Manipulative use of risk as a stance in political communication

Abstract

As in many other areas of life, the notion of risk has recently become central to discourses related to politics. This research paper shows how political and media representatives use the notion of risk in their rhetoric, making it an important part of and a powerful resource for manipulation. It is demonstrated how stances taken by speakers on different political issues reflect their social, political and moral views, showing that risk has become a common construct around which a political situation in the modern world is described, organized and practiced. In most general terms stance is understood here as the way of expression one’s viewpoint concerning the object of interaction, which in this study is risk. The theoretical background of the research is situated within socially constructivist approaches to discourse analysis. We argue that risk has become one of the defining social and cultural characteristics of modern society. The research focuses on the ways stances on risks are constructed at the linguistic level, by means of certain structural and formal qualities, and on how these linguistic features are related to social interaction under the conditions of political, moral, economic and social crisis in Ukraine.