Comparison of ideologies, discursive strategies and power in the tweets of two political leaders in Asia
It is worth noting that much discourse studies have been conducted on political discourse in social media focusing on politician’s activities, leadership skills and active participation on Twitter. However, little research has been done on discourse of political leaders in Asia on their power in...
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| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Thesis |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
2017
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://psasir.upm.edu.my/id/eprint/92168/1/FBMK%202017%2056%20-%20IR.pdf |
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| Summary: | It is worth noting that much discourse studies have been conducted on political discourse
in social media focusing on politician’s activities, leadership skills and active
participation on Twitter. However, little research has been done on discourse of political
leaders in Asia on their power in use and identity. In relation to this, it could be said that
discourse of political leaders in Asia has got various cultural and political significance
because of its authenticity role in shaping the life of the Asian communities. The scarcity
of research on Asian politicians and microblog has prompted the researcher to highlight
the ideologies and discursive strategies in the discourse of Prime Minister Najib Tun
Razak (henceforth, Najib) from Malaysia and Prime Minister Narendra Modi
(henceforth, Modi) from India on Twitter during the national elections. The universality
of the Asian leaders stem from their influential ideologies and discursive strategies that
have effected their discourse and the citizens.
This study aims to conduct a critical discourse analysis to investigate the various political
ideologies and discursive strategies that are presented in the tweets of Najib and Modi
during national elections and a comparison of power and identity between Najib and
Modi is done to perceive the collective experience between the politicians and citizens
in building a unified nation. For this purpose, Najib and Modi election tweets were
chosen to be analysed in this study. The objective of choosing the election tweets is due
to a higher content of ideologies that is disseminated to the citizens.
The emerging topics were discovered through Yule and Brown (1983) topic framework.
To uncover the embedded ideologies in the tweets Van Dijk’s (2004) Categories of
Ideological Analysis were utilized in this study. Besides, metaphors and speech acts were
identified through Group (2007) Metaphor Identification Procedure and Searle (1979)
speech act categories. Furthermore, metaphors and speech acts were semantically categories into Wodak’s (2005) Discursive Strategies for Positive Self-Presentation and
Negative Other-Presentation.
The findings of the analysis showed that the utilization of Van Dijk’s ideological
categories; positive self-presentation, negative other-presentation and national
glorification were closely related to the ideologies embedded. The ideologies such as
democracy, unity, technological elections and economic were explored and discussed.
The ideological analysis also manifested that Najib and Modi have formed their own
social identities during the national elections through the employment of certain
linguistic forms such as the usage of Us which emphasizes on the in-groups and Them
to portray the out-group. With the help of Van Dijk’s ideological categories, topics that
emerged throughout the elections campaigns in Malaysia and India were spotted;
international recognition, employability, social-economics and leadership of women.
Wodak’s (2005) discursive strategies were utilized to perceive social, political and
physiological aspects during the national elections. Searle’s speech acts; commissives
and directives were collaborated with Wodak’s discursive strategies to strengthen the
intended meaning of the tweets and to provide citizens with information on different
social, politics and cultural issues. Besides, the usage of metaphors are found in the
tweets of both the political leaders which presented the way language is used figuratively
to describe the citizens and the politicians. The metaphors which were spotted were in
relation to concept of nation building; Election is Building and Election is a Journey
which depicts the theme of nation construction.
Through the discourse of Najib and Modi, it can be perceived that consensual power is
employed by Najib and Modi throughout the national elections. This is because the
citizens accept the ideologies disseminated via discourse thus making the elections a
success. The differences between the discourse of Najib and Modi is observed through
the identity of nationalism. The depiction of the concept nationalism varies in terms of
culture between both the countries. In Malaysia, the concept of nationalism is depicted
through the unity of the three major races while in India nationalism is portrayed among
the Indians. Hence, the election campaigns were successful in Malaysia and India
through the consensual power between the leaders and the citizens. |
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