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Resuming Nimmo & Swanson: political language and communication

Resuming Nimmo & Swanson: political language and communication. Beyond “the voter, persuasion and political campaign model” (made of “dramatized rituals that legitimize the power structures”)?

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Resuming Nimmo & Swanson: political language and communication

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  1. Resuming Nimmo & Swanson: political language and communication • Beyond “the voter, persuasion and political campaign model” (made of “dramatized rituals that legitimize the power structures”)? • It could be useful to think to Political discourse not only from “one context-based conception” but in a more general and articulated way, where we find different, but connected, questions: • Persuasion; information processing; political behavior; media effects;

  2. Nimmo & Swanson…(pp. 9-17) • “What makes communication (and language) “political”?” • Is it only question of “propaganda” or “campaign? Probably not… (Think about “culture” and “citizenship”, or social and political movements?) • “Does political communication and discourse assume “special forms”? • Beyond the “academic” or “disciplinary” divisions (they describe the “limits” of the problem), we can think to “political language” in terms of “textual effects”

  3. Nimmo & Swanson…(pp.9-17) • Two conceptions: a) society as a struggle for power; b) society as a search for shared understanding and consensus. • It’s possible to go beyond this opposition: analyzing forms and nature of political language: • Power is not “substantive”, it’s a relationship (Foucault) • Political discourse,political language and meaning are the places where this relationship is “forged”, created.

  4. Nimmo & Swanson…(pp.17-29) • Political discourse and language is the place where power relations are created: within “strategic interactions”; what is it? • It is important “to give greater attention to social bases of the processes through the meanings are constructed”: (“uses and gratifications research” (50s.60s); “agenda-setting research” (70s. 80s) (p.18) • But we need to understand better what happens inside “messages” of political discourses.

  5. Nimmo & Swanson…(pp.30-40) • What is the link between “political discourses and language” and “political systems” • System: political “machine” (State, institutions, etc.) made of different parts, integrated or connected…more or less; (importance of comparative analysis in political studies); • An Old idea: input/output conception of system; • Communication as “nerves” of a systems? (‘50s, ‘60s) • New ideas: studying “belief systems” inside political systems;

  6. Cultural systems as networks of values (which compose different patterns of meanings). • But it’s now impossible to distinguish “political systems” from “communication”: cultures as systems which “filter”: social filters; “Cultures are not “disembodied ideas (schemas, attitudes), they are not merely cognitive” (beliefs, knowledges, actions…) • “Social practices are institutions”.

  7. Nimmo & Swanson…(2nd chapter (Corcoran on “Language and Politics”) • Systematic nature of political language • Importance of “silence”: in the sense of “interruptions, tones, pitchs and rythms, boundaries between words and phrases…” • Meanings are made also of lies, silences, of not explicit declarations…

  8. Political language and political learning • Austin (‘50s, ‘60s): “How to do things with words” • Not “speaking VS action”: but apeaking as action; • Austin and sociolinguistics (70s, 80s): emphasizing function of language in “institutional hierachies, role behavior, and social power”. (vs Chomsky and the idea of “autonomous dimension of language”.

  9. Linguistic “turn” in philosophy and political language • Language as “labelling tool”; (p. 60) • But also: Language constitutes reality and it is part of it (from British philosophy, to Structuralism and other philosophical trends from 40s to 60s); • “Discourse theory” as radicalisation and generalisation of those ideas (“post-structuralism”) (pp.64-65): • Discourse, constitutes a field: of “play”, action, discursive contests and all-out struggles”. • “Study of language as “archaeology” (Foucault) of all existing discursive practices”

  10. Discourse theory and political language • Studying (from Foucault) “all existing and conceivable discursive practices (professional nomenclatures, stereotypes, legal codes, formal and informal speech settings…)”; (p. 65) • “Power is embedded in existing discursive practices”; power is not “external force”; • Language in broader sense becomes “Political”. But political discourse at the same time is a “special region”: “legislative” and “centers on action”.

  11. Where is political language (and the role of passions and emotions) • Discourse as a struggle over “meaning. Status, power and resources”. • Political discourse is not a “personal dialogue”: public speech in which participants as well as public are defined in a specific way. • Building meanings from oppositions • The discourse is “inherently dynamic”. But the this dynamics is based on “opposing voices”, constructing differences. (pp. 77-78). • It is necessary to identify: “methods of combat”, “lines of engagement.”

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