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Mediated Political Participation: Comparative Analysis of Right Wing and Left Wing Alternative Media

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2019, Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Ohio University, Mass Communication (Communication).
Democracy allows a plural media landscape where different types of media perform vital functions. Over the years, the public trust towards mainstream media has been eroding, limiting their ability to fulfill democratic functions within American society. Meanwhile, the Internet has led to the proliferation of alternative media outlets on digital space. These platforms allow new outreach and mobilizing opportunities to the once peripheral alternative media. So far, the literature about alternative media have been heavily focused on left-wing alternative media outlets, while the research on alternative right-wing media has remained scarce and fragmented. Only a few studies have applied a comparative analysis approach to study these outlets. Moreover, research that examines different aspects of alternative media such as content and audience reception is rarer. This study aims to demonstrate the heterogeneity of alternative media by highlighting their history and functions within American democracy. The second goal of the study is to assess the potential of such platforms to foster political participation. This research project aims to answer the following questions: What are the roles of alternative media in American democracy? What are the ways in which right-wing and left-wing alternative media foster political participation? How do they differ or resemble? To answer these questions, I adopted a two-pronged qualitative methodology. One focuses on audience reception. The other involves a critical analysis of their content. I conducted six focus groups with 24 students. The goal of this part of the study was to understand audience perceptions and experience with alternative media. I was also interested how the alternative content informs their decisions regarding political participation. In addition to the semi-structured questions, the participants read sample articles and listened to podcast segments from the right-wing media outlet, the Daily Wire and The Ben Shapiro Show, and the left-wing outlet, Crooked Media and Pod Save America. The responses were analyzed using a thematic analysis. The second method used to analyze the content of alternative media was critical discourse analysis (CDA). Twenty articles were analyzed from Crooked Media and the Daily Wire, published between November 2017-May 2018. The articles were all selected based on their coverage of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) immigration policy. The theoretical framework of the analysis was Gramsci’s theory of hegemony. Based on Fairclough’s (1995) CDA model, each article was analyzed on three dimensions, text or grammatical choices of the authors, discursive practices, and their relation to the sociocultural context. The results of the focus groups revealed that the students who participated in the discussions had varying views about alternative media. Some thought that alternative media are simply new or digital media platforms. Other participants suggested that alternative media are conspiratorial and associated them with alternative facts. The results also showed that the participants would be more motivated to be politically active if the media content appealed to their emotions. Both negative and positive emotions seemed to trigger a willingness to be politically engaged. It is worth noting that the audio podcasts were more effective and affective as a medium than the articles. The critical discourse analysis demonstrated that the right-wing media outlet, The Daily Wire, mostly used negative frames and discourses to cover the undocumented immigrants. This included such hegemonic conservative frames as crime, and illegals breaking the rules, and amnesty. The undocumented immigrants were passive actors in the texts, while political officials and people in power were activated and granted agency through semantic tools. The left-wing media outlet, Crooked Media authors also passivized undocumented immigrants. However, their discourses were more humanizing, emotional and advocacy-oriented. The articles from both platforms were highly influenced by the larger sociocultural and political context. This study extends our understanding of alternative media located on the opposite ends of the political spectrum. The findings show that right-wing and left-wing alternative media have the potential to spur political participation if they appeal to the emotions of young people. The findings also indicate the discursive representation of undocumented immigrants is problematic as both outlets reproduce, rather than counter hegemony. Alternative media outlets should serve as the public spheres and as such, should activate agonistic and deliberative elements of democracy within the representative model. To do so, they should connect conflicting narratives, create new hegemonies and articulate them through civil discourses. As the audience responses suggest, alternative media are expected to recreate the public imagination of the political processes that are aimed at the common good. In conclusion, alternative media have vitals functions in society to complement and better mainstream media’s role. They could potentially motivate more young audiences using the affordances of digital platforms, producing civic discourses and creating a civic culture for participation. More research in this field and more comparative and critical approaches could help to find the ways in which these objectives could be achieved on a pragmatic level.
Wolfgang Suetzl, PhD (Advisor)
269 p.

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Grigoryan, N. (2019). Mediated Political Participation: Comparative Analysis of Right Wing and Left Wing Alternative Media [Doctoral dissertation, Ohio University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ohiou1560681444996954

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Grigoryan, Nune. Mediated Political Participation: Comparative Analysis of Right Wing and Left Wing Alternative Media. 2019. Ohio University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ohiou1560681444996954.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Grigoryan, Nune. "Mediated Political Participation: Comparative Analysis of Right Wing and Left Wing Alternative Media." Doctoral dissertation, Ohio University, 2019. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ohiou1560681444996954

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)