In 2022 Russia launched a large-scale invasion of its neighboring country Ukraine which compelled the United States to support Ukraine in its defense of the country. This created a situation with strained relations between USA and its allies in NATO on one side and Russia on the other side. This situation closely resembles the situation that the two superpowers, USA and the Soviet Union, found them selves in during a particularly hot period of the coldwar during the early 1980s. This study relies on Faircloughs critical discourse analysis to analyze speeches held by cold war leaders during the early 1980s and leaders of today during the time of the war in Ukraine. This essay then compares these leaders use of constructed images of “the other” in search of similarities and differences in these constructions. This study comes to the conclusion that only two of the four speeches contain a constructed image of “the other” as a clear enemy while the other two speeches portray “the other” in a less extreme way by presenting them as something alien to the own group. This study also shows that certain ways of portraying “the other” aren't bound to certain eras of time or side in aperiod of strained relations and polarization.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:umu-227386 |
| Date | January 2024 |
| Creators | Liinanki, Einar |
| Publisher | Umeå universitet, Statsvetenskapliga institutionen |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | Swedish |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
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