dc.description.abstract | This thesis is a rhetorical discourse analysis of FrP and party leader Sylvi Listhaug’s use of
right-wing populist discursive strategies and rhetorical tools in Facebook posts between
08.05.21-08.05.23. This approach is used to understand how they are using populist
discursive strategies on social media and to which degree social media as a platform can
enable populist rhetoric and function to influence and manipulate the masses.
The theoretical approach to populism in this thesis bases itself in the discursive approaches of
Laclau and Wodak and emphasises how the homogenising effects of empty and floating
signifiers appear in the discursive strategies characteristic of right-wing populists and
strengthen an equivalential chain.
The data material that is analysed consists of three posts from Listhaug’s personal Facebook
account and three posts from FrP’s main party account, selected out of two data sets which
gathered a total of 657 posts. Through a rhetorical discourse analysis, we identify discursive
strategies employed by these two actors and analyse how rhetorical tools function to
strengthen these.
In the discussion we then establish that Listhaug and FrP both make exemplary use of both
discursive strategies and the rhetorical tools and have a highly populistic mode of articulation
in the expression of their equivalential chain. On social media their discourse functions to
unite its voters using empty and floating signifiers while forming an antagonistic relationship
with the “elite”, oppositional parties, and the “others”, immigrants mainly of Muslim origin
and those who do not conform with Norwegian tradition. This discourse is strengthened by
their appeal to emotions, pathos, to strengthen both their credibility, ethos, and allow them to
utilise common-sense lines of argumentation, logos.
Connected to their exemplary use of discursive strategies and rhetorical tools, we identify
Listhaug being particularly prone to the accusation that she is using propaganda. Propaganda
here in terms of manipulating the masses through language. In the context of this case, social
media could therefore be said to enable populist rhetoric to a degree, but it is not without its
limitations bound in the existence of discourse and challenging offline as well as online. | |