Master of Arts / Department of Communications Studies / Soo-Hye Han / The rise of partisan political news over the past two decades has influenced how political candidates discursively construct their image. While there is an extensive literature devote to presidential discourse, little is known about what gubernatorial discourse looks like and how they construct their image. This study examines how gubernatorial candidates discursively construct their image in a hyperpolarized electoral environment. An extensive content analysis of gubernatorial political interviews (n = 94), and specifically the utterances arising from those interviews (n = 1,524), was conducted. Findings show that gubernatorial candidates discursively construct their own image as a savior to the state, while creating their opponent’s and the DC elite’s image as a villain. Additionally, gubernatorial candidates do not adhere to the image bound by their party, and construct an image that is unique to their environment. Consequently, the environment that a gubernatorial candidate is situated influences how they communicate and construct their image and their opponent’s image. By examining gubernatorial discourse through political interviews, this study offers theoretical implications into understanding the influence of polarization, issue ownership, and tone in gubernatorial discourse. Practical implications examine the role of media outlets in gubernatorial discourse. This study contributes to scholarly understanding of gubernatorial discourse in a changing and polarizing political environment.

Abstract. The aim of this M.A. thesis is to apply on the sample of five transcribed interviews with American politicians the typology of strategies devised by social psychologists P. Bull and K. Mayer (1993) for 'non-replies' of British politicians in the genre of a political interview and to determine whether this typology could be qualitatively correlated to specific linguistic means (the use of passive, pronominal shifts, hedges). The responses of politicians are examined within the CDA method also in relation to the macro-principles of evasion (dissimulation), coercion, legitimation and delegitimation, which are claimed to be valid in political discourse by P. Chilton (2004) in order to discover whether Bull and Mayer's social typology could be related to these principles and to the strategies of face-management (Brown and Levinson 1987). It is expected that politicians will boost their positive image in the interview and coerce the public in the agenda shift (Clayman, Heritage 2002) through every response in the interview. A question which according to Bull and Elliott (1996) consists of face threat is also expected to be attacked; quantitative results are presented which verify this assumption. In addition, as thirty strategies were observed to have been employed by Mrs Thatcher and Neil Kinnock in...

Los medios de comunicación conforman una pieza indispensable en el desarrollo de la opinión pública en las campañas presidenciales. La presente investigación se rige sobre los factores que perjudican la imparcialidad en el ejercicio profesional de la prensa en las entrevistas durante el proceso de las campañas políticas. Esto con la finalidad de identificar cómo la prensa logra construir la realidad en base a los siguientes conceptos: Imparcialidad en la información periodística, periodismo especializado, entrevista periodística y periodismo en campañas electorales. / The mass media are an indispensable piece in the development of public opinion in presidential campaigns. This research is governed by the problem of the factors that harm the existence of impartiality in the professional exercise of the press in interviews during the political campaign process. This in order to identify how the press manages to build reality based on the following concepts: Impartiality in journalistic information, specialized journalism, journalistic interview and journalism in electoral campaigns. / Trabajo de investigación