The Role of Language Flashcards
Studies related to the role of language in intergroup conflict and prejudice
van Dijk (2006) Manipulative discourse
Manipulation is specifically the abuse of power, making others believe or do things in the interest of the manipulator and against the best interests of the manipulated.
Investigating discourse and manipulation analysis was conducted between groups (social groups, institutions or organisations) and their members.
Findings: in principle the ‘same’ discourse (or discourse fragment) may be manipulative in one situation, but not in another situation.
Discursively, manipulation generally involves the usual forms and formats of ideological discourse, such as emphasising ‘Our’ good things, and emphasising ‘Their’ bad things.
It typically occurs in public communication controlled by dominant political, bureaucratic, media, academic or corporate elites. Discursively manipulating how recipients understand one event, action or discourse is at times quite important, especially for such monumental events as the 9/11 attack.
Manipulation generally involves polarized structures of positive self-presentation and negative other presentation expressing ideological conflict. In addition, we found that manipulation involves: enhancing the power, moral superiority and credibility of the speaker(s), and discrediting dissidents, while evilifying the Others, the enemy; the use of emotional appeals; and adducing seemingly irrefutable proofs of one’s beliefs and reasons.
Wodak (1987)
Manipulative discourse
This negative consequence of manipulative discourse typically occurs when the recipients are unable to understand the real intentions or to see the full consequences of the beliefs or actions advocated by the manipulator. This may be the case especially when the recipients lack the specific knowledge that might be used to resist manipulation .
A well-known example is governmental and/or media discourse about immigration and immigrants, so that ordinary citizens blame the bad state of the economy, such as unemployment, on immigrants and not on government policies (Van Dijk, 1993)
Pomerantz (1986)
Linguistic categorisation
In each case of hatred towards a group, linguistic categorisation of the target group is associated with tactics such as dehumanisation and scapegoating.
Discursive features in speech serve a rhetorical purpose. Language and images convey a clear meaning which is constructed to be persuasive. Examples of these discursive features are disclaimers, three-part lists and extreme generalisations such as “forever” and “everyone knows that…” are all tactically persuasive language techniques.
Potter & Wetherell (1987)
Newspaper stories - Hijacking
Terms are intentionally used which already carry connotations so the newspapers can depict the desired story. Language isn’t a simple reflection of reality, it actively constructs a version of the story which has social and political implications. For example, in the plane hijacking described, the authorities vs gunmen, were the authorities not armed? This is very unlikely and a clear example of how language is used to provide a sense of familiarity to the story.
This story then contributes to the stereotyped narrative pattern associated with the term ‘hijacking’, so peoples prejudice is ‘legitimate’.
Myths
A collective narrative by which members of a social group give significance to their social/political situation.
Narratives explain how the world works, within a cultures these narratives are widely shared and very often they are accepted without thought. Political myths cannot be easily falsified and can often adapt and accommodate new events also.
Anything that lessens unknowing of how things may turn can be appealing, and this sense of certainty is what people are drawn to.
Herman & Chomsky (1988)
The Propaganda Model
They proposed a 5 element model which attempted to explain the behaviour of the media in the United States, as they found that the output consistently served the interests of corporate and state power.
Their model suggests that ownership, size and profit orientation will influence media behaviour in a range of ways and will ultimately encourage a right-wing bias within mainstream media discourses.
The third filter in the model is the Institutionally affiliated sources (the ‘primary definers’ of social reality) typically dominate news discourses. As a result, news comes to reflect institutional interests on a macro level.
The model’s fourth filter element also brings the concept of power into play, stressing that dominant institutional actors possess the requisite social-political power to exert subtle or not-so-subtle control over patterns of media performance.
The model’s fifth filter was originally ‘anti-communism’ but has since been modified and broadened to refer to dominant ideological elements. Analytically, the fifth filter is extremely useful and applicable to a range of case studies. It may play out in different ways at different times, contingent upon specific time/place contexts, and is extremely broad. While the filters operate on an individual basis, they also continuously interact with one another.
Support for the Propaganda Model
Klaehn, J. (2009).
The range of topics the PM can theoretically be applied to is limited only by the creativity and imagination of the researcher.
The existent scholarly work on the PM has, in my view, barely scratched the surface of the potential the model affords in enabling empirical research, which will in turn further understanding of how ideological power and meanings intersect with political- economy and social class.
The PM complements critical scholarship that is concerned to examine other significant dimensions of the communicative process that impact patterns of media behaviour, such as media production processes and spin and PR strategies.
Historical case study
Moral Panic - McCarthyism
Joseph McCarthy (trained in law and served in ww2) used his war record as a manipulative tactic during his election to become Senate in 1947. Naming and shaming is necessary to create villains in moral panic.
He made a speech denouncing the spread of communism and spoke the threat of ‘enemies from within’ which made everyone suspicious.
He then became chair of Senate committee of Gov Operations and he used this to try and expose communist subversion within the Government.
HUAC - McCarthyism
House Un-American Activities Committee was set up because Hollywood was very communist and could ‘corrupt’ the nation.
Actors were asked to report others who wouldn’t agree with HUAC and they were blacklisted in their careers.
The Cold War & Game Theory
The game theory is an approach modelling ‘optimal’ outcomes Mutually assured destruction was the peace treaty which was agreed because nuclear power was shared by Russia and the USA and if war broke out it would’ve killed billions.
This had a large effect on popular culture and public information in the media. Across movies, public information films, music and comics were all depicting an ‘us vs them’ ideology.
Legitimizing the “War on Terror”: Political Myth in Official‐Level Rhetoric
(Esch 2010)
They argue that mythical discourse affects political practice by saturating language with power, shaping what people consider to be legitimate, and driving the determination to act.
Civilisation vs. Barbarism has long defined America’s ideal image of itself and its place in the world, have become staples in the language of the “War on Terror.”
Through a qualitative analysis of the content of over 50 official texts containing lexical triggers of the two myths, this paper shows that senior officials of the Bush Administration have rhetorically accessed these mythical representations of the world in ways that legitimise and normalise the practices of the “War on Terror.”
Iraq War
Dirks 2006
Closely investigated the German and British papers’ presentation practices with regard to warfare interests of the US administration in Iraq.
A great amount of inconsistency from headline to headline was exposed referring to weapons of mass destruction and Saddam Hussein
Headlines about the Iraq War
Zizek (2004)
There were far too many inconsistencies and excuses which contradict each other indicate lying in the headlines about President Bush’s administration’s public justifications for the U.S. attack on Iraq in early 2003 (Freudian borrowed kettle excuses).
First, the adminis- tration claimed that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction (wmd), which posed a “real and present danger” to his neighbors, to Israel, and to all democratic Western states. So far, no such weapons have been found (after more than 1,000 U.S. specialists have spent months looking for them). Then, the administration argued that even if Saddam does not have any wmd, he was involved with al Qaeda in the September 11 attacks and therefore should be punished and prevented from launching future assaults. But even U.S. President George W. Bush had to concede in Sep- tember 2003 that the United States “had no evidence that Saddam Hussein was involved with September the 11th.” Finally, there was the third level of justification, that even if there was no proof of a
link with al Qaeda, Saddam’s ruthless dictatorship was a threat to its neigh- bors and a catastrophe to its own people, and these facts were reason enough to topple it. True, but why topple Iraq and not other evil regimes, starting with Iran and North Korea, the two other members of Bush’s infamous “axis of evil”?
Zizek discovered that the problem was that there were too many reasons for the attack = suspicious.
