject resistance, ideological delegitimization, and power exertion. This study proposes a model termed ‘dual discursive articulation,’ which integrates two discursive objectives: persuasion and resistance.

What is in a name? Alternative gender knowledge and the retrogressive worlding of radical right digital media

ABSTRACT The article explores the role of radical right digital media in alternative gender knowledge production during the 2018 “Referendum for Family” in Romania and critically reflects on the challenges it poses for feminist and LGBTQ+ local struggles for recognition and representation. Using mixed research methods for data collection and analysis, the article seeks to address two questions: What are the discursive articulations of gender in ActiveNews and their intersectional dynamics with sexuality, religion, national identity? What (normative) assumptions underpin alternative knowledge claims on gender in ActiveNews? The study aims to shed light onto an important aspect of anti-gender mobilization, which intends to create what in my view could be labeled a “retrogressive worlding.” The argument of the article is anti-gender campaigns endeavor to create a specific worlding centered on alternative gender knowledge, wherein digital media plays a key role. The findings reveal that alternative gender knowledge fabricated by ActiveNews discredits empirical data and conceptualization of gender, sexuality, family as socially constructed and historically malleable. The anti-gender tropes serve a “retrogressive worlding” that does not accommodate gender as analytical category or non-normative gender display and sexuality.

Examining the discursive production and deployment of diversity and inclusion in a UK-wide outdoor organisation

ABSTRACT This study draws on a Foucauldian lens to examine how diversity and inclusion are produced, understood, experienced, and managed within the context of a UK wide outdoor non-profit organisation that recently began steps to increase the diversity of its workforce. Qualitative semi‐structured interviews were undertaken with 16 adult members of staff (8 male and 8 female), from different levels, roles and leadership positions, and across different locations. Analysis highlighted tensions between historical and cultural legacies of exclusion in the outdoors and diversity and inclusion organisational values and practices. It also highlighted the privileging of certain discursive articulations, rationalities, and diversity management practices over others. These included the need for workforce diversity to better represent the client base, leading to a focus on front-facing staff and instructors, and a project-based approach. Findings suggested there may be a generational shift in talking about diversity and inclusion within the outdoor sector, but alternative voices are not yet powerful enough to provoke meaningful and sustainable change. We propose a critical perspective to challenge unproblematized discourses of progress and call for diversity and inclusion to be embedded within core organisational cultures and working practices to avoid it slipping down the ladder of competing organisational priorities.

Sound, Noisy Feelings, and the Audible Sublime in Nineteenth-Century Latin America

Abstract: This article delves into the aural dimensions of Latin American literary tradition, exploring those instances when the sublime provides the vocabulary and syntax to textually inscribe sonic phenomena. As highlighted by Ana María Ochoa Gautier, the audible techniques cultivated by lettered elites found a way into their writing, thus forming a rich textual archive where they registered sounds, voices, and noises that often defied classification and overwhelmed the senses. In reading texts for sounds that emphasize adversity, discordance, and sono-racial designations, this article traces the sort of negative emotions characterizing Edmund Burke's and later theorists' definitions of the sublime as a combination of pleasure and pain, a negative moment of disturbance and confusion. Focusing on the sonic features of political writings by Simón Bolívar and foundational fictions such as Esteban Echeverría's La cautiva (1837) and Jorge Isaacs 's María (1867) , this article illustrates how sound shapes the discursive articulation of defining binaries such as civilization-barbarism, reason-emotion, nature-culture, and mind-matter.

“How can a small app piss off an entire country?”: India’s TikTok ban in the light of everyday techno-nationalism

ABSTRACT In this paper, we employ “everyday techno-nationalism” as a critical lens to unpack the Indian government’s ban of TikTok in 2020. We focus on social media discussions of the ban on Quora and Reddit, and examine how TikTok is perceived as a “Chinese” platform as contrasted, but simultaneously integral, to a techno-nationalist imagination of “Indian-ness.” We put forward two arguments based on our findings. First, we suggest that TikTok’s “Chineseness” is a populist affective outcome of the discursive articulation of Indian “nationhood,” achieved by the effective use of an us-versus-them rhetoric, which signifies a process of digital territorialization amid globalized media flows. Second, we observe that the classist-casteist narrative underscoring TikTok’s association with “cringeworthiness” marginalizes the working-class content creators – so prominently visibilized by TikTok – both from the media landscape and the nationalist imagination. Fundamentally, India’s TikTok ban raises questions about statist interventions into people’s media practices; and as importantly, their own understanding and use of digital technology, which, ironically, within a globalized era, seems to be only notionally more connected, but practically more partisan than ever.

Constructing continuity: heritage listing and monument preservation in Greater Athens from the 1920s to the 1970s

New perceptions in Greek national historiography during the late nineteenth century brought forward new heritage paradigms. In the interwar, Athens’ Byzantine heritage was thoroughly studied, protected by special laws, and popularized to wider audiences. After the Second World War Byzantine and ancient remains were given equal attention. The nineteenth-century neoclassical legacy came to take a place in the discussion about heritage at a time when the first apartment blocks made their appearance and it, too, would be protected by special laws. Through aspects of identification, protection, and restoration of Athens’ built heritage, this paper explores the physical and discursive articulation of the city's past.

Restoring trust? Public communication from Swedish Universities about the post-truth crisis

ABSTRACT In this paper, we engage with five Swedish universities’ discursive articulation of, and responses to, an alleged post-truth crisis in communication, aimed at the public. Taking discourse theory as our point of departure, the aim is to analyse how universities are trying to maintain or restore trustworthiness against a backdrop of problems with fact resistance, fake news, and mistrust in academic institutions. The dilemma for universities is how to counteract post-truth without falling into the trap of returning to a realist paradigm, with its strict notions of truth and objectivity. The paper shows how public events are characterised by a crisis rhetoric, a dislocation, together with imaginaries of both external and internal threats of disorder, which convey a narrow and simplified understanding of scientific knowledge as objective and neutral. ‘Defenders of truth’ seem to foreclose any discussion by deeming knowledge relativism an irrational and dangerous position that fuels arguments claiming a truth crisis. A conclusion is that universities risk increasing polarisation, rather than trying to tackle problems of trustworthiness. The authors argue that, instead, universities need to be attentive to matters of democracy, power, and privilege, as well as a plurality of epistemological ideals, when discussing the so-called post-truth crisis.