Ideological Discourse Analysis Research Articles

Exercising control in media during Covid-19: the “Stay at Home” campaign on Twitter in Greece

In 2020, the Greek government initiated the “Stay at Home” Campaign (or “Petsas’ list”), a fund for supporting the country’s media industry due to financial issues provoked by the Covid-19 pandemic. Also, the campaign would promote the message of staying at home to stop spreading Covid-19. However, that initiative seemed to have been perceived as a manipulation effort to control the news media in order to support an ideal image of the government, including defending the excessive pandemic restrictions (e.g., lockdowns and the prohibition of music in restaurants and bars). The current study employs Ideological Discourse Analysis (IDA) to investigate the online anti-media sentiment empowered by the “Stay at Home” Campaign. It focuses on the Twitter users’ ideological constructions emphasizing on the positive depictions of one group (i.e., the government and the media) against the “other” (i.e., the public) in 1623 Tweets of the relevant hashtag in Greek #Petsas_list (#Λιστα_Πετσα) on Twitter. The results showed that financial support when used in a controversial and non-transparent way, could undermine media independence and empower anti-media sentiment. Lastly, the study enhances the literature about the mass media industry’s problems globally, including the decline in media freedom that contributes to the democratic recession.

تحليل الخطاب النقدي لتمثيل الهوية في الرواية البريطانية "جذور شقراء"

تعنى هذه الدراسة بتحليل نقدي لصراع الهوية في الرواية البريطانية "جذور شقراء" لبرناردين ايفارستو. تتضمن الدراسة تحليل نوعي وحسب نموذج فان دايك (2006) لتحليل الخطاب الأيديولوجي المتبع في هذه الدراسة. تعتمد البيانات على تحليل نقدي للاستراتيجيات المستخدمة لتقديم الهوية في الثقافة البريطانية وتعتبر هذه الدراسة مهمة في إظهار كيفية التلاعب باللغة باستخدام بعض الاستراتيجيات الإيديولوجية الخطابية. وتهدف هذه الدراسة ايضاً لمعرفة لكيفية عرض الذات والاخر لمعرفة المجموعة الاكثر قوة واكثر هيمنة. وتؤكد نتائج هذه الدراسة أن هناك تلاعبًا بلغة الرواية متمثلة في عرض الاوربيين الإيجابي للذات والسلبي للآخر (الأفريقي).

A Critical Discourse Analysis of King Khalid University Students’ Translation of Untranslatability in Islamic Religious Texts

The present study studies King Khalid University students’, majoring in English language, translation of Islamic religious texts and untranslatability. It explores the interrelation of discourse structures and translational structures of the students’ translation. The study utilizes the Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) model to unmask the use of translational strategies through Islamic religious texts. It also analyzes the relational values of the language configuration in terms of wordings, equivalence, and grammatical structures of the students’ translation. Furthermore, this study tries to show that there are linguistic traces that depict the strategies of translation. The study is a linguistic study revealing how language is utilized in the translation of Islamic religious texts, and it is based on a descriptive-analytic method adopting the critical discourse analysis model presented by Norman Fairclough and van Dijk’s ideological discourse analysis framework. The study sample includes the students’ translational work. The findings of the present study entail that the students translate untranslated items of abbreviated words in the Quran using transliteration, and they rely on language power modulation. The study recommends that students should be taught a discourse analysis course in the academic program before the course of translation III, which is composed of strategies for the translation of Islamic religious texts.

The use of the Macedonian name dispute on the candidates’ websites in Northern Greece’s regional and municipal elections of 2019

ABSTRACT This research paper employed Ideological Discourse Analysis (IDA) to study the use of the Macedonian Name Dispute (MND) on the websites of the eight most prominent candidates of the regional and municipal elections of 2019 in Thessaloniki and Central Macedonia. MND is one of the oldest territorial name disputes in the world, as it is connected to the Macedonian Question dating back to the end of the 19th century. For almost 30 years, the MND has been used in Greece’s political competition, and more recently in 2018 and 2019 due to the ratification of the Prespes (or Prespa) Agreement between Greece and the country now-named North Macedonia. This study revealed that politicians employed the MND as a communication tool to provoke powerful emotions linked with the Greek identity. After all, MND, like other territorial name disputes (e.g., South China Sea, Persian/Arabian Gulf, Kuril Islands/Northern Territories, Nagorno-Karabakh/Artsakh, Western Sahara), seems to preserve a dominant discourse in which the emotional factor dictates the truth and goes against those who oppose this existing reality.

Investigating the Ideology of Indonesian Universities through the Vision and Mission Statements: A Corpus-Assisted Discourse Study

Literatures have shown that discursive investigation on universities’ vision and mission statements can reveal the universities’ ideologies as well as the prevailing sociopolitical factors in the country. However, there is no such investigation within Indonesian higher education discourse yet. This study seeks to fill the gap by conducting a corpus-assisted analysis on the vision and mission statements of 100 Indonesian universities. By implementing CADS procedures, this study combines corpus linguistics techniques and ideological discourse analysis approach. The final results reveal the social responsibility of Indonesian universities to support public welfare and the emergence of internationalization movement within the educational system of the country, denoting collectivism and neoliberalism as ‘negotiating’ ideologies within the institutional discourse. It is related to none other than the view that universities are institutional bodies that cannot be stagnant as they must always be progressing towards the current development of society and even the world.

Disinformation and weaponized communication: The spread of ideological hate about the Macedonian name in Greece

The study examined through ideological discourse analysis (IDA) 38 widely spread disinformation-laced news stories (or “fake news”) regarding the Macedonian Name Dispute (MND) and the “Prespes Agreement” in the years 2018 and 2019. The paper explores the ideological narratives and constructions disseminated through the disinformation-laced news stories during these 2 years. Therefore, the study expands the relevant literature regarding democracy, disinformation, and hate campaigns by examining the ideological narratives and constructions disseminated through the disinformation-laced news stories during that two-years-period. The findings showed that those news stories were successfully weaponized and resulted in empowering identity characteristics and ideological narratives through the distancing method (us vs them), the alienation with elements of dramatization (e.g. territorial loss of the Greek Macedonia due to the “Prespes Agreement”), and the sense of victimization and dehumanization that demanded emergency actions to protect the ingroup (Greece) from the outgroup (North Macedonia and its Greek assistants).

Ideological Discourse Analysis of Oduduwa Secessionist Twitter Narratives

The Oduduwa secessionist agitators are a group of social actors with the resolution of seceding Nigeria. Meanwhile, in spite of their reminder that Nigeria’s nationhood is still highly contested, there appears to be very little or no linguistic research on discourses produced by this emerging group of activists. Therefore, this study analyses the Oduduwa agitators’ tweets to uncover their prevailing ideologies and highlight their strategies for representing themselves and those they oppose. An analytical and qualitative research design is used to interpret the data selected. From the corpus of 10,000 tweets on Oduduwa secessionist agitators, a few tweets are purposively selected and analysed in this study. With insights from van Dijk’s model of Critical Discourse Analysis, findings reveal that Oduduwa secessionists’ Twitter posts (tweets) are protest discourses, with positive ‘we’ in-group representations and negative ‘they’ out-group constructions imprinted on them. The agitators apply linguistic strategies such as code-switching, foregrounding and hashtags to express their solidarity as well as establish social interaction. The study concludes that Oduduwa secessionist agitators’ tweets are effectively used to describe the identities of the actors, express their arguments and demands, enunciate their activities and goals, and offer information updates to the agitators and supporters.

Backlash against Meat Curtailment Policies in online discourse: Populism as a missing link

Given overwhelming evidence that current levels of meat consumption jeopardize human and planetary health, there is a need for governmental action to reduce meat consumption (i.e., Meat Curtailment Policies, or MCPs). However, few such policies are actually being implemented, in part due to fear of backlash. Better understanding the ideological underpinning of backlash is thus crucial for designing strategies that can further the much needed transition towards more plant-based diets. To address this issue, this study unravels the diverse ideological notions informing backlash in discourse against MCPs. Data consists of three news articles in right-wing publications and over 2700 corresponding comments, posted on Facebook in response to policy proposals to reduce animal protein consumption in the Netherlands. Analysis of the data is based on a framework for ideological discourse analysis, which enables the identification of ideological notions through recognizing semantic and formal structures in text. The research reveals that next to the well documented notions related to neoliberalism (e.g., freedom of choice) and carnism (e.g., meat is normal), populist notions are a significant ideological basis of backlash. In addition, ideological notions related to populism, such as anti-elitism, are interlocked with carnism and neoliberalism. The analysis contributes to a better understanding of the socio-political nature of backlash against MCPs. It suggests that while notions related to carnism can explain how people justify their meat consumption, such notions are only partly relevant for explaining resistance to MCPs. Such resistance is not just an individual response, but a theme around which groups of people converge, through shared ideologies.

Covering the Wildfire of Mati in Greece: Undermining the Systemic Human Impact on the Environment

ABSTRACT The Mati (Greece) wildfire of 23 July 2018 received extensive news coverage. It dominated the Greek public discourse for several years to the extent that it was ascribed to being used as a tool for electoral power. In spite of its significance, no research has focused on investigating the news coverage of this event. This research paper examines the news discourse of the Mati Wildfire by studying 1,573 news articles, using ideological discourse analysis (IDA). It analyzes the dominant narratives and constructions of the nine most prominent news websites in Greece and reveals if there is a systemic undermining of human impact on the environment. The findings showed that the news outlets did not cover the wildfire as an environmental event, but rather a political issue. The disseminated constructions were of a populistic discourse that supported a polarized logic of a positive image for a particular group (i.e., the main opposition party) and a negative one for the outgroup (i.e., the then-government). As a result, the study emphasizes how crucial it is for journalists to critically explain the role and effects of human activity on the environment (Anthropocene), instead of simply focusing on political or otherwise discussion of events.

IDEOLOGICAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS IN SOVIET ANIMATION CINEMA

In this study, the Soviet animation cinema's ideological discourses, which showed the consequences and reflections of the political ideology of the era, were examined. In line with the findings, it was considered that these animated films constitute a kind of cultural memory that exhibits the political history and social culture of the Soviets. The article's ideological discourse analysis method was applied by considering Teun A. van Dijk's study titled Ideological Discourse Analysis. As part of this research, because ideological discourses were analyzed, only short films with propaganda content were regarded among Soviet animations, and the scope of the study was restricted. Furthermore, the date range taken about the films was the term of Soyuzmultfilm, the official animation studio of the Soviet Union. The films created by the studio, which began its actions in 1936 until the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, were taken into account. The conclusions of discourse analysis were evaluated according to the headings 'self-identity', 'activity', 'goal', 'norm and value', 'position and relation' and 'resource' mentioned in the article Ideological Discourse Analysis, and the ideological discourses in Soviet animated cinema were analyzed.

The Islamic Declaration on Global climate change; An Ideological Discourse Analysis

Purpose: The present study seeks to undertake a discourse analysis of the Islamic Declaration on Climate Change using Carvalho’s (2000) model of ideological discourse analysis. Approach/Methodology/Design: Two stages of the analysis were carried out: textual and contextual analysis. A corpus of 15 newspapers and media websites was developed out of 85 results attained by Factiva to undertake the contextual analysis. Findings: The results showed that the Islamic Declaration on climate change represents a critical moment in the history of caring for the environment in the Muslim world, that it represents mainstream Islam and common Muslim concern and not any single political or national agenda, that it bases its argument deeply on the Islamic faith represented in the scriptural texts, and that it has a potential influence both materially through policymakers and spiritually through changing peoples’ attitudes. Combined with other religious statements on climate change, the message of religious leaders is meant to reach areas modern science and governmental reports cannot reach alone. Practical Implications: While we attempted an ideological discourse analysis of the IDGCC in the present study, more studies are needed to analyze the influence of the IDGCC and other religion-inclined documents on people's and governments' actions to save the planet from the climate change crisis. Originality/value: The IDGCC was based on the Islamic faith to represent the ideology of mainstream Muslims and the Islamic perspective on the environment. Like the other religious statements, it relies heavily on scriptural references and interpretations.

Content Analysis Approach in Discourse Analysis of News Newspapers

This paper aims to explain how the content of the analysis can be used as a framework for investigating the ideologies contained in the text, especially in the reporting of election. The problem in the current ideological discourse analysis is that there is no explicit and systematic method of explaining ideology and discourse criticism to be unscientific. The research question in this paper how the content analysis framework is presented in the news? How the content analysis framework consists of a content analysis framework leading to prescriptive objectives in the form of a news content unit? In this paper, research data were taken from the 2018 West Java governor election campaign news text from online newspapers. The results of the research were news content raised topics such as social actors namely figure and groups, and also social practice namely politics, and social actions. The ideology presented in the news was an imbalance in term of the frequency of reporting in the news. The imbalance result was related to asymmetric power ideology in the newspaper.

A Computational Approach to Explore Extremist Ideologies in Daesh Discourse

This paper uses a computer-based frequency analysis to present an ideological discourse analysis of extremist ideologies in Daesh discourse. More specifically, by using a computer-assisted text analysis, the paper attempts to investigate the hidden extremist ideologies beyond the discourse of the first issue of Rumiyah, one of the main digital publications of Daesh. The paper’s main objectives are to expose hidden ideologies beyond the mere linguistic form of discourse, to offer better linguistic understanding of the manipulative use of language in religious discourse, and to highlight the relevance of using a computer-based frequency analysis to discourse studies and corpus linguistics. The paper also employs van Dijk's ideological discourse analysis, by adopting his positive self-presentation and negative other-presentation strategies. Findings reveal that Daesh discourse in Rumiyah is rhetorically structured to hide the manipulative ideologies of its users, which in turn functions to reformulate the social, political and religious attitudes of its readers.

Understandings of Impoliteness in the Greek Context

Interest in non-academic ways of understanding of im/politeness has so far been evident primarily in analyses of the sequential development of real-life interactions. However, understandings of im/politeness can be found in other sources such as related articles in on-line newspapers and their ensuing comments. The main aim of this paper is to contribute to this rather neglected area in im/politeness research, thus placing emphasis on the underexplored societal rather than individual level of im/politeness. The data to be investigated comes from two on-line articles and the comments they received. The articles appeared in a popular Greek free press on-line newspaper, LIFO, in 2014 and 2017 and were written by the same journalist. Both articles and ensuing comments express lay understandings of impoliteness and are discussed in the paper in terms of van Dijk’s (1998, 2006a, b) ideological discourse analysis and ‘ideological square’ that revolves around positive self-presentation and negative other-presentation. In exploring understandings of impoliteness in this context, we identified two emerging social identities, those of ‘polite’ and ‘impolite citizen’, dynamically co-constructed as binary opposites by the journalist and posters involved. Despite the fact that on-line newspaper articles and their accompanying comments reflect stereotypical thinking, they also depict pervasive views and are worth exploring because they concern the societal level of im/politeness.

Tweetology: Ideological Discourse Analysis of The Tweets of the Key Twitter Users Politicians of India with Special Reference to Shashi Tharoor and Subramanian Swamy

Tweetology: Ideological Discourse Analysis of The Tweets of the Key Twitter Users Politicians of India with Special Reference to Shashi Tharoor and Subramanian Swamy

FRAMING PEACE: AN IDEOLOGICAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS OF OBAMA’S SPEECH IN CAIRO

Language is not always neutrally utilized by a politician. It is framed to persuade people to think and act in line with the intention of the orator or the ideology of the group he represents. This study dealt with ideological discourse analysis of Obama speech in Cairo. It focused on the cognitive processes showing the link of the ideology structure and discourse structures. This study was (1) to identify the underpinning ideology of the speech, (2) how the ideology structure link withthe discourse structures employed, covering (a) how the ideology was expressed at global meaning level and at local meaning level, (b) how propositional structures were employed as ideology controlled strategy, (c) how sentence syntax was employed as ideology –controlled strategy, (d) how discourse forms or genres were employed as an ideology-controlled strategy, and (e) how styles were employed as persuasive ideology-controlled strategy in his efforts to frame peace. The framework of the research was Critical Discourse Analysis in general and Ideological Discourse Analysis in particular. So Ideological Discourse Analysis in this study was employed as Theory and Method. The data were the text of Obama’s speech in Cairo 2009. The data in the form of quotes were analyzed, and interpreted by employing Critical Discourse Analysis (Fairclough, 1995) to uncover the underpinning ideology of the speech, and Ideological Discourse Analysis to show the link of the ideology structure and the discourse structures employed in the speech. The results were in the form of the description of the cognitive processes showing how the underpinning ideology was expressed at different levels of discourse structures for the purpose of framing peace.

Politisering av feminism. Jämställdhetsfrågor i Aftonbladets partiledardebatt inför riksdagsvalet 2014

Abstract This paper investigates a part of the party leaders’ webb-tv debate staged by the Swedish tabloid Aftonbladet on the 1st of September as a part of the election campaign before the elections to the Riksdag, county councils and municipal assemblies that took place on the 14 September 2014. The debate investigated in this paper deals with gender equality questions. The overall aim of this study is to examine what topics the politicians choose to discuss during the debate and what line of argumentation they use. The method used was ideological discourse analysis coupled with classical rhetoric and eristic. The results of the argumentation analysis are set in a broader framework of gender studies and the Swedish political landscape

The humorous language of street dissent: A discourse analysis of the graffiti of the Gezi Park protests

Owing to its critical and creative potential, humour has often been used as one of the preferred means of resistance in social and political protests. In addition, the presence of humour is also increasing in the new social movements of recent history. The essential questions that this article aims to answer are how humour functions and what its purpose is amidst a time of numerous and notable social movements. During the 2013 Gezi Park protests in Turkey, the protesters made significant use of humour that specifically targeted the control of the authorities over public life, thus providing a good case with which to study humour in social movements. One form which the protesters used to disseminate humorous messages was graffiti. In this article, the graffiti from the Gezi Park protests is examined using a critical discourse analysis model. In order to achieve the intended aims, Van Dijk’s (1995) understanding of ideological discourse analysis arguing that dominated groups may have ideologies that effectively organise the social representation needed for resistance and change, is taken as a point of departure. However, this work specifically relies on Fairclough’s (1992) three dimensional discourse analysis that covers the object (the text), the process (discursive practice) and the socio-historical conditions (social practice). Research on the language of Gezi graffiti shows that the humorous language of the protesters identified and differentiated the actors of the movement, and it did not only help them to cope with the domination and oppression to which they were subjected, but also increased support for development in the desired direction.

Between Fact and Fiction: Semantic fields and Image Content in Crime Infotainment programs

AbstractCrime infotainment is a hybrid type of television program in which each episode is based on a real criminal case and presented to the audience under the form of a reconstructed narrative. Research has shown that although violent crime is ubiquitous in other types of media, leading to an over-representation of violent content, crime infotainment is the most fear-inducing type of media as compared with newspaper coverage and television crime drama. This leads people to believe their lives are at risk and they consequently support cultural conservative politics of anti-crime measures which are excessive considering the risk. It is therefore important to understand how crime infotainment content is built to induce fear. Adopting the framework of Ideological Discourse Analysis developed by van Dijk (

Meaning Systems of Two Identity Concepts: Acadie versus Acadien

Until now, Acadie and its representations have always been determined in academia by those of the community’s elite—its leaders. Rarely has Acadie been described through the voices of its members. The first of its kind, this article is part of a larger study (ethnographic in nature) that seeks to understand the relation between the Acadian identity of the Canadian province of New Brunswick and the French language. To do so, the meanings, similarities and differences between the concepts of Acadie and Acadien are compared and contrasted through an analysis of ideological discourse within New Brunswick’s three French-speaking communities. In doing so, regional tendencies in the role of language in the Acadian identity emerge, illustrating that the common rhetoric of previous years used in the description of Acadie and the Acadiens as poorly composed, limited, and misrepresented.