Visibility and invisibility: Exploring the representation of women and men in Irish politics. The example of the 2011 broadcasts.
Downloads
Abstract
Although the socio-economic situation of Ireland has improved in the last decade, the situation of women continues to be
unequal to men and there are certain limitations in their
rights. Despite well-known exceptions, women have tended
to be underrepresented in Irish politics. However, in the last
elections some of them decided to run for the Republic’s
presidency as well as to become the first female Irish Prime
Minister. In this sense, this research paper will try to contribute
to the representation of women in the 2011 campaigns.
Both general and presidential referendums will be under
analysis. Our sample will consist of the most representative
TV broadcasts of the main political parties (i.e. Fianna Feil,
Fine Gael, Sinn Fein, among others).
As regards methodology, we will aim for the combination of
critical discourse analysis and multimodal critical discourse
analysis in order to observe the main visual representation of
politicians as social actors (van Leeuwen, 2008), and consider
the possible similarities and differences between women and
men politicians. The study aims to observe if there are as many
women as men politicians in the broadcasts of the 2011 electoral
campaigns in Ireland and to pay attention to the way
women and men politicians are portrayed in the broadcasts
under analysis. The analysis will show that politicians are
portrayed as elite individuals, that there is a general positive
representation of the candidates and that women are underrepresented
in Irish politics, which points out that it continues
being a challenge for democracy the participation of women in
politics since their representation or role is not equal compared
to men.
Keywords
Multimodality, broadcasts, critical discourse analysis, Celtic Tiger period.Downloads
References
Álvarez-Benito, G., Fernández-Díaz, G. &
Íñigo-Mora, I.M. (Eds.) (2009). Discourse and Politics.
Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishers.
Archenti, N. & Tula, M.I. (Eds.) (2008).
Mujeres y política en América Latina. Sistemas electorales
y cuotas de género. Buenos Aires: Heliasta.
Aulich, J. & Sylvestrová, M. (1999). Political
Posters in Central and Eastern Europe, 1945-95:
Signs of the Times. Manchester: Manchester University
Press.
Baccaro, L. & Simone, M. (2004). The Irish
social partnership and the ‘Celtic Tiger’ phenomenon.
Discussion Paper Series, 154.
International Labour Organization, Geneva,
Switzerland.
Baldry, A. & Thibault, P.J. (2006). Multimodal
Transcription and Text Analysis. London:
Equinox.
Bateman, J. (2008). Multimodality and Genre:
a Foundation for the Systematic Analysis of Multimodal
Documents. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
Bezemer, J. & Jewett, C. (2010). Multimodal
Analysis: Key Issues. In L. Litosseliti,
(Ed.), Research Methods in Linguistics (pp.
181-197). London: Continuum.
Bird, K. (2003). Who are the women? Where
are the women? And what difference can they make?
Effects of gender parity in French municipal elections.
French Politics, 1(1), 5-38.
Bowcher, W.L. (Ed.). (2012). Multimodal
Texts from Around the World: Cultural and Linguistic
Insights. London: Palgrave.
Celis, K., Erzeel, S., Mügge, L. & Damstra,
A. (2014). Quotas and intersectionality: Ethnicity
and gender in candidate selection. International Political
Science Review, 35(1), 41-54.
Chen, L. (2007). Negatives and positives in
the language of politics attitudes towards authority in
the British and Chinese press. Journal of Language
and Politics, 6(3), 475-502.
Chilton, P.A. (2004a). Political Discourse
Analysis. London: Routledge.
Chilton, P.A. (2004b). Analysing Political
Discourse: Theory and Practice. London: Routledge.
Chilton, P.A. & Schèaffner, C. (Eds.)
(2002). Politics as Text and Talk: Analytic Approaches
to Political Discourse. Amsterdam/Philadelphia:
John Benjamins.
Conlon, D. (2007). The Nation as Embodied
Practice: Women, Migration and the Social Production
of Nationhood in Ireland. Ph.D. Thesis. New
York: City University of New York.
Conroy, P. (2003). Migrant Women – Ireland
in the international division of care. In R. Lentin
& E. Luibheid (Eds.), Women's Movement: Migrant
Women Transforming Ireland'. Selection of papers
from a conference held in Trinity College Dublin, 20-
21 March 2003 (pp. 18-25). Dublin: MPhil in Ethnic
and Racial Studies, TCD.
Conway, B. (2006). Who do we think we
are? Immigration and the discursive construction of
national identity in an Irish daily mainstream newspaper,
1996–2004. Translocations: The Irish Migration,
Race and Social Transformation Review, 1(1), 76–
94.
Darmody, M., Tyrrell, N. & Song, S. (Eds.)
(2011). The Changing Faces of Ireland. Exploring the
Lives of Immigrant and Ethnic Minority Children.
Rotterdam: Sense Publishers.
Fairclough, N. (1995). Critical Discourse
Analysis: The Critical Study of Language. London:
Longman.
Fairclough, I. & Fairclough, N. (2012). Political
Discourse Analysis. A Method for Advanced
Students. London/New York: Routledge.
Fetzer, A. & Lauerbach, G.E. (2007). Introduction.
Political Discourse in the Media. Crosscultural
perspectives. In A. Fetzer & G.E. Lauerbach
(Eds.), Political Discourse in the Media. Crosscultural
Perspectives (pp. 3-28). Amsterdam/
Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
Flewitt, R., Hampel, R., Hauck, M. & Lancaster,
L. (2009). “Multimodal data collection and
transcription”. In C. Jewitt, Carey (Ed.), The Routledge
Handbook of Multimodal Analysis (pp. 40-53).
London: Routledge.
Gaughan, L. & Garre, P.M. (2011). The
‘most twisted and unaccountable force in the state’?
Newspaper accounts of social work in the Republic of
Ireland in troubled times. Journal of Social Work,
12(3), 267–286.
Geis, M. L. (1987). The Language of Politics.
New York: Springer.
Halliday, M.A.K. (1978). Language as Social
Semiotic: The Social Interpretation of Language and
Meaning. London: Edward Arnold.
Howard Davis, R. (1997). Women and Power
in Parliamentary Democracies. Cabinet Appointments
in Western Europe, 1968-1992. Nebraska:
University of Nebraska Press.
Hutcheson, D.S. (2011). The February 2011
Parliamentary Election in Ireland. IBIS Working Paper
no. 109. Working Papers in British-Irish Studies.
Dublin: Institute for British-Irish Studies, University
College Dublin.
Jewett, C. (Ed.). (2009). The Routledge
Handbook of Multimodal Analysis. London: Routledge.
Johnston, A. (2006). Methodologies for the
Study of Political Advertising. In L.L. Kaid & C.
Holtz-Bacha (Eds.), The Sage Handbook of Political
Discourse (pp. 15-34). London: Sage Publications.
Kaid, L. L. (2004a). Introduction and Overview
of the Field. In L.L. Kaid (Ed.), Political Communication
Research (pp. xiii-xviii). London/New
Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Kaid, L.L. (2004b). Political advertising. In
L.L. Kaid (Ed.), Handbook of Political Communication
Research (pp. 155-202). Mahwah, New Jersey:
Lawrence Earlbaum Associates, Publishers.
Kaid, L.L., & Holtz-Bacha, C. (Eds.) (2006).
The Sage Handbook of Political Advertising. Thousand
Oaks: Sage.
Kaid, L.L. & Holtz-Bacha, C. (2006). Political
Advertising in International Comparison. In L.L.
Kaid & C. Holtz-Bacha (Eds.), The Sage Handbook of
Political Discourse (pp. 3-13). London: Sage Publications.
Kennedy, P. (2006). Migrant women in Ireland:
Social rights and personal autonomy. Paper
presented at Migrations and Social Policies in Europe.
Universidad Pública de Navarra, Pamplona, Spain.
8th June 2006.
Khosravinik, M. (2010). Actor descriptions,
action attributions, and argumentation: towards a
systematization of CDA analytical categories in the
representation of social groups. Critical Discourse
Studies, 7(1), 55-72.
Kress, G. (2010). Multimodality. A Social
Semiotic Approach to Contemporary Communication.
London: Routledge.
Kress, G. & van Leeuwen, T. (1996). Reading
Images: The Grammar of Visual Design. London:
Routledge Press.
Kress, G. & van Leeuwen, T. (2001). Multimodal
Discourse: The Modes and Media of Contemporary
Communication. London: Arnold.
Kress, G. & van Leeuwen, T. (2006). Reading
Images: The Grammar of Visual Design (2nd
ed.). London: Routledge.
Kress, G., Jewitt, C., Ogborn, J. & Charalampos,
T. (2001). Multimodal Teaching and Learning.
The Rhetorics of the Science Classroom. London:
Continuum.
Kyrala, C. (2010). Systemic linguistic analysis
of samples from economic speeches by Barak
Obama and John McCain. Journal of Language and
Politics, 9(1), 74-95.
Lemke, J. (1998). Multiplying Meaning:
Visual and verbal semiotics in scientific text. In J.R.
Martin & R. Veel (Eds.), Reading Science (pp. 87-
113). London: Routledge.
Luengo, O.G. (2011). Debates electorales en
televisión: Una aproximación preliminar a sus efectos
inmediatos. Revista Española de Ciencia Política, 25,
81-96.
Machin, D. (2007). Introduction to Multimodal
Analysis, London: Hodder Arnold.
Marsh, M. & Mikhaylov, S., (2012). Economic
voting in a crisis: The Irish election of 2011.
Electoral Studies, 31(3), 478-484.
Martínez Lirola, M. (2014). The portrayal of
women’s contribution to Irish society through a sample
from the Irish press. Studi Irlandesi. A Journal of
Irish Studies, 4, 43-58.
O’Halloran K.L. (ed.) (2004). Multimodal
Discourse Analysis. Systemic Functional Perspectives.
London: Continuum.
O’Halloran, K.L. (2008). Systemic functional
multimodal discourse analysis (SF-MDA): constructing
ideational meaning using language and visual
imagery. Visual Communication, 7, 443–475.
O’Halloran, K.L. (2011). Multimodal Discourse
Analysis. In K. Hyland & B. Paltridge (Eds.),
The Continuum Companion to Discourse Analysis
(pp. 120-137). London/New York: Continuum.
O'Halloran, K.L. & Smith, B. (Eds.) (2011).
Multimodal Studies. Exploring Issues and Domains.
London: Routledge.
O’Connell, M. (2001). Changed utterly:
Ireland and the new Irish psyche. Dublin: The Liffey
Press.
O’Connor, P. (2001). Emerging Voices:
Women in Contemporary Irish Society. Dublin: Institute
of Public Administration.
Paxton, P. & Hughes, M. (2007). Women,
Politics and Power: A Global Perspective. Thousand
Oak, CA: Pine Forge Press.
Phelan, S. (2007). The discourses of neoliberal
hegemony: The case of the Irish Republic. Critical
Discourse Studies, 4(1), 29–48.
Reinemann, C. & Wilke, J. (2007). It’s the
debates, stupid! How the introduction of televised
debates changed the portrayal of chancellor candidates
in the German press, 1949-2005. Press/Politics,
12, 92-111.
Royce, T. (2003). Intersemiotic Complementarity
in Multimodal Text: An Analytical Framework.
In M. Amano (Ed.), Creation and Practical
Use of Language Texts. Proceedings of the Text Second
International Conference Studies for the Integrated
Text Science (pp. 99-109). Nagoya: Graduate
School of Letters, Nagoya University.
Royce, T.D. (2007). Intersemiotic Complementarity:
a Framework for Multimodal Discourse
Analysis. In T. D. Royce & W. L. Bowcher (Eds.),
New Directions in the Analysis of Multimodal Discourse
(pp. 63-109). London: Lawrence Erlbaum
Associates.
Royce, T. D. & Bowcher, W. L. (Eds.).
(2007). New Directions in the Analysis of Multimodal
Discourse. London: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Stenglin, M. (2009). Space Odyssey: Towards
a social semiotic model of 3D space. Visual
Communication, 8(1), 35-64.
Stokes, W. (2005). Women in Contemporary
Politics. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Unsworth, L. (2010). Resourcing multimodal
literacy pedagogy. Toward a description of the
meaning-making resources of language-image interaction.
In T. Locke (Ed.), Beyond the Grammar Wars
(pp. 276-293). London: Routledge.
van Dijk, T. A. (1998). What is political
discourse analysis? In J. Blommaert & C. Bulcaen
(Eds.), Political Linguistics (pp. 11-52). Amsterdam/
Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
van Dijk, T. A. (2002). Political discourse
and political cognition. In P. A. Chilton & C.
Schäffner (Eds.), Politics as Text and Talk. Analytical
Approaches to Political Discourse (pp. 204-236).
Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
van Dijk, T. A. (2005). War rhetoric of a
little ally. Political implicatures and Aznar’s legitimatization
of the war in Iraq. Journal of Language and
Politics, 4(1), 65–91.
van Dijk, T. A. (2006). Politics, Ideology
and Discourse. In R. Wodak (Ed.), Elsevier Encyclopedia
of Language and Linguistics (pp. 728-240).
Volume on Politics and Language. (2nd ed.). Oxford:
Elsevier.
Ventola, E., Cassily, C. & Kaltenbacher, M.
(Eds.) (2004). Perspectives on Multimodality. Amsterdam/
Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
Verge, T. & de la Fuente, M. (2014). Playing
with different cards: Party politics, gender quotas and
women’s empowerment. International Political
Science Review, 35(1), 67-79.
Woods, N. (2007). Describing Discourse. A
Practical Guide to Discourse Analysis. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
Van Leeuwen, T. & Jewitt, C. (2001). Introduction.
In T. Van Leeuwen & C. Jewitt (Eds.), The
Handbook of Visual Analysis (pp. 1-9). London: Sage.