Discourse

The notion of discourse is one of the most controversial terms in social sciences. It is widely used in communication studies, political science, sociology, history and other fields. Thereof, there is a lack of conceptual clarity of the concept of discourse.

The concept of discourse is rooted in postmodern and post-structural social theory. French philosopher Michel Foucault is the most influential author in these paradigms. His theoretical heritage could be divided into two periods: archeological and genealogical. The first period covers «The Birth of the Clinic», «The Order of Things: An Archaeology of the Human Sciences», «The Archeology of Knowledge». The second period covers «Discipline and Punish», «The History of Sexuality» and famous lectures in College de France («Society Must Be Defended», «Abnormal» «Security, Territory, Population», «The Birth of Biopolitics»). Despite the significant differences between two periods of his activity, Michel Foucault articulated and extensively used the concept in both projects of archeology and genealogy.

According to the archeological project, discourse is a particular way of speaking. In the «Archeology of Knowledge» he defined discourse in the following way: «we shall call discourse a group of statements in so far as they belong to the same discursive formation… [discourse] is made up of a limited number of statements for which a group of conditions of existence can be defined. Discourse in this sense is not an ideal, timeless form… it is, from beginning to end, historical - a fragment of history […] posing its own limits, its divisions, its transformations, the specific modes of its temporality».

According to Foucault, «truth is a discursive construction and different regimes of knowledge determine what is true and false». Foucault tries to scrutinize the structure of various regimes of knowledge - the rules, which determine what can and cannot be said in certain circumstances, and the rules, which define what is considered as true or false. The starting point of Foucault's archeological thought is that although a human being has an infinite number of ways to make statements, the statements and even thoughts that are produced within a specific domain are rather repetitive and similar. Moreover, there is a plethora of statements that are never uttered, and would not be considered and accepted as meaningful. The historical rules of particular discourses determine what it is possible to say.

In the project of genealogy, Foucault developed a conception of power-knowledge. Foucault shifted his attention from structures and treating agents as primary categories, focusing on power and ways of its reproduction and operation. As discourses, power does not belong to individuals, states, groups with particular interests and other particular agents. Instead of this, power is dissolved across various social practices.

The Foucault's major contribution to the power theory is the idea of its productive aspect. He stated that power should not be considered as exclusively oppressive or restrictive. Rather we should acknowledge the dual nature of power - it is as oppressive as productive. Despite power oppresses and restricts social actors, it also constitutes particular discourses, regimes of knowledge, even bodies and subjectivities.

Foucault defined the following rules of the analysis of power:

1. «to understand power by looking at its extremities, at its outer limits at the point where it becomes capillary; in other words, to understand power in its most regional forms and institutions, and especially at the points where this power transgresses the rules of right that organize and delineate it, oversteps those rules and is invested in institutions, is embodied in techniques and acquires the material means to intervene, sometimes in violent ways»;

2. «to study power at the point where his intentions - if, that is, any intention is involved - are completely invested in real and effective practices; to study power by looking, as it were, at its external face, at the point where it relates directly and immediately to what we might, very provisionally, call its object, its target, its field of application, or, in other words, the places where it implants itself and produces its real effects»;

3. «Power must… be analyzed as something that circulates, or rather as something that functions only when it is part of a chain. It is never localized here or there, it is never in the hands of some, and it is never appropriated in the way that wealth or a commodity can be appropriated. Power functions. Power is exercised through networks, and individuals do not simply circulate in those networks; they are in a position to both submit to and exercise this power. They are never the inert or consenting targets of power; they are always its relays. In other words, power passes through individuals. It is not applied to them and that it exists only in action»;

4. «Power does - at least to some extent - pass or migrate through our bodies… we should make an ascending analysis of power, or in other words begin with its infinitesimal mechanisms, which have their own history, their own trajectory, their own techniques and tactics, and then look at how these mechanisms of power, which have their solidity and, in a sense, their own technology, have been and are invested, colonized, used, inflected, transformed, displaced, extended, and so on by increasingly general mechanisms and forms of overall domination»;

In this study we will base on Foucault's methodological precautions of the analysis of power. Connecting power and knowledge Foucault provided the close connection of power and discourse. Discourses as a particular ways of operation of power contribute substantially to producing the subjects and the objects we can know about. Thereof, basing on this connection Phillips and Jorgensen articulate the central questions for all theories of discourse analysis: «how is the social world, including its subjects and objects, constituted in discourses»?

Foucault's concept of power-knowledge also affected his conception of truth. According to Foucault, there is no access to universal truth because it is impossible to think outside discourse; there is no escape from power-knowledge nexus. He called the consequences of this nexus «truth effects» - effects, which were created within discourses. While in the archaeological period, he understood «truth» as a system of procedures and rules for the regulation, reproduction and diffusion of statements, in the genealogical period, due to the connection between truth and power he argued that «truth» was produced by and embedded in systems of power. Thereof, it is fruitless to investigate whether something is true or false. Instead of this, Foucault focuses on the very effects of truth and investigate how they are created in particular discourses? He scrutinizes the discursive processes which construct discourses and produce the impression that they fully represent reality.

Foucault's conception of subjectivity, which was developed in both archeological and genealogical periods, is the nodal point of the majority of contemporary theories of discourse. According to Foucault, subjects do not exist outside discourses; moreover, subjects are created and reproduced in discourses. This idea is rooted in Marxist structuralism. Stating that subjects are externally determined by something else, Foucault developed Althusser's approach to ideology.

According to Althusser, human subjectivity is constructed during social practices, which reproduces social relations with pre-determined roles and agencies. Nevertheless, Althusser acknowledged the reality of the structure, which determine subjectivity. Going further, Foucault recognized the contingency of the very structure, which is created by power. Thereof, in Foucault's theoretical perspective both structure and agency are contingent.

The majority of contemporary conceptions of discourse analysis are rooted in the archeological, rather than genealogical project. L. Phillips and M. Jorgensen defines discourse as «a particular way of talking about and understanding the world (or an aspect of the world)». Providing this definition they add that this notion is contested by different interdisciplinary approaches. Without a specific framework this notion seems vague and hardly appropriate for empirical research. L. Phillips and M. Jorgensen emphasize three approaches - Laclau and Mouffe's post-marxist discourse theory, critical discourse-analysis and discursive psychology. Juxtaposing of different conceptions of discourse enables to reveal their strengths and weaknesses and make reasonable choice.

Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe consider discourse as a set of linguistic and extra-linguistic signs. The latter is essential for this approach. Basing on the poststructuralist ontology Laclau and Mouffe argue that discourse constructs social reality through contingent fixation of meanings. Discourses are different perspectives on social reality, which struggle for the meaning of signifiers. Since one discourse dominates others, it becomes hegemonic. They have borrowed this concept from the political theory of Antonio Gramsci, who used this term to denote the importance of cultural dominance in political struggle.

Despite of the exhaustive theoretical elaboration of their key concepts, Laclau and Mouffe have poorly clarified research technique. Providing the separation of moments and elements of discourse, they have not described how it can be grasped in empirical study. The latter is the ultimate weakness of this approach.

Unlike post-marxist discourse theory of Laclau and Mouffe, critical discourse analysis (CDA) presupposes the separation of discursive and extra-discursive reality. According to CDA, discourse exists in non-discursive social context being one of various types of social practices. Practitioners of this state that discursive and non-discursive realities are dialectically connected. Discursive practices simultaneously depend on other social practices and constitute them by the production and re-production of meaning. Narrow understanding of discourse and focusing on the nexus between non-discursive social reality and discursive practices are the ultimate strengths of this approach. Both of strengths enable to make conclusions about social reality basing on the analysis of discourse.

Adherents of CDA elaborate a variety of techniques, which enable to reveal different aspects of discursive practices. Nevertheless, CDA does not provide theoretical framework, which enables to interpret results of empirical study. While Laclau and Mouffe clearly elaborate theoretical aspect of discourse-analysis, adherents of CDA develop the practical side. Thus, it needs the external theoretical framework for results discussion.

Discursive psychology emphasizes how individuals use particular discourses in constructing and negotiating representations of social world and identities. This approach focuses on discourses in particular social interactions, rather than on discursive struggles on the macro-level of society. Highlighting the individual level of discursive practices does not correspond to the aim of this study and discursive-institutional methodology, which focuses on social structures, rather than individuals.

In this study we use the concept of discourse, developed in CDA. There is a variety of particular conceptions of critical discourse analysis within this paradigm, which will be scrutinized during operationalization. To provide CDA it by external theoretical framework we adopt one of contemporary theories of democracy.

Democracy

Democracy is also an essentially contested concept, which suffers from the lack of conceptual clarity. According to Gallie, there are several characteristics of the essential contestability:

1. Appraisiveness;

2. Internal complexity;

3. Various describability;

4. Openness;

5. Reciprocal recognition;

6. The derivation from an original exemplar, whose authority is acknowledged by all the contestant users of the concept;

7. Continuous progressive competition.

The concept of democracy fulfills all Gallie's conditions. Dahl states that the notion of democracy is idealistic and inappropriate for empirical investigations (he prefers the concept of polyarchy). Moreover, Habermas argues that ought cannot be separated from is in democratic theory, what makes it essentially appraisive. The notion of democracy contains various aspects, which cannot be ranged. Due to this impossibility, the concept of democracy fulfills both the second and third claims. Other claims are provided by the continuous open debates in democratic theory with common agenda.

Gallie has argued that essentially contested concepts cannot be exhaustively defined. Thus, it is senseless to attempt to assert, that there is the only one right definition of a concept. Instead of this, during the conceptualization of such kind of notions we should focus on the limitations of all existing definitions and overcome possible misunderstandings. Scrutinizing of three main contemporary democratic theories in political theory enables to highlight its specific features and limitations.

Elitist conception of democracy has been developed by Joseph Shumpeter in the beginning of XX century. Criticizing classical conceptions of democracy Shumpeter considers democratic government as a method, which «is that institutional arrangement for arriving at political decisions which realizes the common good by making the people itself decide issues through the election of individuals who are to assemble in order to carry out its will». Despite Shumpeter restricts the notion of democracy by free and fair elections, he provides several external conditions of its stable functioning, highlighting in particular the role of public sphere and independent mass media.

The majority of definitions of democracy in political science is anchored in this approach. For instance, Adam Przeworski states that «democracy is a system in which parties loose elections». Simplicity of these definitions is simultaneously their strength and weakness. They are easy for operationalization and enable to assess the «democraticness» using only one criterion. However, this simplicity makes these definitions useless beyond political domain. They are developed for the analysis of political institutions, rather than social institutions. Thus, we refuse this family of conceptions.

Pluralist conception of democracy has been developed by Robert Dahl and his adherents. This conception does not restrict democratic government by the simple procedure. Dahl provides the following characteristics of the democratic government:

1. «control over governmental decisions about policy is constitutionally vested in elected officials;

2. elected officials are chosen and peacefully removed in relatively frequent, fair and free elections in which coercion is quite limited;

3. practically all adults have the right to vote in these elections;

4. most adults also have the right to run for the public offices for which candidates run in these elections;

5. citizens have an effectively enforced right to freedom of expression, particularly political expression, including criticism of the officials, the conduct of the government, the prevailing political, economic, and social system, and the dominant ideology;

6. they also have access to alternative sources of information that are not monopolized by the government or any other single group;

7. finally, they have an effectively enforced right to form and join autonomous associations, including political associations, such as political parties and interest groups, that attempt to influence the government by competing in elections and by other peaceful means».

However, this conception focuses on political domain and does not enable to scrutinize media discourse. Moreover, focusing on pluralism as the essence of democracy, this conception does not take into account the content of public sphere. Stating that the variety of media sources should exist, it does not provide normative claims for mass media functioning in democratic society. These claims are provided by deliberative democratic theory.

Deliberative democratic theory has been developed by Jurgen Habermas and his followers. This conception is anchored in Habermas' theory of communicative ethics. Focusing on arguments exchange, Habermas elaborates the rules of rational communication, which is denoted by the concept of ideal speech situation. He describes it in the following way:

1. «Every subject with the competence to speak and act is allowed to take part in a discourse.

2. Everyone is allowed (a) to question any assertion whatever, (b) to introduce any assertion whatever into the discourse, (c) to express their attitudes, desires and needs without any hesitation.

3. No speaker may be prevented, by internal or external coercion, from exercising his rights as laid down in (1) and (2)».

Satisfying all of these conditions enables to produce rational decision, which must be morally significant for all participants. If someone disagree with the argument, he must justify his claim by counter-argumentation. To elaborate this idea Habermas develops his own approaches to rationality, which becomes one of the most influential conceptions in critical theory.

Distinguishing two types of rationality - communicative and strategic, Habermas argues that authentic political communication must correspond to the former, rather than the latter. Unlike strategic rationality, communicative rationality presupposes the achievement of rational consensus and mutual understanding. Due to the focusing on communication, Habermas highlights the role of public sphere in politics. According to Habermas, the public sphere is the vehicle of public opinion; it «can best be described as a network for communicating information and points of view (i.e., opinions expressing affirmative or negative attitudes); the streams of communication are, in the process, filtered and synthesized in such a way that they coalesce into bundles of topically specified public opinions». Rooted in civil society the public sphere needs mass media and social networks which provide a necessary infrastructure for circulation of public discourses and, consequently, rational opinion formation.

Deliberative democracy provides relevant framework for the analysis of public discourse. Highlighting the role of mass media in political life and developing normative claims for public discourse enables to elaborate the concept of democratic discourse.

Democratic discourse

Habermas' theory of deliberative democracy has been criticized by his followers. Criticizing him for the idealistic vision of democratic process, they have attempted to re-formulate his criteria of rational communication for the evaluation of particular communicative practices.

Seyla Benhabib develops the features of deliberative discourse, which provides the legitimacy of deliberation output:

1. «participation in such deliberation is governed by the norms of equality and symmetry; all have the same chances to initiate speech acts, to question, to interrogate, and to open debate;

2. all have the right to question the assigned topics of conversation;

3. all have the right to initiate reflexive arguments about the very rules of the discourse procedure and the way in which they are applied or carried out».

These features weaken Habermas' normative claims. However, they are still irrelevant for the assessment of media content. Media is never free from coercion. Editors decide who and in what time will appear on air. Even if all opinions are equally presented in prime time, there is a variety of forms of internal exclusion. For instance, moderating a discussion, radio or TV presenter have a control over agenda on air. (S) he can discriminate certain speakers in favor of others. Thereof, power relations is the essential component of media source.

Power relations are developed in all society's subsystems. There are various types of power: social power, political power, economic power. Habermas states that media system constitutes its own source of power. Basing on the technology of mass communication, media power denotes those who «select and process politically relevant content and thus intervene in both the formation of public opinions and the distribution of influential interests» (i.e. columnists, reporters, editors, producers, directors, and publishers). Despite the relative independence of mass media from economy and state and the functioning according to its own code, mass media usually privileges someone in access to its resources. Representatives of functional systems or various groups of pressure contest for the access to media seeking to use media in transforming of one type of power into another type of power (for instance, transforming social power into political support). Thereof, media power is a social catalyst, which encourage societal dynamics and establishes nexus between different subsystems.

Manuel Castells defines power as «the relational capacity that enables a social actor to influence asymmetrically the decisions of other social actor(s) in ways that favor the empowered actor's will, interests, and values». The notion of actor denote any subject of action. It could be individuals, organizations, institutions, networks, collective actors, etc. The relational capacity of power means that it is an immanent component of social relations, rather than an attribute. Unlike component of social relations, an attribute can be appropriated or disappropriated. According to Castells, power relations cannot be removed from social relations.

In mass media system power relations are described by the notions of agenda-setting, framing and priming. The concept of agenda-setting devote to media's ability «to influence the salience of topics on the public agenda». Covering one issue more prominently and excluding the other from covering mass media influence of public opinion and reveal its power potential.

The concept of framing was introduced in sociology by Erving Goffman. Goffman focused on primary frameworks of human experience, which he defined as ways to organize experience and structure everyday perceptions. In communication studies this concept was introduced by Robert Entman. According to Entman, this concept emphasized two aspects of media influence on public opinion - selection and salience. To frame means «to select some aspects of a perceived reality and make them more salient in a communicating text, in such a way as to promote a particular problem definition, causal interpretation, moral evaluation, and/or treatment recommendation for the item described». To achieve this aims frames include the following components:

· Definition of problems - frames highlight what «causal agent is doing with what costs and benefits, usually measured in terms of common cultural values»;

· Diagnostics of causes - frames highlight who creates the problem and who is blame for it;

· Moral judgments - evaluating causal agents in moral categories mass media present its own position, which influence an audience perception of covering news and stories;

· Suggested remedies - mass media usually «offer and justify treatments for the problems and predict their likely effects», which involves mass media in processes of political decisions making and policy promotion.

All these components embody power in text and emphasize different aspects of media influence of audience. A reader has to perceive the world as it is presented by text. Text restrict his cognitive abilities and more or less invisibly influence on public opinion.

Both of agenda-setting and framing result in priming effect. As Scheufele and Tewksbury note priming refers to ` `changes in the standards that people use to make political evaluations', which occurs when news content suggests to news audiences that they ought to use specific issues as benchmarks for evaluating the performance of leaders and governments».

Whether authentically democratic discourse is still possible? Habermas states that power is illegitimate per se. Legitimation of political power in modern societies is provided by the deliberative discourse, which pass through a public sphere and foster public opinion. Media power must be legitimized in its own logic. First, media source must be inclusive for all interested actors (if there are formal or informal restrictions, that discriminate an actor, they must be rationally justified to be legitimate). Moreover, the specter of opinions must be exhaustively represented on air. As Bohman states, only the clash of different perspectives can produce an effective deliberation, which fosters rational public opinion.

Second, an editorial policy does not discriminate certain participants in favor of others (editorial impartiality). Being a component of all social relations, power relations are dependent on particular context. As we have already shown, even if a point of view is represented on air, it can be discriminated if favor of others by moderator, who accumulates power resources in this particular context.

If these two requirements are satisfied, mass media produces a democratic discourse. Habermas emphasizes two structural conditions, which encourage fair game in media system: «first, a self-regulating media system must maintain its independence vis-a`-vis its environments while linking political communication in the public sphere with both civil society and the political center; second, an inclusive civil society must empower citizens to participate in and respond to a public discourse that, in turn, must not degenerate into a colonizing mode of communication». Both of conditions frame an activity of media source fostering its inclusiveness and impartiality.