“ANC and DA clash!” Conflicting political constellations in South Africa’s Daily Sun and implications for public sphere discussions
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.7146/mk.v42i80.142430Keywords:
tabloids, public spheres, constellations, axiological-semantic density, Legitimation Code TheoryAbstract
We report on an analysis of how language is used to position South Africa’s two largest political parties in the Daily Sun, South Africa’s biggest-selling tabloid newspaper. The concepts of constellations and cosmologies from Legitimation Code Theory (LCT; Maton, 2014) are used to show how political positioning is accomplished. Negative characteristics of South Africa’s two largest parties, the African National Congress (ANC) and Democratic Alliance (DA), are foregrounded. This contributes to a narrative depicting politicians as ‘trash’, characteristic of what Barnett labelled “the age of contempt” (2002, p. 405). This narrative appears to be inimical to the development of healthy political discussion in the alternative public sphere (Örnebring & Jönsson, 2004, p. 284) facilitated by the Daily Sun. Despite this, the Daily Sun and other tabloids remain useful vehicles for constructive public dialogue about South Africa’s future, and we suggest some ways in which such discussion could be facilitated.
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