The Polarisation of US Society and its Representation in the Media: A Linguistic Analysis of Selected Editorials on the 2020 Presidential Election Campaign (BestMasters)

This book is concerned with the polarisation of US society as represented in 27 editorial articles on the presidential election campaign 2020, taken from three different newspapers. The aim of the study is to develop an integrated framework for the linguistic analysis of societal polarisation, which combines findings from the political sciences and sociology with critical linguistic concepts from political discourse analysis and newspaper discourse analysis. The main finding is that all three newspapers, irrespective of their political orientation, make use of polarising discourse around the presidential election 2020 and thus partially contribute to a split US society. The explicit presentation of the media company’s stance as well as the distinct rejection and the explicit portrayal of aversion towards opposing positions can be detected as main factors in creating a polarising environment. Equally interesting appeared the prevalence of the topos Threat/ Crisis/ Defeat in all three newspapers, indicating a focus on negativity. De-polarising elements are only rarely found and do not seem to be contributing to the easing of tensions in society. Abstract Contents List of Figures List of Tables 1 Introduction 1.1 Scope of the Study 1.2 Previous Research 1.2.1 Previous Research on Polarisation 1.2.2 Previous Research on Presidential Elections 1.2.3 Previous Research on Newspaper Editorials 1.3 Research Gap and Research Questions 1.4 Organisation of the Study 2 Theoretical Framework 2.1 Forces of Polarisation in a Split Society 2.1.1 Institutional Split—Polity-induced Split 2.1.2 Social Split—Politics- and Policy-induced Split 2.2 Analysing Discourse 2.2.1 Analysing Discourse and its Constituents 2.2.2 Analysing Political Discourse 2.2.3 Analysing Newspaper Discourse 3 Methodology 3.1 Data Selection Process 3.1.1 Steps of Data Selection 3.1.2 Specification of Newspapers/ Magazines 3.1.3 Specification of Timescale and Data Reduction 3.2 Analytical Categories 4 Findings 4.1 Evaluation Analysis 4.1.1 Lexis 4.1.2 Rhetorical Language 4.1.3 Argumentative Language—Allusion and Comment 4.2 Topoi Analysis 4.2.1 Democracy 4.2.2 Election 4.2.3 Leadership 4.2.4 Constitution 4.2.5 Partisanship 4.2.6 Rule of Law 4.2.7 Nation 4.2.8 Misinformation 4.2.9 Racial Inequality 4.2.10 Pandemic Omnipresence 4.2.11 Beliefs and Values 4.2.12 Ideology 4.2.13 Threat/ Crisis/ Defeat 4.2.14 Division 4.2.15 Choice 4.2.16 Abortion 4.2.17 Scepticism 4.3 News Value Analysis 5 Conclusion and Outlook 5.1 Summary 5.1.1 Results 5.1.2 Implications 5.2 Limitations and Further Research References