This article focuses on the argumentative role of making factual claims and counterclaims in broadcast political debates. Despite the rise of “post‐truth politics,” this article argues that orientations to issues of “fact” and “truth” are a live and controversial matter when debating the European Union. Using Discursive Psychology (DP), the analysis is on how politicians use fact‐based (counter)claims in multiparty interactions, in the form of debates about the United Kingdom and the European Union. Three types of factual challenges are presented to illustrate the rhetorical function of claims: challenging the essence of an argument, providing another fact to recontextualize the preceding fact and using hypothetical scenarios to undermine facts. The analysis demonstrates that the use of facts is a highly strategic, argumentative, matter. This study, understood against a backdrop of the rise of post‐truth politics, highlights that concepts of “fact” and “truth” are not done away with; rather they are an argumentative resource and need to be understood in their fragmentary and rhetorical context.
In this paper, we show how discursive psychology can be used to show how 'facts' are used rhetorically by politicians.That is, they are more than neutral reflections of an objective reality-these 'facts' are highly attuned to the local context of political argumentation. We draw upon examples from two studies that used discursive psychology to analyse two different political contexts: (1) Islamophobia in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo attack and (2) debates over Great Britain and the European Union. In both contexts, the analysis uncovers how politicians challenge both the context and the relevance of a fact. The context of 'facts' is reconstructed to undermine their original argumentative strength, whereas questioning the relevance of a 'fact' undermines it both as fact and as a rhetorical tool to be used in a debate. These findings show how discursive psychology can contribute to knowledge about political communication, as well as the benefits of applying discursive psychology to political discourse. observable in interaction-they are designed to perform social actions (Edwards & Potter, 1992). One of the core features of political argumentation is the deployment of facts (Edelman, 1977). Discursive research into fact construction has a long history (for example, Ashmore, 1989;Latour & Woolgar, 1986), and the foundational text for discursive psychology (Edwards & Potter, 1992) often relies on examples of political discourse to make its illustrative points-particularly when making a case for a DP approach to fact construction. Fact construction has since featured in a number of DP works, including those looking at political topics (for example, Lynn & Lea, 2003). However, DP research that applies this to contemporary political issues-such as debating about the European Union-is still in its early stages. Demasi (2019) focused on the various strategies that politicians use to deploy and challenge 'facts' when debating the relationship between Great Britain and the EU, arguing that this use of facts also has a strong argumentative dimension. Similarly, the orientation to 'facts' as a rhetorical resource can be observed in the work of Burke (2017).The second aim of this paper is to demonstrate what DP has to offer to political psychology. Tileagă (2013) has argued for the importance of a critical political psychology, and in particular that DP has much to contribute. The papers discussed here are indicative of this critical political psychology, showing how qualitative methods in general and DP in particular can offer to the field of political psychology. Political psychology, although thriving, tends to focus on the more mainstream, quantitative, research methods and epistemology, usually at the expense of the more varied, nonquantitative, approaches (Tileagă, 2013). For example, Loza (2011) and Loza, Abd-El-Fatah, Prinsloo, Hesselink-Louw, and Seidler (2011) used questionnaires to research the pervasiveness of Middle Eastern extremist ideology on religious and cultural backgrounds. It can be viewed as a prototypic...
and Tileagă, Cristian (2019) Rhetoric of derisive laughter in political debates on the EU. Qualitative Psychology.
This article argues for the potential of discursive psychology (DP) in the study of post‐truth politics. Work produced outside of psychology is considered, particularly from political science and international relations, which have made a promising start. Providing an overview of this body of research, I argue for their respective strengths and weaknesses. The literature so far tends to work with the notion that truth and emotion are matters that are, or at least should be, distinguishable. Instead, I argue that, rather than lament the blurring between truth and untruth, one should look to how these unfold as matters of practical concern in political discourse. DP is a tool particularly suited to the task; it highlights the importance of viewing ‘truth’ as a rhetorical resource. In this light, we can view post‐truth politics as a rhetorical matter rather than a degeneration of truth.
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