Strategic Maneuvering in Argumentative Confrontations: A Pragma-Dialectical Analysis of Mark Zuckerberg's Congressional Hearings

Abstract

The present study examines strategic maneuvering in Mark Zuckerberg's hearings before the Congress because of the role played by Facebook in the Cambrdige Analytica data breach scandal. Using van Eemeren's (2018) Pragma-Dialectical theory of argumentation, the study investigates how members of Congress and Mark Zuckerberg employ the three aspects of strategic maneuvering, namely topical potential, adaptation to audience demand and presentational devices in the four stages of the critical discussion in the hearings. These are: the confrontation stage, the opening stage, the argumentation stage, and the concluding stage. Results show that in each of the four stages, the two parties seek to balance between the dialectical goals of maintaining reasonableness and the rhetorical aims of achieving effectiveness by making certain topical choices, meeting the preferences of the audience, and using suitable presentational devices.