Through eurocentric logics

Abstract

This study aims to explore the construction of difference in foreign news discourse on culturally similar but politically different non-Western subjects. Applying critical discourse analysis (CDA) together with a critique of Eurocentrism, the study examines difference in newspaper constructions of government supporters and oppositional groups in Venezuela. Discursive differences are evident in the strategies used for constructing the two groups with regard to political rationality and violence. Government supporters are associated with social justice, Venezuela’s poor, dogmatic behavior, and the use of political violence. The opposition, in contrast, is constructed as following a Western democratic rationale that stresses anti-authoritarianism. This group is primarily associated with victims of violence. While the opposition is conveyed as being compatible with Eurocentric values and practices, government supporters to great extent deviate from these norms. Such constructions serve to legitimize politico-ideological undercurrents of Eurocentrism, as the defense of liberalism.

Dismissing class: Media representations of workers’ conditions in the Global South

“…Importantly, this lack of context serves ideologically to hide the responsibility of "global" economic and political actors and interests, instead holding "local" actors and interests responsible for their own plight, violence, political and economic instability, and corruption (Hafez, 2007;MacBride, 1980;Williams, 2011), reinforcing simplistic explanations and stereotypes. Underlying these stories is a particular stereotypical colonial imagery whereby people in the Global South are often portrayed as irrational, uncivilised, innocent, hostile, corrupt, poorly organised, and in general deviating from the norms of Western rationality (Abalo, 2016;Lugo-Ocando & Malaolu, 2015;MacLeod, 2019).…”