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This article provides a keyword in context analysis of three editorials published in London-based papers regarding the events of 16 August 1819 in Manchester: one daily paper, The Courier, and two weeklies, Sherwin's Political Register and The Examiner. It aims to offer lexical evidence of the struggle for the cultural-political appropriation and representation of Peterloo 'in public consciousness'. To this end, insights from critical discourse analysis, specifically social actor theory, are used, and elements of rhetorical and argumentative analysis are presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As technical and vocational education and training (TVET) continue to occupy a prominent position in Africa's development, addressing the growing concerns about young women's under-participation in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM)-related TVET has become urgent. This paper draws on the critical capability approach of vocational education and training (CCA-VET) to critique the TVET policy discourse on the participation of girls and women in STEM-related TVET. The paper employed the practical argumentation approach, a critical discourse analysis approach to achieve the paper's aims. The paper's central thesis is that for education policies to transform young women's under-participation in STEM-related TVET, it is urgent to move beyond human rights-based, and human capital approaches to adopt a comprehensive theoretical approach, such as the critical capabilities approach. The paper concludes that breaking this hegemony of human rights and human capital approaches to TVET policy can be achieved by re-conceptualising TVET policy discourses. The re-conceptualisation of TVET policy discourses can be achieved by admitting the critiques of these dominant theories that underpin most TVET policies and then adopting the CCA-VET as a better alternative approach to framing TVET policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses the tensions between political sovereignty and global capitalist accumulation that arise from neoliberal globalization: in the context of neoliberal globalization, the role of the state was substantially altered, and competitiveness became important to sustain economic growth, employment and wealth. However, for this purpose, the internal stabilization of the economy also has to be ensured. Competition state-ness aims to reconcile domestic and global market dynamics. This paper addresses this challenge from a Cultural Political Economy perspective, arguing that the specific way this is done results from ideas, institutional selectivities and materiality. As the supranational level gained importance during globalization, this paper uses the European competition state project as an empirical example. It uses a Critical Discourse Analysis to analyze the economic imaginaries on competition of the European socio-economic strategy, Europe 2020. The central findings are two imaginaries on competition that address different market dynamics in the neoliberal political economy: the 'sovereign entity' that promotes a well-functioning domestic market, and the 'competitive entity' that aims to increase European competitiveness to thrive on the world market. Although tensions arise between the imaginaries, it is argued in the end that three strategies based on them constitute the European competition state project. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the last decades, many scholars have studied competition between cities and entrepreneurial urban policies. Coming from the evolving field of competition research, we are interested in how competition between cities is constructed and, for this purpose, examine the competition imaginary of Vienna, a city known less for its entrepreneurial policies than for its social welfare policies. The paper employs critical discourse analysis of Viennese policy papers from 1985–2015, a period particularly shaped by the process of competitization. The analysis shows that Vienna's social and welfare policies are also decisive for the city's positioning in city competition and rankings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes the methodological design of a qualitative research strategy that followed the bricolage approach. The research, a qualitative case study, followed the empowerment journey of 12 adult learners in a second chance educational programme, aiming at recording the mechanisms through which the learners were empowered or disempowered. The initial plan to use a single methodology was modified to address the challenges that raised from the study itself. This modification led to the implementation of the bricolage approach. Following the bricolage principles opened a space of a creative combination of different methodologies, theories, and tools and the implementation of all the five types of bricolage, namely the theoretical, the methodological, the interpretive, the narrative, and the political. The paper presents a detailed account on how bricolage was developed as a "custom-fit" construct to serve the goals of the study. Hermeneutic Phenomenology and Critical Discourse Analysis were the two main methodologies combined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In July 2021 the Chinese Government unexpectedly released what has become known colloquially as the 'Double-Reduction' policy. The policy decreed the reduction of homework pressure on students and greater control of private tutorial companies. In this paper, we set out to understand why the Chinese central government launched the 'Double-Reduction' policy in mid−2021 by using narratives to analyse the three most circulated explanations for the policy and its timing. We use data from a range of formal and informal policy texts. The three narratives, including one policy narrative dominant in the official discourse and two alternative ones, constructed the causal stories about the policy's rationale from multiple perspectives. The combination of multiple perspectives and a narrative approach helps reveal the policy event's complexity and lays a foundation for researchers interested in tracking the development trajectory of this new policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

News sharing on social media is ubiquitous and extends across demographics, platforms, and political ideologies. Online far-right communities are no exception, with a barrage of embedded news stories populating the social media feeds of far-right users. This has potentially profound implications for liberal democracy, especially given the propensity for far-right communities to spread disinformation via 'fake news'. Yet, we do not know enough about how news content is embedded into far-right discourses, nor the extent to which the practice may contribute to the digital transmission of far-right ideologies. Accordingly, this paper investigates how far-right communities share news media to promulgate illiberalism on social media platforms. The paper aims to uncover the dominant discursive devices deployed to integrate news media reports into far-right discourses. To achieve this aim, this paper applies critical discourse analysis alongside conceptualisations of legitimacy and far-right ideology to an original dataset of social media posts in an Australian context. It finds that news sharing in far-right online circles may legitimise and reify far-right ideology through the juxtaposition of mainstream news media indicating the validity of far-right grievances. The paper also introduces a prototype model of news sharing legitimisation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While public consultation is a signature process of democratic policy formulation, many governments manoeuvre to refract citizen's opinions or conduct it perfunctorily. Using the case of a medium of instruction policy in Hong Kong, this article unveils the strategies that the state and citizens employ to put their opinion through to the final policy text, during a public consultation process. Recent literature has identified the mechanisms through which individual actors or organisations contribute to broad policy agenda-setting or policy programme development. However, yet to be investigated is how they – sometimes with conflicting interests – collectively negotiate a policy with the state via public consultations. This paper investigates this very phenomenon, building on previous work conducted in the public policy field, analysing 51 government-generated documents through both thematic content analysis and critical discourse analysis. The paper uncovers four strategies adopted by administrations (non-commitment, case closure, disengagement for irrelevance, and placation) to evade citizens' equity-oriented demands and stakeholders' three counter strategies (mobilising other stakeholders into a coalition, reopening the case pointing out a new problem, and appealing by affirming relevance). The state's discrete refusals and stakeholders' conjoint reengagement tactics draw our attention to the complexity and subtlety involved in negotiation via public consultations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper conducts the critical discourse analysis of Indigenous consultation reports with the help of Argument Continuity, a brand-new critical discourse analysis category. Argument Continuity is a set of the same arguments and counterarguments repeatedly produced/reproduced by the institutionally dominant arguer through an adversarial reasoning process to dismiss opposing arguments without reflecting upon their merits. Argument Continuity is contingent upon motivated criticism, a reasoning practice of biased evaluation of opposing arguments. Epistemic vigilance is a polar reasoning practice of unbiased evaluation of opposing arguments that never results in responding to them with Argument Continuity. The paper applies an institutionalist perspective to tracing and explaining the reasoning dynamics of motivated criticism and epistemic vigilance in the distorted (controlled) context of reasoning interactivity between arguers with power asymmetries. Contrasting the Indigenous consultations over the Trans Mountain and Mackenzie Valley pipelines, the paper reveals how the institutional context constraining/advancing the reasoning capacity of Indigenous arguers to resist the controversial project made it easier/harder for the institutionally dominant officials to employ motivated criticism/epistemic vigilance, responding to Indigenous concerns with or without Argument Continuities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper emphasizes the importance of researcher position and reflexivity for professionals in the ecological and development sciences. We draw on critical discourse analysis (CDA) to analyze a selection of scientific papers written by Namibian Community-based Natural Resource Management (CBNRM) professionals and their relationships with public discourse regarding this conservation and development program. These papers mainly show "success" whilst disregarding "failure" of elements in the program that elsewhere are highly criticized (especially trophy hunting and ecotourism). In addition, they seem to disregard questions concerning researchers' conflicts of interest that bear on the papers' "objectivity." We argue that such positions beg more transparency and epistemological accountability. In particular, we propose greater disclosure and reflexivity regarding researcher positioning as an important methodological response for illuminating when and how researchers have an interest in specific outcomes of their research, so as to enhance interpretation of the knowledge produced by such research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we take a critical discourse analytic approach to short notes written at the end of exam papers by Iranian students asking for a higher score. Such notes are sometimes written when the student has a feeling that they might fail the exam as a result of not providing satisfactory answers to questions. We consider this to be a manipulative strategy employed by these students to control their professors. Manipulation, however, is often considered an illegitimate source of power abuse by people having the higher hand in unequal power relations [Van Dijk, T.A. (2006). Discourse and manipulation. Discourse & Society, 17(3), 359–383]. The present paper argues for a new understanding of this important concept in the critical discourse analysis (CDA) tradition by highlighting manipulative strategies used by less powerful people. The analysis of 71 such notes written by students in two Iranian universities suggests that the students, as people in a lower position of power, resorted to certain manipulative strategies to exert influence on professors, people in a higher position of power. Four of the most frequent strategies identified in the data will be discussed: (1) tapping into religious beliefs; (2) highlighting personal and social problems as causes for inability to prepare for the exam; (3) referring to negative consequences for failing the exam, and therefore tapping into the examiner's conscience; and (4) resorting to honorific terms to address the examiner. This study would have implications for application of CDA in Higher Education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper draws attention to the role of colonial memory in the Italian populist radical right. Italy's colonial past has been long confined on the fringes of memory in Italian politics and in the Italian public debate. While recent academic attention has been devoted to the selective colonial memory transpiring from Italian cultural products, scarce attention has been paid to colonial memory in contemporary Italian political parties' discourse. Therefore, by applying Critical Discourse Analysis to semi-structured interviews with Italian populist radical right representatives from the Lega and Fratelli d'Italia (FdI), this paper aims at investigating which role colonial memory plays in these parties' discourse. This paper argues that the Lega and FdI reproduce colonial discourse in constructing the image of the contemporary immigrant Other. At the same time, they forge a selective memory of Italy's colonial past, cleansed from its most controversial aspects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the intersection of neoliberal ideologies and language policy in the context of Chinese language education in Oman's higher education system. Drawing on critical discourse analysis and theoretical frameworks of neoliberalism, the study investigates the introduction of Chinese language programmes within Omani universities, with a focus on Sultan Qaboos University (SQU). Through analysis of public documents, interviews and instructional materials, this paper examines how neoliberal free-market ideologies influence the implementation and perception of Chinese language education. Key research questions address the manifestation of neoliberal ideologies in programme policies, stakeholder perceptions and suggestions for pedagogical improvement. The findings reveal a complex interplay between geopolitical, economic and educational factors shaping language policy and its implications for Oman's higher education system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The reported study investigates the emergence of teacher evaluation (TE) in Norwegian green papers between 1988 and 2019. We examine how knowledge dissemination and discourses in Norwegian official reports shape suggestions for TE and discuss implications for how teachers are "made by policy". Guided by Bacchi's (2009) approach to critical discourse analysis, "What's the problem represented to be?" (WPR), we explore where problem representations and their underpinning assumptions are produced and disseminated, and how they invoke new arguments and discursive and subjectification effects. The study contributes new knowledge on the origins of TE as a policy tool for governing Norwegian education in general, and teachers more specifically. Across time and irrespective of government coalitions, we identify the OECD as a main contributor to new problem representations and display how proposals for TE policies based on performance-based accountability (PBA) promote new discourses on teacher professionalism. Implications for research, policy and practice are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The emphasis on reconciliation as a process of individual reflexivity and institutional reform raises important questions about people's engagement in reconciliation discourses. This paper uses critical discourse analysis to examine how staff at a regional Australian university interpret reconciliation and its application in a workplace context. Many frame their understanding on ideas that are considered foundational to reconciliation in post-colonial Australia. Notions of relationships and coexistence, unity and social harmony, cultural respect and the rightful place of First Nations peoples form the foundation to a revisionist national identity tied to a critical examination and responsiveness to past injustice. Participants recombine and reorder these concepts in ways that speak to their individualised translation, with a greater emphasis on the agency of First Nations peoples in the learning and teaching environment. Such expressions indicate a willingness by respondents to engage in the ideas of reconciliation at the cognitive level. For many, however, reconciliation remains an aspirational or desired activity, and belies a reticence to take personal action that will contribute to wider institutional change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the context of labour arbitrage, Romania became home to an expanding nearshoring business service sector. Many graduates work in 'call centres': a generic term for various types of customer-oriented services associated with different employment regimes and company structures. This research examines the discursive construction of compliance to precarious work, largely centred on managerial perspectives. Based on in-depth interviews with managers, HR staff, call-centre operators and through the thematic analysis of managerial outlets and career events, the paper unpacks several mechanisms, metaphors, and symbols that maintain young people's adherence to the demands of work. It is argued that the repertoire of neo-liberal tropes (authenticity, personal development, growth) creates legitimacy for an (arguably) precarious sector in an emerging economy, and ultimately crafts individual-ized working narratives. The paper suggests that young employees appropriate the related structures and the master narratives, whilst lacking a solid repertoire to critically engage with them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although critical discourse analysis (CDA) sets out to investigate both oppressive and progressive discourses, the vast bulk of published studies seem to prioritize the former. This paper is a response to scholarly calls to engage with (non)oppressive discourses by integrating positive impulses in critical discourse analysis, and thus contribute to the growth of positive discourse analysis (PDA), a complement to CDA, which attends to the emancipatory mechanisms of resistance. Using a combination of theoretical tools, this paper takes a case study approach to explore the potentials of 'complexification' [Macgilchrist, F. (2007). Positive discourse analysis: Contesting dominant discourses by reframing the issues. Critical Approaches to Discourse Analysis Across Disciplines, 1(1), 74–94], a counter-discursive strategy for propelling marginal discourses into the dominant official school discourse. Specifically, the paper discusses three layers of complexification found in a selected Moroccan EFL textbook which has been developed, approved and distributed by the Moroccan Ministry of Education, and has been required to be used in every school, public or private. The analysis highlights the role this textbook plays in promoting emancipatory and progressive discourses about Amazigh social actors, and hence, signals a new shift in analytic focus by illuminating a concrete application of PDA in education curricula. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The terms NIMBY (Not-in-my-backyard) and YIMBY (Yes-in-my-backyard) describe negative and positive attitudes towards building higher density housing. Based on a series of newspaper articles that reported on a Sydney council hiring a community planning advocate and comments by a Liberal party candidate regarding housing supply, this paper seeks to identify if NIMBY and YIMBY discourses exist in reader-generated comments made by self-selecting commenters. Critical discourse analysis is mobilised to examine the actors and the framing in the newspaper article, as well as the discursive strategies used in the readers' comments. The paper finds the readers' comments are dominated by NIMBY discourse but does find evidence of a YIMBY public discourse. Practitioner Pointers Property industry promotes a positive self-presentation by identifying other stakeholders as being responsible for a lack of housing supply. A discourse of housing supply links higher density housing to a positive influence on housing affordability and the environment. Readers' comments explicitly link immigration and population growth with housing supply issues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses the discourse surrounding a high-profile sexual assault case in South Korea. While most research on language and sexual violence has focused on the media portrayal or online resistance movement, not much has focused on the language and the law. Using Critical Discourse Analysis and rhetoric, this present paper seeks to show the importance of value of paying closer attention to legal decision-making process, showing how this can make a significant contribution to the literature. The analysis reveals two distinctive discourses at work. One is that victims must embody and display certain characteristics as a 'pure and destroyed' individual in order to avoid being dismissed or appearing untrustworthy. The second is that the perpetrators represent themselves as victims seeking to makes it the goal of the court to protect the perpetrators' rights, rather than those of the victims. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China remains reluctant in claiming unilateral economic sanctions as a valid form of statecraft. China has consistently withheld official acknowledgment of its use of unilateral sanctions despite using them in different disputes. This has resulted to observations arguing that China is increasingly approaching the use of sanctions in a stealthier, therefore, more aggressive manner. It begs to ask, how does China's reluctant attitude towards its use of unilateral economic sanctions fit into China's overall foreign policy logic? More specifically, how does China's victimhood discourse justify unilateral sanctions and at the same time, promote a positive identity of itself in light of coercion? This paper argues that China's consistent vague acknowledgment and denial in claiming a direct hand on unilateral sanctions comes from its broad foreign policy objective of maintaining a positive identity through its discourse of victimhood. To uncover this understanding, this paper analyzes China's official positions in six bilateral disputes where China has resorted to unilateral sanctions. While existing observations only stop at 'plausible deniability' as primary explanation for China's vague rhetoric, analyzing China's predication strategies provides a necessary nuancing in terms of how this peculiar behavior remains consistent with China's overall foreign policy logic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using the notion of 'ideology in pieces' as a guiding concept, this paper presents a case study of one teacher who won his state's history teacher of the year award. This study uses critical discourse analysis to explore the complex and at-times competing racial logics this teacher expressed regarding what race/racism is, how it operates in society, and its role in his teaching. Ultimately, this paper reveals that this teacher's racial ideologies emerged 'in pieces,' constituted by a range of factors including his perception of the needs of his student population, community context, and his larger epistemological stances on both race/ism and history. While some discourses seemed to be in conflict, ultimately, white supremacy was protected through a lack of systemic analyses of racism and undergirding anti-Black logics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper critically examines how senior figures in the UK Labour Party and wider labour movement discussed the topic of immigration in the immediate aftermath of the UK's vote to leave the European Union in 2016. Influenced by the Discourse Historical Approach, the paper is based on an analysis of 86 public interventions by Labour figures, over a 6-month period, delivered in speeches, articles and essays. The paper examines argumentative strategies adopted by Labour figures – including Members of Parliament, advisors and trade union leaders – who called for stronger immigration controls from an avowedly 'left-wing' perspective. Foregrounding their commitment to progressive politics, Labour politicians argued that restricting the number of migrants entering Britain was democratic, anti-racist and an expression of the Labour Party's commitment to the interests of working-class people. Nevertheless, it is the contention of this paper that the Labour Party's rhetoric tapped into right-wing populist discourses which constructed immigration as a threat to the racialised privileges of a 'white' working class. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The meaning and grammatical status of 'a notional' in the schema for critical discourse analysis (CDA) from Bhaskar's posthumously published Enlightened Common Sense (2016) is somewhat ambiguous. An ambiguity that has persisted through a subsequent development of the schema. Following the publication of Bhaskar's original manuscript, it can now be seen that erroneous grammatical changes were made to the manuscript during the publication process. The original version provides a more coherent schema for CDA. This paper discusses the implications of the original version coming to light. This shows that Bhaskar created a more coherent schema for CDA than the published version indicated. Clarifying the meaning and grammatical status of 'a notional' in Bhaskar's schema for CDA and a schema that was subsequently derived from it is an important corrective for future critical realist critical discourse analysts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Decades of 'feminist' sexual- and gender-based violence (SGBV) policies have produced limited change in southern African SGBV rates. Recent critiques highlight ongoing colonial legacies in such policymaking, arguing that these legacies limit the potential for liberatory change. Further, reflecting on such discourses can highlight reasons behind global public health intervention failure. To promote reflexivity among public health actors who create, reproduce, and implement SGBV policies, this paper presents a critical discourse analysis of how women's empowerment is constructed in foundational global and national health and development policies bearing on SGBV in Zambia. The analysis identifies neoliberal feminist discourses of empowerment: (i) the protection of women, which perpetuates a saviour complex; (ii) the promotion of equality to men, which excludes those deemed unworthy; (iii) the eradication of harmful cultural norms, which challenge the preservation of African values; and (iv) (neoliberal) empowerment through women's attained employment and capital, which empowers women within unequal economic relations rather than liberating women from those relations. The author critiques such neoliberal empowerment discourses for failing to structurally transform the conditions for women's liberation. This paper offers a first step to the dismantling of colonial structures in SGBV policies by unpacking and promoting reflexivity about such discourses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper extends academic debates occurring in the discursive intersections between childhood studies and tourist studies. Drawing on theoretical concepts devised by Mikhail Bakhtin and Erving Goffman, it employs a critical discourse analysis that focuses on the representation of tourists in selected travel-themed episodes of three popular children's television series. This study investigates how travel experiences and practices of touristic consumption are discursively constructed and interrogates how this tourist discourse is implicated in relationships performed by children and adults or authority figures in these narratives. The findings imply that children's travel-themed television narratives both challenge and reinforce cultural assumptions about tourist behaviour. This paper highlights how literary devices such as carnivalesque humour and anthropomorphism are employed to convey cultural messages and touristic themes. It also demonstrates that critical discourse analysis is an effective framework for explaining and understanding the various social interactions, roles, and relationships portrayed in these narratives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Alcohol and Other Drug Facilitated Sexual Violence (AODFSV), known as "drink-spiking," is the administration of alcohol or other drugs to someone without their consent, with the intent to harm them. Investigation into portrayals of AODFSV in the Australian news media is needed. Using feminist critical discourse analysis, this paper investigated the portrayal of AODFSV in the Australian news media in the past ten years. 226 articles were included for analysis and three themes were identified. Firstly, "how the media constructs the drink spiking narrative," uses the "cautionary tale" that warns women about the dangers of the night-time economy and reinforces and perpetuates victim-blaming and rape myths. Secondly, "how the media normalises the drink spiking discourse" focuses on the substances used in drink spiking, the settings, the construction of the perpetrator and the victim as well as the depictions of sexual violence. Thirdly, "how the media shapes responses from emergency services" including police and hospital staff. This paper highlights the way the media creates and reinforces drink-spiking discourse, which constructs drink-spiking as individual behaviour rather than a culturally embedded issue. Such ideology perpetuates victim blaming and rape myths. We argue for critical and thoughtful reporting on AODFSV. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although the ideology of pro-work conservatism prevails in East Asia, scholars have largely overlooked its discursive construction in media communication from a linguistic perspective. This paper examines the discursive construction of pro-work conservatism in 3,000 Weibo posts with the most "likes" in response to China's implementation of the three-child policy. Using the sociosemantic approach as an analytic framework, the paper finds that three dominant themes underpin the discourse of pro-work conservatism: women's sacrifice in the labour market, the high cost of raising children, and gender-essentialist norms. This discourse is articulated in the posts via a number of discursive strategies, including authorization, morality, and rationalisation. This paper sheds light on the influence of the one-child policy and the awakening of feminist consciousness in the new era and highlights the implications of language use in shaping gender-role ideologies to influence public perception. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses critical discourse analysis and critical literacy to analyze the first in a series of literacy primers developed with US support for children in Afghanistan in the 1980s, called 'Jihad literacy'. The text is analyzed for its ideological content as related to the themes of religion, violence, and martyrdom in the historical perspective of the Cold War and the Soviet Union's invasion of Afghanistan. The paper demonstrates how the notion of 'Jihad' was subverted to promote a holy war against the Soviet invasion. The educational system supported by the US created a radical version of Islam based on violence and martyrdom, shaping the Afghan society to this day. We contend that the same or similar institutions shape current discourses as in the past and that children are the main victims of politico-economic warfare. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Star Wars franchise – and in particular the 'in-universe' period from the Fall of the Jedi to the Reign of the Empire – represents germane ground for the critical analysis of security in both everyday life and extraordinary circumstances. Although beginning with the films of the 'prequel trilogy' (1999, 2002, 2005) this period has most recently been covered in the animated television series Star Wars: The Bad Batch (2021 –). Deepening the contribution of criminology towards a diverse and critical transdisciplinary field of security studies, this paper conducts a multimodal critical discourse analysis of season one of The Bad Batch. In doing so it describes how, in its depiction of a newly established Imperial regime, the Star Wars franchise has continued to engage with the politics of security through its exploration of the processes and practices of techno-securitisation. The Bad Batch thus acts as an ideological critique of developments in the late-modern securityscape. The discussion section reflects upon how the persistence of politics in the 'Disney era' of Star Wars storytelling, and of security politics in particular, indicates the limits of 'Disneyfication'. The paper concludes by emphasising the value in bridging divides between distinct disciplinary approaches in the study of security. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The theorising of motherhood as a capability and a capability suppressor is critical to emancipatory discourse and practice within human development and to addressing through public policy, social injustice against women due to their role as mothers. I conceptualise motherhood as a combined reproductive capability that gives women the capability to function as mothers. Generally, by capability suppression, I mean features of a person's present capability that are likely to limit other current or potential capabilities of that person to function – suppressive functioning – while those same features simultaneously play a fertile role in promoting the capabilities or functionings of others – fertile functioning. Maternal capability suppression is therefore the limitation of a mother's capabilities to function due to the instrumental role of childrearing. A mother's lack of freedom to engage in the triple day of self-reproduction due to maternal capability suppression explains the triple day problem. To address the triple day problem, the paper draws on Martha Nussbaum's capability theory of social justice to develop and explain the specific tragic conflict of capability suppression inherent in motherhood. The paper further proposes motherhood compensation as a complement to Nussbaum's fair-bargain approach of promoting childcare and economic options. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The role of schools in developing a sense of common British identity has taken centre stage in the face of 'racialised' accounts of violence during the twenty first century. In this paper, we argue that certain British education policy documents can be understood as hegemonic interventions seeking to resolve ambiguities surrounding constructions of British identity. We do so by examining the Department for Education (DfE) 'Fundamental British Values' (FBV) guidance within the context of its relationship to the Prevent Duty anti-terrorism programme as well as the 'Political impartiality in schools' guidance released by the DfE in 2022. Utilising Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) and applying Laclau and Mouffe (2014/1985) conception of hegemony with Hall's (2021/2000) claim that 'Britishness' is an empty signifier, this paper argues that the ambiguities of 'Britishness' present a number of opportunities for power to be exercised and consolidated. Finally, we explore the possible implications for demands to 'decolonise the curriculum' within schools' existing duties and propose possible structural limits placed upon these demands by said duties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines how the FIFA World Cup 2018 headlines generated by Russia are a means to utilize and apply soft power with the aim to restore Russia's role as one of the powerful and influential states in the global politics. Analysing the use of evaluative patterns in selected headlines, this paper scrutinizes the socio-historical influences that shape and reinforce nationalist and capitalist ideologies, and hence drive the discourse patterns within the headlines. Governed by the theories of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) and Appraisal Theory, the analysis revealed that the headlines were crafted to help Russia move out of global isolation. This symbolic domination was fulfilled by regaining global legitimacy while surging up nationalism and patriotism through the lexical choices applied in crafting the FIFA discourse. This study provides a model for future analyses of the socio-political and historical influences and contexts of the discourses surrounding global events like FIFA. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fashion journalism remains an under-researched and theorized form of media production; for example, writers still differ on whether there can be objective fashion news. As such, this paper examines the release of "Satan Shoes" by Lil Nas X and U.S.-based art collective MSCHF, using a liquid, critical discourse analysis. Understanding the fashion system is a complex web of intersecting social practices and institutions, this paper argues that fashion news is obscured by hybrid news discourses, which draw on more established framing and genres including celebrity, business, law and religion. While such hybridity may be warranted, it also allows fashion journalism to be minimized in the public sphere. Fundamentally, this paper argues that event demonstrates that objective fashion news does exist, and, in doing so questions the framing that prioritizes business interests and assumed religious narratives at the expense of artistic expression. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Guidebooks have a privileged role in tourism as they direct bodily engagement with destinations, and yet few feminist leisure scholars have analysed guidebooks. This paper applies a feminist critical discourse analysis (FCDA) to explore Lonely Planet's online travel advice for women. The results of the FCDA reveal that Lonely Planet advice acts to subvert women travellers' anger, particularly when confronted with gender-based violence such as sexual harassment. The guidance offered to women travellers transmits the message that anger at gender-based violence is not legitimate and suggests that feeling anger when abroad is culturally inappropriate. This paper contributes to the literature by demonstrating that women's anger is routinely subverted, particularly in contexts where freedom is ostensibly promised, such as leisure. The findings of this paper illustrate the value in applying FCDA to instances of otherwise hidden subversion and oppression and should inform future advice offered to women travellers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper unpacks the discursive construction of black Zimbabwean identities through multimodal WhatsApp status update posts by Zimbabweans on the WhatsApp social media platform. Cognisant that WhatsApp constitutes part of the public sphere where public discourses are generated and shaped, it explores and interrogates how status update content provoke and inspire identity discourses that perpetuate unequal racial relations that we argue are rooted in colonialism and its legacies. It deploys netnography to collect data through online participant observation over a one-year period. Theoretically, the data analysis deploys Multimodal Critical Discourse Analysis and Coloniality to demonstrate that the analysed posts generate meaning through interactions across multiple modes and that racial stereotypes articulated in the data texts are rooted in notions of Western colonial hegemony. The paper argues that the WhatsApp status posts constitute semiotic modes that articulate and disseminate ideological value-positions that ridicule blackness and extol white racial supremacy. It is concluded that hidden in the status posts are white racial hegemony and negative attitudes against black racial identity, widely consumed and which, if left unchallenged, undercut what anti-colonial struggles sought to correct. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While research investigating the mediatisation of education policy has primarily been undertaken in school contexts, this paper reports on a study conducted in the context of early childhood education. The paper examines how a major policy in early childhood education in Australia – the National Quality Framework – has been mediatised in selected newspapers. Drawing on Foucauldian, critical discourse analysis and mediatisation theorising, we utilised the corpus linguistic tools of WordSmith Tools 6.0 to inform content analyses of 121 articles from two major media corporations, News Corp and Fairfax. Our findings highlight the utility of treating our data as two distinct corpora, with each corporation found to have utilised discursive technologies to proffer competing positionings of the Framework. The contested nature of the Framework – generally purported in Fairfax to be a tool that supports quality early education, as opposed to News Corp's framing of the policy as one that inhibits affordable childcare – poses implications for which advocacy groups are regarded by the media as having authority and thus likely to influence policy through the reporting of their voices. Implications for newspaper media as a discursive influence on parents' childcare decision-making are also considered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Intensive parenting has become a key term for analysing the pressures and priorities of contemporary western parenting culture. For mobility studies it provides a discursive framework for understanding why children's leisure has shifted from free play and mobility towards various adult-led organised activities and why parents deem it necessary to control children's leisure journeys in an unprecedented manner. Most of the research on parenting and mobility has explained these trends with urban risks and safeguarding, but this paper highlights how parents also control, manage and enable children's mobility to resource and enrich them with various dispositions. We use children's mobility experiments and parents' interviews to explain two contrasting representations of children's mobility—intensive car-parenting and childhood velonomy—in a local community in Finland. The paper sheds new light on how community and place shape parents' notions of parenting, childhood and mobility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Film, a powerful publicising agent of knowledge, can have detrimental ideological and material implications contributing towards the systematic exclusion of disabled people. The paper explores how acquired physical disability is constructed within three contemporary mainstream fiction films. Guided by theoretical disability models and stereotypic representations of disability, identified by seminal authors in the field, the discussion highlights discourses that are perpetuated, challenged, or omitted within cinematic portrayals of disability. The paper also addresses how these discourses contribute to the maintenance or subversion of ableist power. The data underwent a multimodal analysis guided by critical and cinematic discourses. While steps towards more nuanced and diverse representations of acquired physical disability are evident, the films continue to perpetuate hegemonic discourses, emotionally provocative, and caricatured portrayals of disability. Arguably, contemporary disability fiction films are still largely produced for, and consumed by, abled audiences. Recommendations for transforming cinematic representations of the disabled are addressed. Films can communicate accurate knowledge as well as damaging stereotypes to the public. Disability has often been portrayed negatively in films and thus it is important to critically analyse films about disability. The paper discusses three contemporary films in which the main actors have an acquired physical disability. What is said about disability through the films' dialogue, and how disability is shown through camera angles, music, and props was analysed. The research found that films about acquired physical disability continue to produce negative stereotypes about disability. Thus, discrimination against disabled people is continued. Encouragingly, some stereotypes about disability were seen to be challenged in the contemporary films. Future films need to be more inclusive of disability. Characters need to be complex, all-rounded individuals, with disability being only one facet of their personhood. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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In planning literature little attention has been paid to the relationships between news articles and readers' comments. Based on a newspaper article that announced a planning system reform agenda in Sydney, Australia, this paper is curious about comments made by self-selecting commenters. To this end, the paper uses critical discourse analysis to examine the actors, actions and the framing in a newspaper article, as well as the extent the readers' comments engage with the news article and other commenters. The paper shows that the readers employed a diverse range of discursive strategies to make sense of the news article. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Doxxing is a form of online abuse where doxxers deliberately seek and publish their targets' personal information without consent, often with malicious intent such as ruining their reputation. Despite its prevalence, doxxing has received little scholarly attention compared to other forms of online aggression, and almost no study has approached doxxing from a language and discourse perspective. This exploratory study analyzes 464 online forum posts and comments related to doxxing during the on-going pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong, addressing the overarching question: In what ways is doxxing a discursive action? More specifically, how is doxxing realized intertextually?What are the discourse strategies that forum participants employ to legitimize doxxing? Informed by Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), the analysis begins by illustrating doxxing as an intertextual and recontextualized social practice, focusing on a forum thread that discloses a police officer's personal information. The core part of the paper discusses four key legitimation strategies of doxxing identified in the data, (i) rationalization, (ii) (re)definition, (iii) construction of negative-Other, and (iv) victimizing 'Us'. The paper concludes by considering the role of doxxing in the Hong Kong social movement, and outlining some directions for future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Statutory requirements for compulsory Relationships and Sexuality Education (RSE) in the UK is generating concern among many religious communities and reigniting debates about the purpose of School Based Sexuality Education (SBSE). Among the communities voicing their dissent are members of the British Islamic community. Quranic scripture deems obligatory the teaching and learning about all aspects relevant to human sexuality, however, religion, and in particular Islam, is widely viewed as hostile to sexuality education. Whilst Muslim objection to 'progressive' agendas in SBSE (i.e., same-sex relations, gender fluidity, pleasure and desire) is generating much attention, equal attention to understanding the Islamic theological, philosophical and epistemological underpinnings of these views, is less frequently sought. The purpose of this paper is to foreground Islamic responses to some of the 'progressive' topics featuring in RSE and SBSE more broadly. Using British printed media sources and Critical Discourse Analysis, this paper aims to make sense of British Muslim parents' objections to 'progressive' sexuality education. A more concerted focus on Islamic underpinnings of these views is imperative to alleviate negative responses to Muslim positions on this subject as well as inform the ongoing dilemma of finding ways in which religious diversity be addressed in SBSE. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper critically analyzes the linguistic landscape (LL) of the three campuses of Northeastern Illinois University (NEIU), a federally-designated Hispanic-Serving Institution (HSI) located in Chicago, to examine the role that languages other than English (LOTE), Spanish specifically, play in signage on the campuses vis-à-vis English. This paper argues that despite NEIU's HSI status, Spanish plays no dominant role in public signage on the three campuses, even on the campus called "El Centro." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article used a critical discourse approach to understand how linguistic practices in the South African media construct international immigrants of African origin. We created an 88 000-word corpus of online South African news articles on immigrants from 2008 to 2020, which we then uploaded onto a corpus analysis software, Sketch Engine. Through the software, we were able to generate patterns of language use in the construction of immigrant identity and subject position in the media. While most literature on South Africa has focused on the violence associated with xenophobia, this paper zeroes in on 'the language of xenophobia' to provide a good reflection of the sociological construction of 'self' and 'other' in the country. By examining the discursive practices of the media on foreign nationals, the paper maps out not only the circulation but also the reproduction of power, social relations and other sociologies behind the prejudices that inform xenophobia in all its various forms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Race Disparity Audit (RDA) was published in 2017 by the then Conservative government of the UK. The proclaimed aims were to 'reveal racial disparities and to help end the injustices that many people experience'. This paper adopts a critical discourse analysis approach to analysing the RDA and associated webpages, to critically examine the government's purported aims. The linguistic analysis reveals a pernicious form of political doublespeak which effects a maintenance of the status quo. In excluding racism as a cause of disparities, the audit acts to de-legitimise anti-racism as part of the solution, thereby preventing actions with the potential to end racial injustices. The analysis is explained by reference to Feagin's (2013. The White racial frame. Centuries of racial framing and counter-framing (2nd ed.). New York, NY: Routledge) White racial frame in institutional operation. The paper concludes by exposing the ramifications of this for future policy development by reference to an education policy development borne from the RDA. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the Republic of Ireland, primary school teaching is a very attractive profession with pay being above the OECD average (Heinz and Keane 2018; Hennessey and Lynch 2017). This paper investigates how the Department of Education Inspectorate and the Teaching Council of Ireland position primary school teacher professionalism. The paper presents the findings of critical discourse analysis (CDA) of two policy texts; Looking at our schools 2016 (2016) by the Department of Education Inspectorate and Cosán framework for teachers learning (2016) by the Teaching Council of Ireland. This paper is timely because the Inspectorate and the Teaching Council of Ireland, recently published the Cosán Action Plan (2021) and Looking at our Schools 2022 (2022), both of which describe how the Department intends to integrate Cosán more deeply into Irish education as a complementary policy to Looking at our Schools (2022). At this policy juncture, this research finds that the two organisations’ understandings of teacher professionalism overlap in places but also sit in tension with each other. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The subfield of Sociology of Education (SOE) concerned with the growth of neoliberalism through critically analysing its policies, discourses, and processes of subjectivation has made a significant contribution to education in the last 40 years. Whilst this scholarship has generated new knowledge about what happens to people, contexts and educational systems when they are regulated by neoliberal logics, it has also subsumed the sociological imagination under what this episteme considers valuable. The paper aims to challenge this excessive focus on the neoliberal episteme by broadening our research scope to recover the subjects' magmatic expression in SOE research. To do this, we introduce Hugo Zemelman's notion of subject to examine how SOE can overcome this neoliberal closure. The paper discusses three epistemic movements: focusing on the subject, researching the undetermined possibilities of the present in a given order, and, paying attention to the evocative and symbolic aspects of thinking and language. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper identifies a new discourse about tourism, that of final wish making. The website communications of charitable foundations whose dedicated purpose is to grant final wishes for adults with a terminal illness and their families were examined using critical discourse analysis. Specifically, the aim of this study was to understand how these charitable organisations construct, communicate and mediate meanings around terminal illness and travel for these individuals. Our study found that, promoted as a final wish in one's life, tourism is framed as a transformational concept that is beneficial in the imminent time before death, as a legacy for life, and after death. Our analysis indicated implications around the memory-making potential of tourism and the differential power relations between final wish organisers and vulnerable individuals with a terminal illness. The paper calls for further research exploring the marginalisation of the terminally ill through tourism, but equally the potential of tourism to include the most vulnerable tourists in their final days. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the marketing of trending green cosmetic products containing natural ingredients and coming with claims to keep skin health-enhancing and age-defying benefits. This is fostered by the growing importance of successful ageing and the neoliberal self-care agenda. Adopting the notion of "integrated design" from Multimodal Critical Discourse Analysis (MCDA), this paper looks at the communicative affordances of the web and how marketers of "green" cosmetics connect these to science. The analysis shows that the integrated design of the webpages allows cosmetic companies to connote science while glossing over significant details, leaving causalities, classifications, and processes unspecified. This marketing frames fighting the "look" of ageing as a moral and ethical consumption choice. Such choices relate to self-care regimes of a "successful" neoliberal citizenship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper interrogates the concept of place-branding and celebrity. It uses Liverpool Football Club striker Robbie Fowler and his roots in Toxteth as a way to contest the unidirectional relationship between celebrity and place. Where 'traditional' place-branding sees a celebrity's positive symbolic capital transferred to place, this paper shows how the direction of transfer may be reversed with the symbolic capital of a place flowing towards the celebrity. It takes the stigmatized area of Toxteth and shows what happens when the negative symbolic capital of place is entered into the discourse of celebrity. In the case of Fowler, this paper highlights how a territorially stigmatised Toxteth is used as both a symbolic millstone that drags him down and an illustration of his achievements 'against the odds'. Using a Critical Discourse Analysis and drawing on a Chomskyian framing of the political economy of the media, this paper suggests that the linking of Fowler and Toxteth is illustrative of a broader neoliberal ideology that sees symbolic violence as the means of ensuring a distinct social stratification. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]