The general objective of this research was to gain understanding of the discursive referential construction. The paper aimed to enhance the existing studies on political discourse by investigating referential strategies used to institutionalise ideologies in coalition governments in nascent democracies. The objective of the study was to define referential strategies employed by Mwai Kibaki and Raila Odinga as principals in Kenya's 2008 coalition government and to construct and negotiate their ideological perspectives in governance. Four written texts were purposively sampled and accessed from the electronic data searches. The study was anchored on Critical Discourse Analysis approach. The results indicated that linguistic choices are ideologically and politically motivated in a consistent process of representation.
The increasing shift of human activities to online spaces in Kenya has resulted in the new behaviours among internet consumers. One such behaviour is the growing online public journalism phenomenon amid legal and regulatory gaps permeating expression of online hate speech rhetoric disguised as ‘politically correct talk’ which often goes unquestioned despite its injurious force and the potential to precipitate physical violence in the long run. To judge content as hateful, Kenya’s judicial processes rely the establishment of speech intention to hurt a legally protected entity. However, hate speech law enforcers lack skill and capacity to accurately determine the pragmatic force of hateful language. This article, which is a part of broad study that examined the discursive construction of online hate rhetoric, examines the injurious potential of online micro-speech acts and performative modality of selected Facebook posts and tweets constituting the day-to-day communicative practices online during the 2017 general election in Kenya. Working within forensic-based Computer Mediated Discourse Analysis (CMDA) framework, we analyse a purposive sample of 160 posts; FB (120) and Twitter (40) collected through online observation of Facebook groups and hashtags trending in Kenya between July and November 2017. The findings show how micro-speech acts and performative modality worked in service of aggressive ideology in the form of overt and covert appeals for collective prejudice against marked ethno-political out-groups. These insights are relevant for policy makers such as NCIC, KHR and CAK as well as the hate speech law enforcers especially National Police Service and prosecutors in understanding how certain commonsensical day to day online communicative practices yield pragmatic potential to propagate ideologically rooted culture of hate and violence in multi-ethnic cultural contexts such as Kenya.
Introduction and Background to the Study Stand-up comedy is a comic style where a stand-up comedian either performs in front of a live audience, speaking directly to them or the performance is sometimes filmed for later release via DVD, internet, and television. Stand-up is an art form that is openly devoted to getting immediate laughs from an audience (Crowther & Hornby, 2001). It is a cultural phenomenon in need of deep understanding and thoughtful discourse because it makes use of language which is a very powerful element and most common method of communication. A notable percentage of language used in stand-up comedy is considered prejudicial or biased in use. Stand-up comedy utilizes both literary criticism and humour studies. Stand-up comedy to some degree identifies, articulates and assesses cultural meaning for popular audiences. Particularly in Kenya, the stand-up televised comedy in the entertainment industry has pronounced itself as the centre-stage, which shapes perceptions about other groups in the society as presented in 'Churchill Live Show', thereby playing a significant role in the society. 'Churchill Live Show' is the most popular televised stand-up comedy show, aired on NTV which is one of the leading private TV channels in Kenya. The Show has two segments, presented on two different days for continuity purposes. On the one hand, there is the Churchill Show as the main segment aired on Sunday between 8 pm and 9 pm, which features the experienced comedians. On the other hand, there is the Churchill Raw aired on Thursday between 8.15 pm and 8.45 pm, which features the upcoming comedians (Ndonye 2015). Due to its popularity and uniqueness of the content, 'Churchill Live Show' has received acclaim and numerous awards as one of the best of comedy shows in Kenya, East and Central Africa. The Show has also gained momentous international interest from comedy enthusiasts in the US, the UK, India, Germany, and rest of the world. It is highly successful and has been seen as a groundbreaker in the Kenyan comedy and entertainment industry (Kenyamoja.com, 2010-2014). In early 2000 Kenyan stand-up comedy gained enormous viewership. According to consummator , "Kenyan audiences are quite hard to please this is why comedians are working hard each one trying to bring something unique
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