US Political Discourse

In this chapter we explore the role of humorous memes in co-constructing polarized positions in contemporary US political discourse. Such polarized positioning, we argue, is mostly based on a disregard for the other that draws heavily on irony as a rhetorical resource. Our analysis focuses on the memes posted as responses to two different controversial Twitter threads initiated by the former president of the United States, Donald Trump. Through our discussion, we consider the importance of examining memes rhetorically as a way to highlight the different assumptions informing and reproduced both in Trump’s discourse and that of his opponents. At a broader level, our study contributes to a more holistic understanding of the role that polarizing discourses play in our current populist conjuncture, and their perils and potential in the overall struggles to (re)establish alternative forms of common sense.

This paper focuses on the use of YouTube in the 2008 presidential campaign as a means of (re)distributing campaign speeches. The discussion is informed by Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), which sees text and talk not as mere artefacts but as the result of social processes, which are embedded in the society, culture and history that produce them (Fairclough 1995a; Chilton/Schäffner 2002). Furthermore, such an approach recognizes the crucial role of communicative and social purpose in defining genre, privileging the notions of recontextualization, mediatization and hybridization in text/genre production and reception (Fairclough 2006; 1995b; Wodak/Meyer 2009; Wodak 2009). The main research question addressed in the paper is whether campaign speeches, as exemplified by the speech “A More Perfect Union”, rebroadcast on YouTube should be treated as a new genre, sub-genre, and/or mediatised genre (Schäffner 1996; Chilton/Schäffner 2002; Wilson 2001). In other words, the paper is concerned with the ways in which the genre of political speech is changing to adapt to new media such as YouTube and how this medium and its various affordances affect genre membership and/or, lead to the creation of new genres (Herring et al. 2004). It also considers how the multimodal affordances of the medium, such as comments, ratings, embedding, etc. affect the genre. On a more general level, it considers how the underlying goals of the (political) speech are adapted to the medium. It is argued that the original speech and, therefore, the genre of political speech are significantly altered by the new medium changing the definition of the genre.

The NSK State was created in 1992 by the groups comprising the Slovene arts collective Neue Slowenische Kunst (NSK). Amongst others these included the groups Laibach, IRWIN, Noordung, New Collectivism and the Department of Pure and Applied Philosophy. “State of Emergence” which explores what did happen, what could have happened and what may happen following the Congress. The book comprises ca 250 pages and includes images from the Congress as well as the accompanying NSK Folk Art and Congress Poster Competition exhibition, as well as documentation of the first post-Congress citizen-organised events. Also included are a range of eye-witness accounts from delegates, facilitators, observers and others, giving multiple perspectives on the events. In addition, there are essays on the Congress and the NSK State from a range of theorists including Eda Cufer (NSK founding member & international curator), Regina Roemhild (Institute for European Anthropology, Humboldt University Berlin), Yannis Stavrakakis and Kostis Stafylakis. Edited by Alexei Monroe, Programme Director, First NSK Citizens' Congress.