The representation of thai pro-democracy activists in the new generation in online english-language newspapers: a critical discourse analysis

Abstract

This research focuses on the representation of the new generation of pro-democracy activists in Thailand in online English-language political news. The study applies Critical Discourse Analysis as a theoretical approach to examine the selection of semantic discourse strategies (i.e., lexicons, granularity, and local coherence) and formal discourse strategies (i.e., superstructures and syntactic structures) to construct the representation of the Thai pro-democracy activists and decode the ideological implications hidden in the news articles reporting on their political activism. The 30 English-language news articles reporting on identical situations published from October 2020 to March 2022 were downloaded from the Bangkok Post and Reuters websites and analyzed with the Ideological Square (van Dijk, 2000, 2006, 2011, 2013). The results of the study suggest that discourse strategies, including lexicons, granularity, local coherence, and superstructures, are ideologically selected to construct a negative other-presentation of Thai pro-democracy activists on the Bangkok Post website. In comparison to the Reuters website, the selection of these strategies is ideological-based when constructing a positive self-presentation of the same group of activists. However, the usage of syntactic structures is applied based on the appropriation of news writing style to represent social actors and their actions. The research advances the understanding of the way language is employed to create discourse and control the perception of audiences, with a particular emphasis on the ideological implications concealed in the selection of discourse strategies by news providers.