The first aim of the thesis is to demonstrate the structural congruence between the discourse theory, as is formulated in the work of political philospoher Ernesto Laclau, and the Lacanian psychoanalytical discouse. Moreover, we claim that any potential attempt to remove or omit the theoretical connection with Lacanian thinking from Laclauan work is illegitimate and thwart a coherence of this work. Through this demonstration we want to reach our second aim, which is to reconstruct a theory of discourse and ideology in particular which can consistently draw upon theories of both Jacques Lacan and Ernesto Laclau. To reinforce our argumentation in context of this second aim, it turned out to be very fruitful to introduce another contemporary thinker, Slavoj Žižek, to our theoretical exposition. Joining these two aims made possible a delineation of post-structurally and at the same time psychoanalytically oriented critical political theory of ideology and society.

This study was conducted in order to interpret claims of antisemitism in Malmö, Sweden, depicted as an effect of political events in Palestine/Israel. It is argued that contemporary antisemitism is a new phenomenon, where hostility towards Jewish people is argued to be motivated by hostility towards Israel by perpetrators identified as ”Muslims” and/or people with roots in the Middle East and North Africa. Using previous literature, this view is contrasted with arguments that antisemitism as a phenomenon should not be delimited to such group formations and rather that different arguments are often projected on Palestine/Israel, in relation to antisemitism for political agendas. This paper investigates the meaning making processes of two news reports depicting claims of antisemitism in Malmö, Sweden as an effect of events in Palestine/Israel in May 2021 by using the Discourse Theory of Ernesto Laclau & Chantal Mouffe. The analysis investigates the ideas and underlying assumptions found in the material and posits the depictions made, with alternative possible ascriptions of meaning, excluded from the discursive formations made in the material. The conclusion reached is that reproducing many arguments of “new antisemitism” and of Malmö as “antisemitic” may misdirect the “combat” of antisemitism at the disadvantage for pro-Palestinian movements and further strengthen arguments many of which are taken for granted within the empiric material, for the salience of the existence of Israel and Zionism, due to the prevalence of antisemitism. Due to the limited nature of this paper, the author hopes that it can inspire future research within the field, as more extensive research, according to the author, is highly needed.

I denne opgave undersøges diskursen hos lærere og ledere i forbindelse med lærerkonflikten i Danmark i 2013. Med en diskursanalytisk tilgang inspireret af Chantal Mouffe og Ernesto Laclau undersøges lederartikler i fagbladene Plenum og Folkeskolen før, under og efter konflikten. En analyse af den retoriske situation og et særligt fokus på metaforer, som udtryk for såkaldte strukturelle landskaber, supplerer den diskursanalytiske metode. I en sammenfattende diskussion af analysens resultater vurderes forskellige udtryk for hegemoni indenfor diskurserne. Hvor skolelederne tydeligt skelner mellem skolereform og overenskomstforhandlinger gør lærerne det ikke. Lærernes og skoleledernes forskellige diskurser forholder sig ikke direkte antagonistisk til hinanden, men skaber til gengæld basis for en fremtidig selvstændig organisering for lederene udenfor Danmarks Lærerforening. / This study examines the discourses of teachers and principals regarding the teacher’s conflict in Denmark 2013. The methodological approach inspired by Chantal Mouffe and Ernesto Laclau examines editorials published by the unions (Danmarks Lærerforening and Skolelederforeningen) before, during and after the conflict. Furthermore metaphorical concepts and the rhetorical situation are subjects of analysis. Finally the results of the analysis are discussed in regard to aspects of Mouffe and Laclau´s theories on hegemony.

No description available.

Culture, orgin and identity are hot topics that are being discussed everywhere, for example in newspapers, lunchrooms and on Twitter. Politicians, media and ordinary people have displayed different antiracist acts, for example campaigns, marches and political actions. But you may wonder if it really is that effective, or if the antiracism reproduces racism with its language. The purpose of this study is to see if articles from the newspaper Aftonbladet's antiracist campaign ”We like different!” reproduces racism through its language. The method that is used is discourse analysis, more specific Chantal Laclau och Ernesto Mouffes discourse theory. The theories the study relies on are race, racism, framing, racism in news, binary oppositions, stereotypes, whiteness and orientalism. Two discourses were found in the material, ”We like different” and ”We like the same”. The most central piece in the ”We like different”-discourse is ”different”, which is associated with other origins than Swedish and different skincolor than white. ”Swedish” and ”white” are instead connected to ”the same”. ”Different” is portrayed as “the other”, the negative part of an binary opposition against ”the same”. ”We” is an identity the articles gives ”We like different” and is a dominant part of a binary opposition against ”them”. The identity ”immigrant” also exists in the discourse and is build as a stereotype. ”We like the same” is given a ”them” identity. ”Racism” is a central piece in the discourse and is associated with categorizing humans after ”race”. ”The Swedendemocrats” is build as an identity, and is connected to ”ignorance”, ”judging people after the color of their skin” and ”cold”. ”The voters of the Swedendemocrats” is described in a different way than the party itself. The peoples responsibility is taken away and they are instead connected to ”dissatisfaction” and that they ”don't understand” what they are voting for.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-26T18:14:54Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Adriana Mompean.pdf: 2058401 bytes, checksum: cffa616e830024addd5c796fb1361bb5 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2014-12-16 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / This research investigates how The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times and Folha de S. Paulo built in their contracts of communication some media themes during the election campaign for the US President in 2008, which culminated with the victory of the first American black president. We focused our attention on understanding how such newspapers approached the political position of Barack Obama against his Republican opponent, John McCain. The reports of both US newspapers plus those of the Brazilian one have been discursively analyzed in a time frame that goes from June to November of that year. The aim was to investigate the themes present in the reports and editorials and how their discourses have been built around Barack Obama personality. It was also analyzed the dissemination of narratives structured by the American media in the Brazilian newspaper. The discursive analysis chosen had the support of theories of Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe, whose bases on discourse and hegemony were essential to understand the discursive formations adopted by the print media and the political campaigns of both candidates, the Democratic and the Republican. From this approach we found the nodal points around which have been constituted the discourses of confrontation of both candidates according to the newspapers. As a result, we made explicit the discursive strategies employed in communicative contracts listed in our corpus as an effort to understand the construction of the so-called political myth "Obama" in the print media. It is expected that this research could contribute to deepen the discussion about the press coverage once the presidential election in the United States causes great interest in the worldwide media, also influencing the global news production / Esta pesquisa investiga como os jornais The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times e Folha de S.Paulo construíram em seus contratos de comunicação os temas midiáticos durante a campanha eleitoral para a presidência dos Estados Unidos em 2008, que culminou com a vitória do primeiro presidente negro norte-americano. Centramos a atenção em compreender como os jornais abordaram a postura política de Barack Obama frente ao seu adversário republicano, John McCain. Foram analisadas discursivamente as reportagens dos dois jornais norte-americanos e do brasileiro, em um recorte temporal que compreende os meses de junho a novembro daquele ano. O objetivo foi investigar as temáticas presentes nas reportagens e editoriais e como os discursos foram construídos em relação a Barack Obama. Também foi analisada a ocorrência da disseminação destas narrativas estruturadas pela mídia norte-americana no jornal brasileiro. A análise discursiva escolhida ampara-se nas teorias de Ernesto Laclau e Chantal Mouffe, cujos fundamentos sobre discurso e hegemonia foram essenciais para a compreensão das formações discursivas adotadas pela mídia impressa e pelas campanhas políticas dos candidatos democrata e republicano. A partir desse enfoque encontramos os pontos nodais ao redor dos quais se constituíram os discursos de enfrentamento dos candidatos nos jornais. Como resultado, explicitamos as estratégias discursivas empregadas nos contratos comunicativos enunciados em nosso corpus, em um esforço de entendimento de como ocorreu a construção do mito político Obama na mídia impressa em questão. A expectativa é que esta pesquisa contribua para aprofundar o debate sobre a cobertura jornalística realizada pela mídia impressa, visto que o pleito presidencial nos Estados Unidos desperta grande interesse nos meios de comunicação de todo mundo e influencia toda a produção jornalística mundial

Desde abril 2011 miles de estudiantes chilenos han salido a las calles para protestar contra el actual sistema educacional que se basa en las reformas neoliberales de Pinochet. Los estudiantes están luchando por una educación gratuita, estatal y de calidad para todos. El objetivo es entender mejor las causas de las protestas y analizar los discursos de los dos lados oponentes de la sociedad chilena, el del gobierno y el que apoya a la causa estudiantil. La primera pregunta de investigación pretende encontrar las principales razones y motivos de la movilización de los estudiantes. Se trata de entender cómo las políticas neoliberales del gobierno militar de Pinochet han afectado el actual sistema educativo. Existen principalmente dos posiciones diferentes al respecto del tema educacional en Chile, uno promueve la privatización, otro reclama por la estatización del sistema educativo. En relación con esto, la segunda pregunta investiga cómo los discursos dominantes del gobierno y los discursos alternativos que respaldan el movimiento estudiantil perciben al conflicto y a la sociedad. Los discursos son encontrados en material recogido en tres periódicos chilenos entre septiembre y diciembre 2011. Mediante la teoría del análisis del discurso de Laclau y Mouffe se analiza si el movimiento puede ser entendido como un intento de construir un discurso hegemónico alternativo. En las conclusiones se afirma que los discursos alternativos están desafiando los discursos hegemónicos del gobierno, dado que están creando una contra-hegemonía ya que han desarrollado demandas que reflejan una visión de la sociedad distinta a la visión hegemónica neoliberal.

Muslims and islam are unquestionably a part of European social life. In recent times, however, different events, such as the enlargement of the EU and the fact that muslims to a higher extent demand their rights, have brought a number of questions to the fore concerning muslims and islam in Europe. Moreover, we can see an increasing level of islamophobia in contemporary Europe, but also that the EU has launched several programs to increase both the diversity and the unity throughout the Union and to combat islamophobia. However, most of these programs focus on islam as religion and muslims in general, and such a narrow viewpoint runs the risk of missing important issues. In this new context it would be interesting to widen the scope and ask what place not only the muslim community and islam, but also sharia (an important element in islam), may have in future Europe – especially when it comes to muslim identity? My main objects are to see how the concept of sharia is constructed in the debates in the European Parliament, how that discourse relates to a social practice – the increasing islamophobic ideas in Europe – and what effect this may have on muslim identity in a European context. The results shows that the Parliament constructs sharia as, for example, something archaic, threatening, inhuman and misogynistic. In that sense, the discourse fits in with the predominant order of discourse regarding islam and muslims (in Europe) – and strengthen it. Though my results are neither absolute nor uniform, they show, persuasively enough, that sharia (as it is seen by the Parliament) is not consistent with and can not be included in or accepted by “European norms and values”. However, this must be said with one reservation: sharia is not always excluded as a whole. Still, it is not difficult to maintain that it is sharia as such that activates the (negative and) excluding connotations. Thus, an “approved” European muslim identity, as it seems, can not have too close connections with sharia, if (any) at all. Moreover, there is a risk that muslims themselves take on a restricting practice concerning their identity. In all, this will to a large extent circumscribe the possible muslim identities in Europe. To form a substantial and really pluralistic diversity in Europe, the EU, and others, must liberate itself from the logic of these discourses. But this is not an easy thing to do. One way that might be profitable, is to challenge the prevailing discourse with new narratives – narratives and voices that for the most part must come from the muslims themselves. Despite the fact that these voices do exist, as has been shown, the question is how and under what circumstances they can be seen – or rather heard. Unfortunately the answer is not to be found in this thesis; the need of further research is obvious.

The philosophical problem of the tension between liberty and order has dominated the agenda of western philosophy and science since the beginning of the history of thought, and it is a leading issue nowadays, too. The problem of the act of decision is particularly one of the significant themes of contemporary political thought. Instead of the classical poles of both voluntarism and determinism prioritising either the subject or the structure, what should be employed is a much deeper analysis of the relation between undecidability and the act of decision. In this respect, the discussion between Ernesto Laclau and Slavoj &amp / #381 / i&amp / #382 / ek is considerably illuminating. But there are also theoretical shortcomings shared by these thinkers. That is, despite the informativeness of this debate, there is an overwhelming necessity to critically assess this dialogue with a particular emphasis on the conceptual issues. In this regard, an overall scrutiny and critical assessment of this debate constitute the main body of this thesis.

近年來，台灣社會當中掀起了一股「台客文化」熱潮，不但有越來越多人以「台客」自稱，亦有「台客」為名的書籍出版、以「台客」為名的活動舉辦，形成了一股文化「台」風，本文探究「台客文化」之社會想像的形成及其文化意義。 「台客」這個詞彙最早起自於50年代，外省人嘲笑講國語不標準的本省人是「台客」，近年來則又在青少年次文化場域中興起，指著穿著打扮很俗氣、不入流的人，多半帶有鄙視的意味。不過，2005年八月，歌手伍佰、陳昇等人舉辦「台客搖滾」演唱會，翻轉「台客」一詞原來的負面意涵，將「台客」視為一種「驕傲的認同」，聲言「在台灣，人人都是台客」、「台客就是台灣的文化」，帶動了社會中「以台客為榮」的「新台客」論述，以「台灣特色」形成「台客文化」的想像軸心，使得檳榔西施、歌手伍佰的搖滾樂、傳統的布袋戲……等均接合進入「台客文化」的想像中，形成了一股「台客文藝復興運動」。不同於當前「台客」的研究多半將「台客」的意義固定、本質化的處理，在觀察的取徑上，本文採用拉克勞與慕芙(Laclau&Mouffe)霸權／論述理論中的「空符徵」(empty signifier)概念作為切入此一現象的理論與方法，考察「台客」一詞意義流變的論述軌跡，如何從一個狹義的風格指稱，逐漸擴大成了一個促動關於「我們台灣」之文化共同體的想像的符號。 本文以為，使得「台客」擴大成為代表「我們台灣」的空符徵之所以可能，乃在於「新台客」論述將「台客」建構為一種得以與美、日、韓與之抗衡、代表我們台灣特色的文化想像，吸納了台灣社會流行文化語境當中長期以來始終處於哈韓、哈日、哈美而獨缺哈台的文化認同焦慮情緒以及隨之期望「哈台」的文化民族主義文化主體慾望，成為文化全球化衝擊之下，一種「本土化」力量的抗衡與反撲。另一方面，本文也發現，在「人人都是台客」、「台客就是台灣文化」這樣文化共同體的光明號召論述下，看似「眾聲喧嘩」的「台客文化」想像之中，仍有一個「主音」是被明顯合唱的——那麼便是將在過去國民黨語言政策下所壓制的遭到禁制的台語歌、布袋戲、歌仔戲，在這一波「新台客」論述中以「台客」之名重新被歡呼，一方面是針對「舊台客」論述當中的語言歧視問題藉著「新台客」的意義重整進行象徵鬥爭，另一方面亦顯露了「台客文化」的形構力量，除了相對於「全球化」的「本土化」意識之外，亦顯露了與「中國」相對的「本土化」力量，在兩種「本土化」的交錯張力之中，開啟了通俗文化場域當中「台灣性」(Taiwaness)的想像起點。