The Power of Discourse (The Political and Media Discourse)
Introduction:
When we are studying the language, culture, and identity then we also know about the concept of power and how this power is gained and applied within a society? When we talk about the discourse of power then first of all we know that what is meant by power and how it enables someone to control over the other people? Here I will discuss about the discourse and its relation to power.
Language is an exceptional trait of human beings, and through this unique human attribute, individuals can express and communicate not only the concrete but also the abstract things. Language is the central part in the social and cultural formation. It enables human being to construct the different version of reality in the socio-cultural perspective according to the core issue of structuralism.
Furthermore, Language is not a neutral tool of communication and expression as it is always mediated through different means, because it is only through language that different realities, identities and relations are established. It affects the social relations to the extent that all dimensions of social activities revolve round this ability of expression.
Post-structuralist Views about Language:
Post-structuralist linguists are of the view that language is exercised to create identity and ideology, production of knowledge and its reproduction, power relations and community relations; thus, it creates a new version of reality supporting the idea that reality is socially constructed. This power of language is exercised through institutional and organizational control and through their hegemony.
Language is central to the concern of communicative behaviour, because it has to do with the socialization of individuals. Discourse pattern relates to intimate details about the psychic of the person and the structure of broader conceptions of institutional organizations. If we examine the content and function of communication within political institutions, we notice that certain symbols and phraseology tend to recur more frequently than others in given contexts.
The Concept of Power:
In general sense, power refers to the ability of something, some person, and some institution in a society. They use this power in order to gain their personal interests and even sometimes to control the people. They can do anything which is convenient to them and they also subordinate the other people by their way of speaking and living. They think that their own life and ideology is just perfect as compared to other people. In short, power is related to the idea of majority in a society.
The relationship between discourse and power is always remained as a major concern of discussion in sociology and humanities. We can see in our daily life that when people gain power and their popularity then how they imposed their own ideologies and philosophies over the other people through discourse.
Discourse always worked in the shape of language when we are comparing its relation to power. As we know that language is the only source of communication within a society. If this language has the prestigious status then it works as a powerful discourse and it will always considered as dominant source of communication. I have selected here two types of discourses and their relation to power.
Power in Language:
The relation of power and language is established by many theorists over the years, and the nature of this relation is multi-layered. It is obvious that language serves the power or the powerful on the one hand and on the other it has a potential to undermine the same. In other words, language itself has power. Fiske’s view is that language helps in producing and asserting power structures in a society, and it reflects the interests of speaker or writer. The power of language is quite evident in situations where the privileged speaker has an opportunity to speak and the listeners are left with the only option to obey in whatever sense. In this way power of language becomes the instrument in the hand of powerful.
It is evident ranging from political and public speaking to the small prospects of daily life, from the arts of temptation through advertising to the sales tactics of marketing, and from the hazards of unprivileged at the workplace to fear of scarcity in the family. Huberman’s view is that language is a medium of domination and social force. It serves to legitimize relations of organized power.
However, speakers depend on language and the power of language is not monopolized. In the actual sense, the power of language, in most of the cases if institutions are not involved, belongs to language itself. Therefore, the power of language can be exercised by only those who possess language. Many theorists have analyzed the links between language and power in the past few decades. Bourdieu‘s (1991) work is instrumental in studying how power is produced and asserted in different societies through language. The famous theorists include Huberman 1977), Foucault (1983; 1991), Fairclough (1989) and Gramsci (1971) who have explored the relationship between language and power.
Therefore, in the construction of our society, there are certain institutions that are given privilege to propagate and influence the society with language and it is carefully set that only one-sided flow of language can be maintained as to avoid the reversal influence of power through language. Our political setting and media propagation are set in keeping the same phenomenon. The study of language and power, though emerged in last few decades, has now become an entire discipline where it is studied how language is used to gain, exercise and maintain power structures in the society reinforcing the subjective nature of language.
Foucault's Concept of Power:
The concept of power cannot be comprehensive without discussing it with reference to Foucault, as he is regarded as one of the main theorists who dealt with power. As a matter of fact, he brought into spotlight the relationship of power with language. Foucault examined power as a 'structure of actions', and found that power restrains others in terms of their actions as well as independence.
He introduces three main types of power: power as strategic games between liberties, domination and governments. He thinks that, due to this relationship, we have to consider the total action along with its total structure to understand the notion of power. Therefore, it can be said that we should observe others‘ actions, resistance and opposition prompted by those actions.
Moreover, making it a principle, Foucault is interested in explaining social practices through the concept of power; however, he did not formulate any theory of power. In contrary, he proposed some concepts. Initially, he thinks that the general concept of power is different from the power practiced in public institutions as it is a multi-dimensional notion which can be exercised in all institutions: education, judiciary, media etc.
It can be observed all around, and it is negotiated between those who achieve power due to their organizational position, and those who remain victim of this power. In other words, power needs some goals and objectives. But, as a matter of fact, these goals and objectives would be unavoidably the goals and objectives of the organizations and institutions, or at least of those who are powerful there.
The Concept of Discourse:
Discourse in general sense is a way of thinking and communicating with people within a society. In fact, when we are talking or sharing our ideas, feelings, and thoughts to other people then we are using a specific medium of communication that is actually language. In every society, language plays a key role in transformation and growth of that society and culture. Therefore, we can say that when people convey their messages to other people through language then this language is known as discourse.
Significance of Discourse:
Discourse is a domain of language use, structured as a unity by common assumptions. There may be competing discourses, and discourses will change over time. For example, M. Foucault describes the existence of discourse of madness which has changed over the centuries. He also suggests that there may well be similarities between discourses at any time. We find the term a discourse, most commonly used, referring to the nexus between bodies of historically volatile disciplinary knowledge and specific linguistic usages at social-institutional sites (hospitals, prisons, and schools, for example).
Discourses are used in everyday texts to build power and knowledge, to develop new knowledge and power relations and to express oneself using words. Linguists' interest in discourse in recent times is gradually shifting from the traditional focus on the linguistic structure of text to how texts figure in the social process. Opinion leaders, courts, government, newspaper editors, etc., play a crucial role in shaping issues in the society and setting the boundaries of what is talked about and how it is talked about.
In its original sense in applied linguistics, discourse refers to stretches of language above the level of the sentence in conversations or written texts. More recently, discourse has also been taken on an extended meaning that differs from its use in applied linguistics in at least two ways. First, in the extended meaning of the word, language is not the sole system of signs to be studied as discourse; other semiotic systems are included, such as habits of dress, the built environment, and, of course, gesture. Second, the meaning of discourse has been further extended to include societal meaning-making systems such as institutional power, social differentiation of groups, and cultural beliefs that create identities for individuals and position them in social relationships. Here I will discuss about two important types of discourses and their relation to power; political discourse and media discourse.
Political Discourse:
i. Politics:
It refers to the distribution and exercise of power within a society, and polity refers to the political institution through which power is distributed and exercised. In any society, decisions must be made regarding the allocation of resources and other matters. Except perhaps in the simplest societies, specific people and often specific organizations make these decisions. Depending on the society, they sometimes make these decisions solely to benefit themselves and other times make these decisions to benefit the society as a whole. Regardless of who benefits, a central point is this: some individuals and groups have more power than others. Because power is so essential to an understanding of politics, we begin our discussion of politics with a discussion of power.
ii. Political Process:
In addition to it, the process through which all political institutions as well as individuals describe, characterized and give meaning to social, economical or cultural issues and try to attach them to a greater political environment, has been termed as framing. These frames identify the problem and diagnose its cause. Then, these frames put forward and substantiate the treatments to mitigate and address the problem, and in the end, they predict their probable effects.
Purpose of Political Discourse:
Politics, primarily, is associated with people and with their lives in organized communities, and the traditional party politics is so beyond this arena. Politics is a social activity like so many in a civilized society. It has a specific code, and the language used in a political discourse has specific features.
This type of discourse as one of political rituals needs more attention. As a matter of fact, the work to find out connection between language and power started few decades ago; however, the critical angle to study it is not that much old (Beard, 2001). The way the language reflects the ideological position of politicians and how the readers‘ ideological position is generated and affected is very important.
Generally, Politics plays an important role in our lives. Likewise, Fairclough is of the view that politics, to some extent, can be traced in the disputes and struggles occurred in ‗language and over language‘. Additionally, politics is carried out either through political discourse or through diverse genres of political discourse, for instance, political speech, parliamentary debates, media interviews and shows, and political advertising (van Dijk,1997). Finally, politics and political discourse are mingled in public sphere, and both affects presentation of the participants, in other words politicians, and recipient of political discourse, in other words public.
As it is the concern of present study, political speech, being a political genre, more often is used to perform politics. It can also be used as an object of the analysis to see the hidden agenda behind the statements of the speakers since language in political speech can control and influence political action and trust of the audience . Political speech is one type of discourse which produces and reproduces beliefs, opinions, and ideologies. In other words, political speech must have certain ideology to be spread among the audience. It indicates that the way the speaker speaks and represents something in the speech is crucial in influencing the attitude of audience.
Some studies in the area of political discourse deal with the text and talk of professional politicians or political institutions, such as presidents and prime ministers and other members of government, parliament or political parties, both at the local, national and international levels.
Politics and Politicians:
In view of politics and politicians, Bourdieu‘s (1991) view is thought to be one of the earliest works in terms of their use of language and in terms of creation of political discourse. It is pertinent to discuss a few of his views in the present context. According to him, proficient organizations dealing in politics have a different life, and, as a consequence, gradually disconnect those whom they represent. The sense of overall political discourses and the political stances is the most prominent learning in the training process of a politician.
This sense enables a politician to deliver a proper political discourse. Bourdieu gives this sense a name of political habitus. Moreover, politicians produce a discourse which is doubly determined. Firstly, it is internally determined by its position in politics, and secondly, it is externally determined by its connections to the fields other than politics. The latter is more concerned with the people‘s lives and efforts, which they represent. Politicians endeavor to win their trust and support.
The above arguments of the linguists provide a platform to connect political discourse with the power generated in discourse. Fairclough argues that political discourse reproduces or alters the community by reproducing or changing representation of people through discourse.
Furthermore, political discourse demonstrates the strong bond between ideational and interpersonal practices in discourse. In other words, it has the potential to replicate or modify the society solely through reproducing and changing classes and groups in society. It works on representations as well as classifications of reality, along with representations and classifications of the concerned people. In short, the power of discourse in politics relies on its potential to form and activate social factors that have capacity to carry out its promised reality into a new reality.
Bourdieu’s Political Discourse:
Bourdieu (1991) explains political discourse as a field of struggle with its varied dimensions. According to him, this field of struggle can be classified in two main categories: internal struggle and external struggle. Internal struggle is present in political discourse to produce and maintain a consistent discourse inside the present structure of political discourse.
Whereas, external struggle in the political discourse helps to formulate a political community to provide a base to support, and it earns a trust in favor of that political discourse, institutions and politicians associated with it. As the purpose of this study is to see closely the practices of politicians in newspapers as they are represented, further discussion on Bourdieu‘s analysis of political discourse may be irrelevant. However, he has presented the analysis of discourses, but has not put forth the analysis of genres.
Techniques in Political Speeches:
The political speeches are marked significantly with certain techniques to create an impact on the audience. These speeches, as discussed earlier, form the public opinion alongside they create a political space for the speakers. Through imparting certain techniques in the discourse, the politicians attain a position. A Few of very common techniques in the discourse, as it is not the scope of this study to analyse the speeches of the politicians rather their media coverage, include the use of words in different association to generate persuasive impact in the speech. For instance, politicians use alliteration, allusion, antithesis (inversion), asking questions and suggesting answers, lists, metaphor, parallelism, parenthesis, repetition and redundant questioning.
Besides, persuasive techniques in political discourse are one aspect of creating specific discourse impact on the public or audience. Political discourse is marked with speech acts and their impact, particularly of illocutionary act. An in-depth study of political discourse reveals the nature of the illocutionary act, which builds up the discourse organization. Furthermore, political discourse is prominent in terms of emotive issues. Politicians need attention of the audience, therefore, to attract their attention a political speech forces in a straight line to emotive issues. The opening lines of the speech generally attempt to tie up the audience into this; and therefore, set the course of the whole discourse. Political speeches are different from the rest of genre at least in their act of initiation. Being one of the prominent features of political discourse, the act of initiation is marked with specific features requiring different techniques.
Features of Some Techniques:
Techniques of political discourse are prominent in political speeches. One of which is the act of support in a political speech, and it may be called as supporting acts in persuasive discourse.
Here, the statement of initiating act is expanded, and new related information is added in it. It can be termed as elaboration, where the supporting act upholds the initiating act through elaboration of things placed at the time of initiation. In other words, it can be said that the political discourse is developed through supporting act.
Moreover, the next supporting act is developed through characteristics like, explanation, enumeration, exemplification, causation, elaboration, consequence, and qualification. They are linked in syntagmatic as well as paradigmatic relationships.
At first place, in syntagmatic order, explanations may possibly be pursued by enumeration, then, by elaboration and exemplification to detail the point. Next, in paradigmatic structure, features of speech are in vertical order, and one may be a substitute to other.
The third feature in the political speech is the act of summation. It characterizes the statements and proposals in a very close association with the supporting as well as initiating acts. Furthermore, in political speeches, the speaker, most often, speaks directly to the audience to attain favour from them with vote, support, etc. In short, it usually revolves around a direct address to the audience.
It is important to note that political discourse does not appear, in general, to be objective or neutral. Subsequently, the subjective likes and dislikes are reflected in the use of language particularly in political discourse. Hence, political speeches create psychological impact on individual's mind to earn their own benefit beside creating impact on the whole society.
Media Discourse:
Media discourse refers to interactions that take place through a broadcast platform, whether spoken or written, in which the discourse is oriented to a non-present reader, listener or viewer. Though the discourse is oriented towards these recipients, they very often cannot make instantaneous responses to the producer(s) of the discourse, though increasingly this is changing with the advent of new media technology, as we shall explore.
Crucially, the written or spoken discourse itself is oriented to the readership or listening/viewing audience, respectively. In other words, media discourse is a public, manufactured, on-record, form of interaction. It is not ad hoc or spontaneous (in the same way as casual speaking or writing is); it is neither private nor off the record. Obvious as these basic characteristics may sound, they are crucial to the investigation, description and understanding of media discourse.
Because media discourse is manufactured, we need to consider how this has been done – both in a literal sense of what goes into its making and at an ideological level. One important strand of research into media discourse is preoccupied with taking a critical stance to media discourse, namely critical discourse analysis(CDA). It is important that we continually appraise the messages that we consume from our manufactured mass media.
The fact that media discourse is public means that it also falls under the scrutiny of many conversation analysts who are interested in it as a form of institutional talk, which can be compared with other forms of talk, both mundane and institutional.
The fact that media discourse is on record makes it attractive for discourse analysts and increasingly so because of the online availability of newspapers, radio stations, television programmes and so on. Advances in technology have greatly offset the ephemerality factor that used to relate to media discourse, especially radio and television (where it used to be the case that, if you wanted to record something, it had to be done in real time).
Role of Media Power and Influence:
The issues of media, regarding its role, in the (re)production of powerful ideologies hinges on a structure that generates concepts of influence and power, have been extensively debated. The more the media has attained power, the less freedom has been attributed to that influenced audience. It is vice versa as well as the more the public is considered to be independent in utilizing media, the less controlling the media have been considered to be. This phenomenon is not as a natural result of the logic and nature of power, rather it is based on empirical inquiry about the manner through which media discourse influences mind, cognition and action in a particular situation.
It is now relevant to discuss media power in terms of the social power which is normally assumed by groups and institutions. Putting aside the coercive nature of power either of military and police on institutional level, or raping women and molesting children on individual level, social power, by and large, is identified as the control of actions along with control over access to resources by a dominant group or even individual. It means that control of action generally indicates decrease of freedom. By applying this notion to media, it can be inferred that the freedom of the media should be considered as power of the media.
Moreover, action can be defined in many ways and different factors are involved in this process. If intentions, reasons, objectives and goals may be taken as some parts in the overall definition, then, control of action means control of mind. This is the key factor in persuasive social power in general, and in media power in particular ground Van Dijk (1988) feels the need to understand the cognitive processes and representations. In addition to this, cognitive approach presents insight into the structures, formation and strategies of cognition. Due to this very reason, it offers a foundation for an innovative understanding of the power of the media in terms of persuasion.
With this overview of media discourse in general, it can be observed, with another perspective, that companies exercise power to the masses through the media. The most prominent phenomenon is advertising through which business companies communicate messages to potential consumers, and they enjoy free access. Through a specific use of language, different business organizations persuade the readers to pay money for their product.
They influence the content of news and language of the news implicitly, as they know that being larger advertisers, they cannot be refused. Therefore, media owners cooperate in the process of publishing and expression. The element of discursively can be identified with an example that a paper would ignore the events of food poisoning if a renowned fast food company is its client, and if it has to do so, the paper would place it on less frequently read places of the newspaper.
Politicians and Media:
Despite the fact that interest groups seek prominence on media to influence politics, politicians are not out of the scene in this struggle. On the contrary, media have become very important place for politicians to increase influence and to get dominance as compared to other politicians. With the help of media they sway the views of their voters. Moreover, they are at the mercy of media persons, particularly editors, who decide how to represent their institution, their own personalities and their policies along with political agenda.
However, various perspectives exist for examining how politicians endeavor to present political issues, and how they manage the media so as respond and interpret their version of reality for the public. There is no doubt that the ability of dominated groups to structure issues for the public presentation through the media is, supposedly, influenced by a powerful political status, resources and credibility.
In addition, there are situations when the messages set forth by some more powerful and resourceful politicians may not be considered by the media. In this case, information and messages are presented unedited to the public. However, media manipulators, as they are experts, impose their dominant frames, symbols and perspectives on the media, the outputs may not digress significantly from the inputs.
The Politics of Media:
Media have multiple dimensions; therefore, the politics of media should be viewed in studying media. It has been an issue of concern among scholars, (Chomsky, 1989; Fowler, 1996; van Dijk, 1993), that the conventional media exerts ideologically, and in this way serves the interests of the powerful, the influential and the state. With another way, Fairclough (1995) stresses the same issue that media discourses contribute in the production of social relations in terms of domination and exploitation.
At the same time, Fairclough argues that the interests of the media, under certain circumstances, are not compatible with the state itself. He gives the example of the Vietnam War when American media changed the public opinion against war by showing the images. The influence of media by putting pressure on the government to intervene to help and support the Kurdish refugees in Iraq is one more similar study.
Conversely, Chomsky argues that the criticism of the media on state is also a part of the canon of dominant individuals, organizations and groups so as to give a strong impression about themselves that they are spokesmen for free speech and the general community interest. Here is a paradox that they, the critics of the media, acknowledge the non interference of the state in media affairs. The question is how and through what means the media is an instrument of the powerful.
Conclusion:
In short, I point out the role and positioning of language in the paradigm of social constructionist. It tells how power of language is exercised through institutional and organizational control and through their hegemony. The role of media in this type of the use of power is important. This article describes the objectives and the research questions set forth for this study. Different views of the critics describe the media as discursive space in the light of argument of different theorists looking at the phenomenon with different perspectives. This article also describes the selection and the number of the speeches and the newspapers selected for this study are described.
Comments
Post a Comment