Shpak
I.V.
Oles
Honchar Dnipropetrovsk National University
IW
as part of political discourse
The study of political
discourse, like that of other areas of discourse analysis, covers a broad range
of subject matter, and draws on a wide range of analytic methods. Perhaps more
than with other areas of discourse, however, one needs at the outset to
consider the reflexive and potentially ambiguous nature of the term political
discourse. The term is suggestive of at least two possibilities: first, a
discourse which is itself political; and second, an analysis of political
discourse as simply an example discourse type, without explicit reference to
political content or political context. But things may be even more confusing.
Given that on some definitions almost all discourse may be considered
political, then all analyses of discourse are potentially political,
and, therefore, on one level, all discourse analysis is political
discourse. (3)
The purposes of political discourse include:
o clarifying
citizens’ understanding of the issue;
o helping citizens
reach their best reasoned judgment as to which course of action will solve a
problem;
o increasing citizen
participation in the political process;
o socializing the
next generation into the procedures and attitudes they need to be active
citizens. (1)
Thomas Jefferson, and
the other founders of the American Republic, considered political discourse to
be the heart of democracy. Jefferson believed that instead of the social rank
within which a person was born, the basis of influence within society should be
discourse in a free and open discussion characterized by conflict among ideas
and opinions. (1) Political discourse
is the formal exchange of reasoned views as to which of several
alternative courses of action should be taken to solve a societal problem. It
is intended to involve all citizens in the making of the decision, persuade
others (through valid information and logic), and clarify what course of action
would be most effective in solving the societal problem. (1)
Today one of the aspects of
political discourse is mass media discourse, which is to some extent a form of
non-institutional political discourse. Over the last decades the character of political
discourse in many countries, both developed democratic societies and developing
ones, was extremely belligerent. It seemed the only aim
for that discourse was to serve the media’s desire to get a story or the
politician’s desire to obtain power, which eventually led to the so-called
information wars. Information wars are the wars of the third wave. They follow
the wars practiced on previous stages – agricultural and industrial ones. One
of the problems with Information Warfare (IW) was that for a long time no
official definition existed. The main reason for this is that this kind of
warfare is relatively new and that the term IW has many different meanings. It
should be noted that there is a military aspect of it; nevertheless IW is also
used to describe the “war” on the Internet or on TV.
Being a part of political discourse,
mass media discourse in general and information wars in particular are to serve
the same purposes as political discourse does. However, it should be noted that
information manipulation in the context of information warfare
normally distorts the information with the intent to change the opponent's
picture of reality and thus not ‘clarifying citizens’
understanding of the issue, but delivering the message, which is appropriate
for the party in question. Provocation is one of the weapons of The Information
Warfare. It is a special operation, which forces the opponent to use a losing
strategy against them. It is clear, that before launching a provocation
campaign one has to calculate a number of strategies for one’s opponent’s
defeat. The major mean in informational war is disinformation. Blackmail,
physical effects, bribery and intimidations are not used in information wars.
They are more typical for terrorism. Although these types of impacts can be
used, still they are not a required element. The object of disinformation is
not only mass, but also individual consciousness.
It is not as if this is a totally
new phenomenon, we can pluck the ideas and aggression from the past. One
doesn’t have to look very hard to find evidence that public discourse in the
past was, perhaps, as rough then as it is today. For example, Federalist
editors spoke of Jefferson as a “cold thinking villain whose black blood always
runs temperately bad.” It was said that
if he were elected president, “the seal of death is that moment set on our holy
religion, our churches will be prostrated, and some infamous prostitute, under
the title of the Goddess of Reason, will preside in the Sanctuaries now devoted
to the Most High.” Still, in our day, the intensity of polarization seems greater
than in the past, if only because the electronic media won’t let us ignore it.
(2) Technologies of the Information Warfare are used not only in resolving
interstate and intrastate conflicts or contradictions. They are actively used
in the political sphere to obtain the desired result. These technologies are
also used to form the image of a political leader. Some writers and futurists
of XX century, such as George Orwell and Aldous Huxley presaged that
information will have such a big influence in the near future. They predicted
that mass media will form our consciousness, the truth will be hidden from
people or will be lost in the ocean of informational noise and people will
degrade to the complete passivity and selfishness.
References
1.
David W. Johnson, Roger T. Johnson.
Civil Political Discourse In A
Democracy: The Contribution Of Psychology. Peace & Conflict: Journal of Peace Psychology, 6(4), 291-317.
2. Discourse and Democracy. Reference online <http://www.iasc-culture.org/THR/archives/Discourse&Dem/6.3BIntroduction.pdf>
3. WILSON, JOHN. "Political Discourse."
The Handbook of Discourse Analysis. Schiffrin, Deborah, Deborah Tannen
and Heidi E. Hamilton (eds). Blackwell Publishing, 2003. Blackwell
Reference Online. 03 March 2007 <http://www.blackwellreference.com/subscriber/tocnode?id=g9780631205968_chunk_g978063120596821>