Representation in Political Texts: Different Approaches to the Study of Parliamentary, Campaign and Social Media Discourse

Abstract

Political representation is one of the fundamental pillars of democracy as we know it, and constitutes the backbone of the democratic legitimacy of decision-makers. Discourse, in turn, is one of the most tangible empirical manifestations of political representation: during campaigns, political parties develop a certain discourse that matches the preferences of certain voters and, while in legislative and executive office, their actions are framed through a variety of political discourses. In addition, in the current digital era, discourse has acquired even more prominence in the democratic cycle, as tweets and facebook pages constantly fuel the political debate. This panel brings together a selection of papers that approach different discourses of the democratic cycle from different methodological angles. The aim is to provide a clearer picture of how political representation manifests itself in campaign- and institutional settings, and to reflect more deeply on the advantages and disadvantages of the various methodological approaches. On the one hand, the panel features studies of institutional discourses, looking both at parliamentary debates as well as communications between governments and parliaments. On the other, the panel features studies of electoral campaigns, both on the terrain of party manifestos, as well as on the terrain of parties’ social media communication strategies. Finally, the panel brings together a wealth of methods for extracting data from political discourse, ranging from a network analysis of “who talks to whom” in parliamentary debates to an automated content analysis of the communications between parties and voters.

Title	Details
Adopting or Adapting Policy Claims of the Radical Right? How Austrian Parties Cherry-Pick the Positions They Parrot	View Paper Details
Is Austrian budgetary policy still “political”? A cross-time comparison of budget speeches	View Paper Details
Trending Campaigns? Party Line Volatility Across (Social) Media.	View Paper Details
Who Talks to Whom? Discursive Networks in the European Parliament	View Paper Details