Critiquing “Mainstream Media” on Twitter: Between Moralized Suspicion and Democratic Possibility

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dc.citation.volume17
dc.contributor.authorPhelan S
dc.contributor.authorMaeseele P
dc.date.accessioned2024-06-16T22:53:48Z
dc.date.available2024-06-16T22:53:48Z
dc.date.issued2023-06-30
dc.description.abstractHow can we understand the critique of mainstream media (MSM) in a political moment where intense suspicion of media and journalism has been normalized in reactionary discourses? This article addresses this question from a discourse theoretical perspective that is supported by a corpus-assisted interpretivist analysis of how the terms “MSM” and “mainstream media” were articulated in a January 2021 sample of more than 11,000 tweets from different time zones. We begin by clarifying the political stakes of our argument and situating the historical emergence of “mainstream media” as a discursive category. Our Twitter analysis highlights the “logic of equivalence” established between mainstream media and other identities and the normalization of a moralized representation of media as a corrupt ally of government. We conclude by speculating on how we might affirm a radical democratic conception of media critique in a cultural context where anti-MSM rhetoric can float easily between different discourses and ideologies.
dc.description.confidentialfalse
dc.format.pagination4304-4325
dc.identifier.citationPhelan S, Maeseele P. (2023). Critiquing “Mainstream Media” on Twitter: Between Moralized Suspicion and Democratic Possibility. International Journal of Communication. 17. (pp. 4304-4325).
dc.identifier.eissn1932-8036
dc.identifier.elements-typejournal-article
dc.identifier.issn1932-8036
dc.identifier.urihttps://mro.massey.ac.nz/handle/10179/69847
dc.languageEnglish
dc.publisherUSC Annenberg Press
dc.publisher.urihttps://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/19740
dc.relation.isPartOfInternational Journal of Communication
dc.rights(c) 2023 The Author/s
dc.rightsCC BY-NC-ND 3.0
dc.rights.urihttps://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/legalcode.en
dc.subjectcritique
dc.subjectdiscourse theory
dc.subjecthermeneutics of suspicion
dc.subjectlogic of equivalence
dc.subjectmainstream media
dc.subjectmoralized rhetoric
dc.subjectreactionary politics
dc.titleCritiquing “Mainstream Media” on Twitter: Between Moralized Suspicion and Democratic Possibility
dc.typeJournal article
pubs.elements-id484979
pubs.organisational-groupOther
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