Applying discursive psychology to ‘fact’ construction in political discourse

Abstract

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...

Post‐truth politics and discursive psychology

“…My previous work (Burke & Demasi, 2019; Demasi, 2016, 2019; Demasi & Tileagă, 2019) is an exception. It has looked at various aspects of how people use ‘facts’ and ‘knowledge’ in an argumentative manner in political debates on the European Union.…”

“…Lockie (2017) noted that research in the area is nascent, but still limited as of only a couple of years ago. Aside from some DP discussion on the topic (Burke & Demasi, 2019; Demasi, 2019) psychology, as a discipline, has yet to contribute on post‐truth studies on a systematic scale. At present, there is some theoretical considerations on the persuasive effectiveness of the emotional aspects of post‐truth politics (Muñoz, 2017) or a call for psychologists to ‘help people distinguish between beliefs and facts and understand the strengths and limitations associated with each’ (Glăveanu, 2017, p. 376).…”

“…This focus is particularly helpful in analysing how a politician can provide counterclaims to factual claims without resorting to calling their opponent a liar or implying that the opponent has uttered an untruth (Demasi, 2019; see also Burke & Demasi, 2019)—something that would be arguably a counterproductive manner of discussion in broadcast debates. Without claiming an exhaustive list of rhetorical moves, I demonstrated that politicians could challenge factual claims by claiming that the fact challenged is not relevant, recontextualising the fact to put it in a different rhetorical light or providing a hypothetical scenario as a challenge.…”

Accountability in the Russo-Ukrainian war: Vladimir Putin versus NATO.

“…Posttruth, as understood today, can be understood more as a rhetorical strategy of political communication of our times (Demasi, 2020) rather than a decline of truth in and of itself. If facts are rhetorical (Demasi, 2019) and not bound to a particular type of political communication (Burke & Demasi, 2019), then what values and actions do these facts advocate? Why and how might politicians, on all sides of the Russo-Ukrainian war, portray “truth,” “facts” and their broader arguments in a particular way that advocates their ideological positions?…”

Bringing critical social psychology to the study of political polarization

“…Polarization, in fact, constitutes the very struggle for constructing and fixing a hegemonic version of how a concrete group really is, and how this group should be treated. Therefore, drawing a static red line between the prejudiced and the unprejudiced and between accurate and biased perceptions does not do justice either to the malleability of stereotypes or to the way individuals argue, contest, and discursively elaborate truth claims (Burke & Demasi, 2019) about what being prejudiced means. Rather than choosing to ignore this complexity, researchers should try to unravel it (Potter & Wetherell, 1987).…”