This study has analyzed the way in which the Saudi economic developments are reflected in the Middle Eastern and international television news media. The study employed a qualitative thematic content analysis of thirty TV news programs aired in 2023-2025 on Arab and international TV stations. The results indicated that there is a high level of thematic convergence and that coverage is mainly organized in the manner of economic diversification, innovation and technology, global partnerships, and sustainability initiatives linked to Vision 2030. The Saudi authorities and governmental organizations are always presented as the key players of the change, and western allies and voices of experts support discourses of credibility and globalization. The overall narrative tone is very positive and future-oriented, which is marked by strategic optimism and fewer critical attitudes, especially in the Arab media. International broadcasts offer more context in terms of analysis and mostly stick with affirmative framing. The study concludes that television news is one of the primary discursive resources of economic legitimacy and nation branding, which align well with the strategic communication objectives of Saudi Arabia. The findings are important to the study of media and communication because they reveal the contribution of the television news in informing economic narratives in large-scale national transformation agendas.

This study explores how organizational members draw on discursive resources to enact resilience when navigating challenges in a public education institution. Drawing on qualitative interview data from educators, findings reveal that resilience is a dynamic, socially constructed, collective process that emerges through (1) invoking a bigger purpose, where challenges are discursively framed as inherent in meaningful work, and (2) growth mindset messaging, where learning is foregrounded through storytelling. Taken together, these communicative practices make up a recursive process—with drawing on past experiences of successfully overcoming adversity and discursive framing—to co-construct individual and collective resilience in the organizational context of public education. Our findings extend the literature on meaningful work, growth mindsets, and the Communication Theory of Resilience. We offer practical implications for (1) cultivating growth mindset messaging and (2) building narratives anchored in a bigger purpose to foster a collective identity.

The war in Gaza is domesticated globally by national media ecosystems using locally-resonant frames. Research suggests that this produces a pro-Israeli bias in Western outlets, with the opposite observed in the Middle-East. The article analyzes how these patterns function in a semi-peripheral media system. It studies how four key Polish outlets framed the war in Gaza in 2023–2024, arguing that they instrumentalized the conflict to reproduce pre-existing ideological narratives. Drawing on the proximity-framing nexus, the analysis conceptualizes proximity as ideological alignment between outlets and the actors, causes, and values they foreground. The study uses a mixed-method design, combining dictionary-based code co-occurrence analysis and code mapping with a qualitative analysis of media articles. This allows the capturing of actors, processes, and evaluative frames. Findings show that right-wing outlets embedded Gaza primarily in security- and threat-oriented frames, while left-wing outlets used the conflict to articulate projects of anti-colonialism and social justice. Media narratives remained Poland-centric, foregrounding domestic politics, historical memory, and identity projects and only secondarily representing Palestinian and Israeli voices. The article contributes to scholarship on conflict reporting, Eastern European semi-peripheries and mediated solidarity by showing how distant wars become discursive resources in domestic struggles over democracy, memory, and belonging.

Social identities are not merely descriptive categories but discursive resources mobilised in electoral practices. The caste-based electoral appeals in Indian elections, exemplify how identities are performatively invoked and normalised in the democratic life. This article employs critical discourse analysis of 31 political speeches to investigate the rhetorical strategies and illocutionary force indicating devices through which leaders interpellate voters into caste-based collectivities. The study shows how affective resonance and persuasive tropes are deployed to cultivate electoral belonging and political solidarity. By conceptualising caste-appeals as a mode of identity performance and discursive hegemony, the article illuminates that electoral language both reproduces and legitimises social hierarchies under the guise of democratic inclusion. This analysis foregrounds the nexus of discourse, identity, and power, offering theoretical insights into political communication, the performativity of social categories, and the reproduction of inequality in democratic contexts.

Starting in 2017, most small states in Latin America and the Caribbean joined China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Near-uniform membership contrasts with variation in the Asian power’s importance to regional economies. The BRI has brought little new investment in these states; recently, participation has risked retaliation from the United States. What explains these states’ affinity for the BRI, despite heterogeneous material costs and benefits? We argue that the region’s small states have approached the BRI less for its immediate material benefits than for the salient discursive resources that it offers. Political leaders mobilise these resources to construct status narratives that justify, especially to domestic audiences, how BRI participation will improve national status. We analyse paired case studies during each of two temporal waves: Chile and Ecuador (wave 1, 2017–2019) and Honduras and Nicaragua (wave 2, 2020–2025). In addition, we consider Panama as the first Latin American signatory (wave 1) and the only country in the region to renounce BRI membership (wave 2).

This study examines how bitch and bastard construct gendered identities in contemporary British English conversation. Using corpus-assisted critical discourse analysis of the Spoken BNC2014, it examines collocational patterns and “ be + bitch / bastard ” constructions to trace how gendered meanings are enacted across speaker and target sexes. bastard predominantly targets men, representing masculinity through moral evaluation, functioning as a discursive resource for policing fairness and integrity. BITCH constructs more variable representations: it is frequently used by and about women to regulate interpersonal and emotional conduct, yet can also mark assertive femininity or position men outside socially recognised norms of masculinity. These patterns highlight how moral and relational discourses intersect in the linguistic representations of gender, sustaining long-standing associations of masculinity with public morality and femininity with emotional virtue. The findings show that derogatory language remains a critical discursive site where gendered identities and hierarchies are reproduced, contested, and occasionally re-signified in everyday interaction.

Politeness is not merely a pragmatic strategy in interpersonal communication but also a discursive practice shaped by power relations, ideology, and social context. This study examines politeness as a discursive practice in the film “Dear John” (2010) using a Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) framework. The goal of the study is to reveal how politeness strategies are constructed, negotiated, and contested through language in intimate relationships portrayed in the film. Employing a qualitative descriptive method, the data consist of selected dialogues between the main characters, John and Savannah, which contain politeness-related expressions. The analysis integrates Brown and Levinson’s politeness theory with Fairclough’s three-dimensional model of CDA: textual analysis, discursive practice, and social practice. The findings show that politeness strategies in “Dear John” function not only to maintain interpersonal harmony but also to reflect unequal emotional power, moral positioning, and ideological assumptions about love, sacrifice, and gender roles. Positive politeness dominates the interactions, while negative politeness and off-record strategies emerge in moments of conflict and emotional distance. The novelty of this study lies in its integration of politeness theory and CDA to demonstrate how politeness operates as an ideological and discursive resource within romantic narratives. This study contributes to discourse studies, pragmatics, and literary discourse analysis.

Once being independent pioneers, nonprofit welfare organizations now face marketization as they compete with commercial actors in delivering services within the welfare state. This development has been described as “becoming business-like,” which implies a tension between the traditional normative identity and the more recent utilitarian identity of nonprofits. We question this polarization by analyzing a case study of a Norwegian nonprofit that is expanding in processes of increased marketization, asking how nonprofits internally legitimize marketization. Central to our theoretical contribution is the concept of The Shield of Purpose that serves as a strategic discursive resource through which the organization legitimizes its market-oriented adaptations while simultaneously developing its normative identity. This concept illustrates the organization’s ambidextrous use of its foundational diaconal purpose as both a defense against mission drift and a mechanism for integration with market pressures.

Abstract Social interaction is pervaded by troubling experiences of marginalization, discrimination, and injustice, yet people’s attempts to account for such experiences often encounter difficulties. In this article, we review findings from conversation analytic and discursive psychological research to illuminate these challenges. We summarize the findings regarding (1) the conditions under which troubling experiences of interactional inequality occur; (2) the stakes involved in accounting for such experiences; (3) the narrative and discursive resources used for making them culturally intelligible; and (4) the local consequences of talking about these experiences in different contexts. We draw on the notion of “hermeneutical injustice” as a framework to highlight the potential for social and societal critique embedded in these research findings. We argue that the difficulties in accounting for troubling experiences of interactional inequality are unevenly distributed, and that this injustice contributes to the reproduction of broader societal inequalities.

Studies on suspects’ confessional statements during interrogations abound. However, sufficient attention has not been paid to suspects’ confessional statements as captured in newspaper reports, especially how suspects deploy discursive resources to frame inclusion and exclusion in crime. Thus, this study attempts to examine how suspects recruit context-sensitive linguistic devices in their confessional statements reported in Nigerian dailies and blogs. Seven inclusion/exclusion strategies are identified in this work. The study states that these linguistic strategies serve various functions, primarily to amplify or downplay the severity of the crime committed, and to de-emphasise the suspects' involvement in an attempt to pursue exoneration. Depending on the situation they find themselves in, suspects leverage these linguistic devices to construct narratives of guilt, ignorance, innocence, withdrawal, shared responsibility, self-defense, and remorse. It will be interesting to see how future studies would incorporate a corpus-aided approach into this study.

This article analyzes the Green Porno series, created and starring Isabella Rossellini, in light of contemporary art practices, emphasizing elements of interdisciplinarity, performance, and activism. The research adopts a qualitative and exploratory approach, based on the aesthetic and conceptual analysis of the series and on dialogue with theorists such as Silvio Zamboni, Richard Schechner, and Judith Butler, supported by Eni Puccinelli Orlandi's Discourse Analysis. The work proposes to analyze the Green Porno series and its potential as didactic, critical, and above all artistic material, examining its articulation with elements of contemporary art such as the performative and discursive resources used by Rossellini. It concludes that Green Porno contributes to broadening the ways of understanding contemporary art as a space for reflection, experimentation, and cultural transformation.

ABSTRACT This paper explores how Balkan migrants, operating small gastronomy businesses in Vienna, construct their identity as migrant entrepreneurs. Drawing on the concept of narrative identity and using qualitative interviews, the analysis investigates how narrative resources – such as a transformation plot, the development of agency as self-empowerment, and positioning within dominant societal discourses – are employed to construct identity. The empirical findings reveal a specific narrative pattern that characterizes the identity construction of migrant entrepreneurs. This pattern blends entrepreneurial themes of hard work and autonomy with migrant experiences of vulnerability and engagement with migration discourses in the host society. By focusing on narratives of self-empowerment, the study shows how narrators strategically utilize discursive resources to render their stories intelligible and legitimate within broader societal frameworks. Entrepreneurship emerges as a means of reclaiming agency and achieving recognition, which in turn suggests that institutional practices should value initiative and autonomy rather than emphasizing needs.

Abstract This paper contributes to the literature on nonprofit social ventures and discourse studies by identifying discursive resources leveraged to craft the intended image of a nonprofit organization. The intended organizational image plays a central role in the way stakeholders, notably sponsors, perceive a nonprofit organization. Nonetheless, we have little research aimed at identifying the resources and tools that organizations mobilize to structure their intended image, especially at the discourse level. Drawing on the analysis of the discourses adopted by a Brazilian not-for-profit organization, we propose a typology of five discursive resources: distinctiveness , identification , justification , storytelling , and validation . These resources operate as discursive-rhetoric tools that allow the organization to assert its uniqueness and shared values, legitimize its mission, narrate impact, and demonstrate credibility. Our findings contribute to a discourse-based understanding of nonprofit image construction by offering a framework that complements existing work in branding and legitimacy. The study also provides practical insights for nonprofit managers seeking to communicate authentically and efficiently with key stakeholders.

Abstract Communication skills do not have an agreed upon definition despite the importance contemporary communication culture attributes to them. Instead of asking what communication skills are, this study adopts a relational approach and asks how skills materialize as elements of the situation in and with which speakers interact. I review the sociopsychological theoretical tradition’s conception of skills as typologies of skills and skill components, and the sociocultural tradition’s conception of skills as discursive resources, to analyze and interpret practical metadiscourse about skills in a U.S. undergraduate public speaking course. I find that theorists and practitioners alike constitute communication skills as generic objects, that is, discrete but non-specific objects that encompass specific features and serve as templates for action. Further, the generic nature of skills allows them to circulate broadly. The constitution of skills as generic objects resolves the contradiction between the importance ascribed to them and their lack of specificity.

This article investigates the realization of authorial epistemic and effective stance in contemporary English newspaper discourse on migration, focusing on how journalists construct ideological meanings through linguistic choices. The object of the research is English media discourse on migration, while the subject is the linguistic and discursive mechanisms of stance-taking used by journalists. The aim of the study is to identify, classify, and interpret the epistemic and effective stance markers that shape evaluative positioning and ideological framing in news reporting. Modality is examined as a key discursive resource that enables writers to express certainty, probability, obligation, intentionality, and moral judgement. The analysis, based on recent publications from The Guardian, identifies the principal markers of epistemic stance – factive verbs, cognitive predicates, modal auxiliaries, and evidentials – as well as the components of effective stance, including deontic, intentional, and normative modalities. Epistemic stance reveals the degree of authorial commitment to truth and inference, whereas effective stance highlights how journalists assess political actions, articulate expectations, or construct evaluative judgements. The findings show that English media often frame migration through polarized lenses: either as a crisis associated with instability and political pressure, or as a natural, historically grounded phenomenon. Modal expressions play a central role in reinforcing these frames, subtly guiding readers toward perceiving migrants as either vulnerable groups requiring protection or as subjects of political contention. The conclusions indicate that the interaction of epistemic and effective stance forms a coherent modal metatext that mediates between represented reality and reader interpretation. Stance-taking thus operates as a powerful mechanism of ideological production, shaping how audiences understand migration, attribute responsibility, and evaluate political responses in contemporary media discourse.

This commentary aims to gain a more nuanced understanding of the production of nationalism in Chinese cyberspace, providing insights into the roles of and dynamics between the state, digital platforms, and non-state actors. This commentary argues that nationalism remains a resilient, predominant and taken-for-granted discursive resource that can be mobilized by various social actors for individual, political or commercial purposes in different contexts. Notably, the roles of and relations among these actors in producing nationalism online are always dynamic, contested, and contextual. This commentary advances debates on Chinese digital nationalism by analyzing the roles of diverse social actors and the dynamic relationships among them. In doing so, it challenges the prevalent ‘party-propaganda’ perspective or the binary of ‘state–netizen interaction’.

This study aims to analyze the discursive resources and generic features of texts from the Ibero-Atlantic literary tradition, specifically from Brazil, Galicia and Portugal during the 13th, 17th, and 20th centuries, as employed by authors to criticize powerholders. To achieve this, the theoretical and methodological perspectives of Systemic-Functional Linguistics (Halliday 1994) and the Generic Structure Potential (Hasan 1992; 2000) are applied, alongside Pragmatics approaches, and articulated with concepts from Reception Theory (Iser 1978; Jauss 1982) and Postcolonial Theory (Said 1994; Spivak 1988) to understand the intended and perceived meanings behind these critiques. This combination helps identify common discursive strategies in literary productions that, despite being separated by time and space, display contextual (ideological) relationships. The corpus consists of satirical chants by Gil Pérez Conde (Portugal), poems by Gregório de Matos Guerra (Brazil), and songs by Chico Buarque de Holanda (Brazil). The results reveal textual features that identify a subcategory of the satirical genre, shaped by the oppressive contexts surrounding these texts and the shared Ibero-Atlantic cultural and literary heritage. Furthermore, the pragmatic analysis sheds light on how these texts engage with their audiences to reinforce or subvert power structures.

This study analyzes the misinformation spread on TikTok during the 2024 Mexican presidential campaign, with an emphasis on its possible influence on electoral behavior. The research is based on the context of the growing use of social media as a space for political communication, where TikTok has established itself as a key platform due to its capacity for virality and its reach among young audiences. The most relevant hoaxes debunked by the fact-checking sites Animal Político and Verificado between March and June 2024 are examined, categorizing their textual and visual narratives, as well as their discursive resources and manipulation strategies. The methodology combines content analysis, critical discourse analysis, and semiotic analysis, along with interviews with fact-checkers and specialists in political communication. The areas analyzed include political gender violence, the delegitimization of political actors, the use of deepfakes, and strategies to reconfigure the political agenda. This work seeks to contribute to the understanding of how false content can influence voting intentions, the perception of candidates, and the civic engagement of citizens, particularly young voters. The results aim to contribute to the academic debate on the challenges facing democracy in the digital age and the need to strengthen verification practices and media literacy.

Purpose As Big Tech corporations are increasingly scrutinized for their central role in our digital societies, they face pressure to sustain corporate legitimacy in the face of their main watchdog, news media. This article analyzes corporate-attributed statements in legacy news media to understand how public interest frames cultivate pragmatic, moral and cognitive media legitimacy. Design/methodology/approach We draw on a qualitative framing analysis of (in)direct corporate statements that receive media visibility in 93 news articles from four major U.S. and German newspapers spanning the period 2000–2020. Findings Five frames were identified that promote technological innovation as a universal solution to societal challenges, align corporate and public interests, embed corporate citizenship into the societal fabric and personalize corporate leadership. These frames position Big Tech corporations in public interest, which cultivates pragmatic, moral and cognitive media legitimacy. Practical implications Findings provide insights into media framing of public interest appeals, and how these influence media legitimacy. This perspective offers guidance for practitioners seeking to engage effectively with journalistic scrutiny and create resonating narratives in public debates. Originality/value Our study intersects public interest framing and media legitimacy literature, and in doing so, presents this type of framing as a versatile discursive resource for legitimacy building via news media in contested sectors like Big Tech in particular, where such claims are highly scrutinized and relevant for regulatory debates. We call for greater critical reflection on how public interest framing may obscure corporate accountability and shape democratic debates about the power and responsibility of Big Tech.

ABSTRACT This study examines how plurilingual practices shape interaction, language awareness, and translanguaging in autonomous tandem language learning (TLL) involving languages other than English (LOTEs). Fourteen university students participated in a semester-long Czech-based TLL course, keeping reflective diaries and completing open-ended questionnaires. Thematic analysis explored how learners reflected on and mobilised their plurilingual repertoires. Participants drew on languages beyond the two target ones to sustain communication, negotiate meaning, and compare linguistic and cultural features. Metalinguistic awareness emerged as learners identified similarities and differences across their repertoires and strategically transferred linguistic resources to facilitate understanding and reflection. Translanguaging functioned both as a communicative strategy in interaction and as a discursive resource in writing, supporting the articulation of complex plurilingual identities. These findings problematise the long-standing separation of languages and target-language-only principles, underscoring the pedagogical potential of tandem formats as dynamic spaces for fostering plurilingual competence. The inclusion of both widely taught languages (German, French, Spanish) and less common ones (Swedish, Finnish, Japanese) offers new insights into plurilingual interaction in TLL and underscores the potential of tandem learning to foster pluralistic autonomy-oriented pedagogies.