This paper investigates the relationship between activism and technology through a discourse analysis of a web-based activist group, CODEPINK, a selfidentified women's movement for peace. It explores CODEPINK'S website, along with mainstream newspaper reports about the group. The paper demonstrates that the web-based discourse negotiates the group's identity, and facilitates intrapublic and interpublic deliberation. An analysis of newspaper reports shows that CODEPINK has achieved a certain measure of recognition in the broader public sphere, but that mainstream recognition comes with the consequences of simplified and polarized coverage. Ultimately, the Internet serves several valuable functions for these activists. CODEPINK has used the web as a way to: provide members with an indigenous medium; develop group consensus through centralized organization and mobilization activities; and establish access, via publicity, to the broader public sphere. These uses are significant because they have enabled CODEPINK to achieve a measure of recognition and legitimacy, or public credibility. Overall, the paper illustrates that the Internet can operate as a tool and as a space for citizens seeking to gain recognition in and meaningful access to mediated or face-to-face public spheres.
This article reports the critical discourse analysis of www.lifeandliberty.gov, a website constructed by the US Department of Justice, with the expressed intention to explain provisions of the USA PATRIOT Act. The analysis reveals a four-part deductive argument that asserts the Act's ability to preserve liberty while enhancing security. Discursive themes appealing to governmental responsibility and authority, national security, individual liberty, historical consistency and legislative efficiency and efficacy support the argument's claims. Despite claims of 'educating citizens', the site's discourse is more similar to propaganda than education, relying on one-sided emotional appeals and fallacious logical propositions. The discourse constructs subjectivities of the government as protector, the American citizen as innocent and terrorists as a foreign menace, in an attempt to preclude dissent of the USA PATRIOT Act specifically, and the US Government's terrorism efforts generally. As such, this discourse functions hegemonically to produce what Foucault has termed 'docile bodies'.
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