ACTIVATE! Change Drivers: blame-attribution and active citizenship on a South Africa youth blog
-
Marthinus Stander Conradie
Marthinus Stander Conradie holds a PhD in critical discourse analysis and inferential pragmatics from the University of the Free State. His research interests stem from discourse analysis and critical race theory, which he applies to various sites where discourses around race and racism are produced and contested, including everyday political argumentation.
Abstract
Processes of blame-attribution can be conceptualised as socially-situated and discursively-mediated events that feature attempts to assign meaning to harmful (or at least potentially harmful) occurrences. Part of the process involves the search for culprits and subsequent argumentation as to the blameworthiness of those singled out for blame. This study conducts a discourse analysis of blame-attribution in 33 online opinion pieces, posted on the website of the civil society organisation: ACTIVATE! Change Drivers. It concentrates on arguments that address the nexus between youth activism, active citizenship, the legacy of Apartheid and blame for the numerous problems afflicting the South African youth. The most recurring arguments hinged on constructions of the South African government as responsible to supporting the capacity of the contemporary youth to participate effectively in democracy, particularly since the youth continue to endure the repercussions of Apartheid. My analysis details the discursive repertoires through which this proposition is made, and considers its implications for research into contemporary online youth cultures and democratic argumentation.
About the author
Marthinus Stander Conradie holds a PhD in critical discourse analysis and inferential pragmatics from the University of the Free State. His research interests stem from discourse analysis and critical race theory, which he applies to various sites where discourses around race and racism are produced and contested, including everyday political argumentation.
References
ACTIVATE! Change Drivers. 2019. Retrieved from the World Wide Web in January 2019 from https://www.activateleadership.co.za/.Suche in Google Scholar
Bakardjieva, Maria. 2010. The internet and subactivism: Cultivating young citizenship in everyday life. In Tobias Olsson & Peter Dahlgren (eds.), Young people, ICTs and democracy, 129–146. Gothenburg: Nordicom.Suche in Google Scholar
Bosch, Tanya. 2013. Youth, Facebook and politics in South Africa. Journal of African Media Studies 5(2). 119–130. https://doi.org/10.1386/jams.5.2.119_1.Suche in Google Scholar
Bosch, Tanya. 2017. Twitter activism and youth in South Africa: The case of #RhodesMustFall. Information, Communication and Society 20(2). 221–232. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369118x.2016.1162829.Suche in Google Scholar
Breeze, Ruth. 2019. Emotion in politics: Affective discursive practices in UKIP and Labour. Discourse & Society 30(1). 24–43. https://doi.org/10.1177/0957926518801074.Suche in Google Scholar
Buire, Chloe & Lynn Staeheli. 2017. Contesting the “active” in active citizenship: Youth activism in Cape Town, South Africa. Space and Polity 21(2). 173–190. https://doi.org/10.1080/13562576.2017.1339374.Suche in Google Scholar
Chipkin, Ivor. 2003. The South African nation. Transformation: Critical Perspectives on Southern African 51. 25–47. https://doi.org/10.1353/trn.2003.0018.Suche in Google Scholar
Devereux, Eoin & Martin Power. 2019. Fake news? A critical analysis of the “Welfare Cheats, Cheat Us All” campaign in Ireland. Critical Discourse Studies 16(3). 347–362. https://doi.org/10.1080/17405904.2019.1568898.Suche in Google Scholar
Grue, Jan. 2009. Critical discourse analysis, topoi and mystification: Disability policy documents from a Norwegian NGO. Discourse Studies 11(3). 305–328. https://doi.org/10.1177/1461445609102446.Suche in Google Scholar
Hansson, Sten. 2018a. The discursive micro-politics of blame-avoidance: Unpacking the language of government blame games. Policy Sciences 51. 545–564. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11077-018-9335-3.Suche in Google Scholar
Hansson, Sten. 2018b. Analysing opposition-government blame games: Argument models and strategic manoeuvring. Critical Discourse Studies 15(3). 228–246. https://doi.org/10.1080/17405904.2017.1405051.Suche in Google Scholar
Herfroy-Mischler, Alexandra & Elie Friedman. 2018. The “blame game frame”: Ethical blame patterns and media framing upon negotiations failure in the Middle East. Journalism 21(1). 1–20. https://doi.org/10.1177/1464884918791219.Suche in Google Scholar
Leong, C. & M. Howlett. 2017. On credit and blame: Disentangling the motivations of public policy decision-making behaviour. Policy Sciences 50. 599–618. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11077-017-9290-4.Suche in Google Scholar
Lee, Ashley. 2018. Invisible networked publics and hidden contention: Youth activism and social media under repression. New Media & Society 20(11). 4095–4115. https://doi.org/10.1177/1461444818768063.Suche in Google Scholar
Tavernaro-Haidarian, Leyla. 2018. Evolving ‘discoarse’ into discourse: Ubuntu as a normative basis. Communicatio 44(1). 1–15. https://doi.org/10.1080/02500167.2017.1415945.Suche in Google Scholar
Tilly, Charles. 2008. Credit and blame. Princeton: Princeton University Press.10.1515/9781400829644Suche in Google Scholar
Toulmin, Stephen. 2003. The uses of argument. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9780511840005Suche in Google Scholar
Von Scheve, Christian, Veronika Zink & Sven Ismer. 2016. The blame game: Economic crisis responsibility. discourse and affective framings. Sociology 50(4). 635–651. https://doi.org/10.1177/0038038514545145.Suche in Google Scholar
Zienkowsky, Jan. 2019. Politics and the political in critical discourse studies: The state of the art and a call for an intensified focus on the metapolitical dimension of discursive practice. Critical Discourse Studies 16(2). 131–148.10.1080/17405904.2018.1535988Suche in Google Scholar
© 2022 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Frontmatter
- Ear cupping in EFL classroom interaction: an embodied means of pursuing students’ response
- Japanese hypothetical enactment as a response to third-party complaint
- Metaphors we are robbed by: a critical discourse analysis of ‘the national cake’ and Nigeria’s prebendal elite
- Moral legitimation in capital trials: the case of the prosecution’s closing summation
- ACTIVATE! Change Drivers: blame-attribution and active citizenship on a South Africa youth blog
- Correlation between context and language at a high delicate level: taking Chinese emotion 喜欢 as an example
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Frontmatter
- Ear cupping in EFL classroom interaction: an embodied means of pursuing students’ response
- Japanese hypothetical enactment as a response to third-party complaint
- Metaphors we are robbed by: a critical discourse analysis of ‘the national cake’ and Nigeria’s prebendal elite
- Moral legitimation in capital trials: the case of the prosecution’s closing summation
- ACTIVATE! Change Drivers: blame-attribution and active citizenship on a South Africa youth blog
- Correlation between context and language at a high delicate level: taking Chinese emotion 喜欢 as an example
