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

A dissertation presented to the faculty of the Scripps College of Communication of Ohio University

In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy

Nune Grigoryan August 2019 © 2019 Nune Grigoryan. All Rights Reserved.

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

by NUNE GRIGORYAN

has been approved for the School of Media Arts & Studies and the Scripps College of Communication by

Wolfgang Suetzl Assistant Professor of Media Arts & Studies

Scott Titsworth Dean, Scripps College of Communication

ii Abstract GRIGORYAN, NUNE, PhD, August 2019, Mass Communication Mediated Political Participation: Comparative Analysis of Right Wing and Left Wing Alternative Media Director of dissertation: Wolfgang Suetzl allows a plural media landscape where different types of media perform vital functions. Over years, the public trust towards mainstream media has been eroding, limiting their ability to fulfill democratic functions within the American society. Meanwhile, the Internet has led to 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 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 more . This study aims to demonstrate the heterogeneity of alternative media by highlighting their history and functions within the 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 the 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 the 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 segments from the right-wing media outlet, the Daily

iii Wire and The Show, and the left-wing outlet, and . The responses were analyzed using 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 , 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 the 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 willingness to be politically engaged. It is worth noting that the audio were more effective and affective as a 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 about alternative media located on the opposite ends of the . The findings show that right-wing and left-wing alternative media have the potential to spur political participation if they appeal to the

iv 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 the society to compliment and better mainstream media’s role. They could potentially motivate more young audiences using the affordances of the digital platforms, producing civic discourses and creating 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.

v Dedication

This work is dedicated to the bright memory of my aunt Elfrida Grigoryan.

vi Acknowledgments Writing this dissertation has been the most challenging and rewarding experience of my academic life. I have been privileged with incredible support from wonderful people who have helped me to cherish the challenges, and find joyful moments. I am deeply indebted to my academic adviser, Dr. Wolfgang Suetzl, who played a paramount role in my becoming as an academic. Since the first day of advising, he has had profound belief in my work and abilities. I could always count at his encouragement, which often came in a form of humor. Dr. Suetzl has provided invaluable insights to every piece of my writing, helping me to grow as a professional. What is more, he has been instrumental in giving me advice about various aspects of the academic life. I would like to thank Dr. Suetzl for his patience, guidance and support. I would also like to extend my deepest gratitude to my committee members for their unwavering support. Dr. Greg Newton has educated me about leadership and management in media. His valuable comments and advice have helped me to navigate the topics I could focus on for this dissertation. He has offered on-going support and practical suggestions not only related to the dissertation, but also about the graduate experience. Dr. Black has been instrumental in shaping my understanding about deliberative democracy, which provided richness to my work. Dr. Black’s regularly shared resources, and invited me to networking and academic events. I cannot overestimate her assistance. Finally, Dr. Millesen has played an instrumental role in encouraging me to pursue this degree when I completed my master’s degree under her supervision. She always believed in me and saw the academic in me before I did. Dr. Millesen’s professional insights and encouragements as a friend have been crucial to my success. I would like to extend my sincere gratitude to the faculty and staff of the School of Media Arts & Studies. Dr. Karen Riggs, who nurtured me, mentored and relentlessly supported me each step of the way. Our conversations about have inspired many elements of this work. Dr. Drew McDaniel for providing me with exceptional opportunities. Dr. Roger Cooper who always held an open door and offered advice. I am grateful to Dr. Howard, Dr. Khan, Dr. Pant, and Brain Plow for helping me with research, teaching and reassurance. Many thanks go to Paula Carpenter and Judy Wilson for

vii administrative assistance, for their friendliness and kindness. Special thanks to my peers and colleagues for the reassurance, encouragement and fighting spirit. I am deeply grateful to my parents, and my sister for their unconditional love and graceful endurance. Special thanks to my best friend, Saba Navabzadeh, for cheering me through the hardships of this journey and celebrating my achievements. I also want to thank my best friend in Armenia, Vardine Grigoryan, for inspiring and empowering me. Finally, I am grateful to all my dear friends who have shown me much love and support.

viii Table of Contents Page Abstract ...... iii

Dedication ...... vi

Acknowledgments ...... vii

List of Tables ...... xii

List of Figures ...... xiii

Preface ...... 1

Chapter 1: Introduction and Background ...... 4

Paradigms and Models of Democracy ...... 6 Functions of Media in a Democracy ...... 12 Chapter 2: Literature Review ...... 16

What We Know about Alternative Media? ...... 16 The Conservative Movement and the Right-Wing Alternative Media ...... 20 Left-wing Alternative Media ...... 26 Definition and Paradigms of Citizenship ...... 29 Political Participation ...... 32 Media and Political Participation ...... 34 Mass Communication Theories and the Role of Media in Society ...... 36 Media Framings of Irregular Immigration ...... 42 Chapter 3: Methods ...... 50

Qualitative Research and Phenomenology ...... 50 Research Methods in Alternative Media ...... 52 Comparative Analysis Approach in Alternative Media Studies ...... 53 Part I: Focus Groups ...... 55 Part II: Critical Discourse Analysis ...... 70 Chapter 4: Results ...... 82

Part I: Summary of Focus Group Results ...... 82 Part II: Analysis and Results of CDA ...... 115

ix Article 1: DACA Recipient Caught Illegally Reentering U.S...... 121 Article 2: Congressional Hispanic Caucus ROASTS Sen. Chuck Schumer over 'Immigration Cave' ...... 123 Article 3: Resumes Processing DACA Applications, even as Trump Tweets Program is 'Dead' ...... 127 Article 4: McConnell May Offer Dems an Immigration Deal in Return for Ending Shutdown. Will Trump stand against it? ...... 130 Article 5: Full of it: Here's Why Democrats and Republicans Probably won't Reach a Deal on ...... 133 Article 6: Is Trump Caving on Illegal Immigration? Not Really ...... 135 Article 7: DREAMers Threaten to Leave The Country if Congress Doesn't Reach a DACA Deal ...... 138 Article 8: BREAKING: Supreme Court refuses to let Trump kill DACA. That's actually a political win for Trump. Here's why...... 141 Article 9: No deal Trump signals an end to DACA compromise, pushes GOP to pass strict immigration restrictions ...... 144 Article 10: Federal judge rules that Trump must reinstate DACA program ...... 147 Article 1: Congress’ DACA Amnesia is Helping Trump Ruin Lives ...... 154 Article 2: Trump isn’t ignorant about DACA and Migrants-He’s Lying ...... 160 Article 3: The Supreme Court and GOP Leave Dreamers in Limbo ...... 165 Article 4: Republicans Want to Deport Dreamers ...... 169 Article 5: Democrats’ Dreamer Debacle ...... 173 Article 6: Democrats are Allowing Republicans to Have It Both Ways on Dreamers ...... 178 Article 7: The Shithead Shutdown ...... 181 Article 8: Democrats, It's Now or Never for Dreamers ...... 185 Article 9: Democrats, Don’t Leave The Dreamers Stranded-Again ...... 189 Article 10: A Fight Democrats Can Win ...... 192 Chapter 5: Discussion ...... 204

Role and Functions of Alternative Media ...... 205 Roles of Mainstream Media and Alternative Media: Literature-Based ...... 207 Role of Alternative Media: Audience Perspectives ...... 208 Discourses of Right-Wing Alternative Media: The Daily Wire ...... 210 Discourses of Left-wing Alternative Media: Crooked Media ...... 213 Alternative Media’s Emotional Appeal as a Catalyst of Political Participation ...... 215 x Affective Politics and Communicative Forms of Political Participation ...... 217 Alternative Media and Different Democracy Models ...... 220 Chapter 6: Conclusion ...... 229

Contributions to Mass Communication Scholarship ...... 233 Limitations of the Study...... 235 Suggestions for Future Research ...... 237 References ...... 240

Appendix A. Recruitment Email ...... 266

Appendix B. Focus Group Interview Protocol ...... 267

Appendix C. Codes Generated from Two Cycles ...... 268

xi List of Tables Page Table 1 Models of Democracy ...... 11

Table 2 Paradigms of Citizenship ...... 31

Table 3 Typology of Political Participation ...... 33

Table 4 Democracy, Citizenship, Participation, and Media ...... 36

Table 5 Four Eras of Mass Communication Theory ...... 39

Table 6 Inventory List of Semantic Choices ...... 78

xii List of Figures Page Figure 1 Two Cycles of Data Coding ...... 64

Figure 2 Relationship between Definitions and Roles of Alternative Media ...... 83

xiii Preface The first time I paid attention to the word “democracy” was in eighth grade Civics course. This was in the late 1990s, when my home country, Armenia was transitioning from the Soviet system to a independent Republic and was experimenting a new educational curriculum. I was among the first generation of students who took a Civics course. As I started reading the chapter on the forms of political governance, I read the word democracy [ժողովրդավարություն] and I paused. In Armenian, the meaning of the word is self-explanatory, as it consists of the noun people [ժողովուրդ] and the verb to govern/rule [վարել]. I read the definition over and over again to make sense of it. However, the straightforward meaning of the word the concept was hard to grasp. Little I knew, that it would become the passion of my work and the topic of academic inquiry. As an undergraduate student, I volunteered in a number of local youth organizations, where I participated in trainings and interacted with international volunteers working in Armenia. In March 2008, people took the streets in the capital , Yerevan. They were protesting the results of the presidential elections, which were rigged by the ruling government at the time. My friends and I were independent observers at the election night and witnessed the violations personally. However, I could not join the protests because the school administration would not make it easy afterwards. Additionally, the police had blocked the intercity roads to contain the number of protesters and not let people from towns like mine to be a part of the fight for democracy. Eventually, the government forces killed innocent people in the peaceful protest all because they believed in democracy and freedom. The government-funded media did a disservice to the Armenian people becoming the mouthpiece of the government, rather than covering the truth and the atrocities the ruling Republican Party was carrying out to hold on to power. This experience was instrumental in my decision to work in the civil society field to enhance the democratic institutions. I soon had the opportunity to travel to Norway, where I witnessed the actualization of the democratic principles I read about as an eighth grader. This motivated me even more to contribute to the democratization of Armenia. I 1 continued to work in the Civil Society sphere because I believed that at the time, development of a strong civil society was the most effective way to achieve systematic and long-term change. Over years, I also realized that civil society has to somehow work with the political system, so I came to the to study public administration. I learnt about democracy and and the different perceptions of these concepts in Armenia and the US. Over the years of working and studying areas related to democracy I soon stated to pay closer attention to the role of media in a society. Initially, I wanted to study more about the media created by NGOs, however, I wanted to learn more about the American democratic system, where NGOs have a different character and role than in Armenia, which is why I eventually concentrated on knowing more about the role of the political alternative media in this system. This work is inspired by my passion for democracy in all its manifestations, my experiences in the civil society development in Armenia as well as education and experience in the Unites States. My experiences inform my critical views on how democracy works. Being a part of the effort to build democratic institutions, I believe that democracy requires daily work towards building and sustaining strong institutions and a collective conscious. Even if the outcomes of the elections are upsetting for some groups while not for others, it is still the public vote and not rigged result that makes a difference. Participation matters because the less people are engaged in the power distribution, the weaker they are and the democracy will be. Free and independent media, unlike the media in developing countries, have tremendous power to facilitate democratic processes and they should find ways to connect people to politics in meaningful ways. The Armenian political system where I was shaped as a young citizen does not have a clear distinction between conservative and progressive political . It was not until I lived in the United States that I started to identify as a progressive. My progressive ideas and views have informed my analysis and this has involved a great deal of self-reflection. Throughout this research, I also listened to conservative media outlets.

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I hope that the reader will experience the excitement, disappointment, frustration, elements of surprise, and the hope, I felt and tried to express here.

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Chapter 1: Introduction and Background For no government can have a right to obedience from a people who have not freely consented to it; which they can never be supposed to do, till either they are put in a full state of to choose their government and governors, or at least till they have such standing laws, to which they have by themselves or their representatives given their free consent.

(Locke, Second Treatise, 1689, p. 192)

Democracy is arguably the most legitimate form of governance based on the consent of people. Liberal democracy consists of procedures, as well as political and social institutions that ensure the , guarantee protection of basic rights and freedoms, and allow for different levels of citizen participation within a sovereign state (Meyer & Hinchman, 2002). The institutional, procedural and communicative aspects democracy depend on the level of political participation to ensure its legitimacy (Dahlgren & Spark, 1991; Keane, 1998). Participation entails citizen engagement in governance and political processes of decision-making (Brady, 1997; , 2011). Historically, participation has been viewed essential for democracy from two perspectives. On the one hand, supporters of classic Athenian democracy have argued that participation is fundamental for actualizing civic virtue and self-realization of the citizens (Urbinati, 2006). On the other hand, liberal democrats claim that participation is instrumental to protect the rights and of citizens (Held, 2006). While these developmental and instrumental paradigms differ, both underscore the centrality of participation in a democracy. The state should guarantee the opportunity for participation and social institutions should facilitate it. This study focuses on the media as one of the social institutions within a democracy that can foster political participation. The United States has a liberal democratic governance system. Such a system allows media to shape the socio-cultural parameters of democracy (Dahlgren, 2009). Media hold the power to consolidate democratic values and practices in addition to various other functions they perform in a society. Particularly, mainstream media have been central in the American society. Traditionally, they have been expected to perform such functions as informing citizens, constructing social reality, serving as a fourth estate, 4 generating political knowledge, and serving as a public forum or a public sphere (Kovach & Rosenstiel, 2007; Schudson, 2008). In Mouffe’s words, media play a major role in the “symbolic ordering of social relations” (2000, p. 18). However, critics of mainstream media have shown how they have failed to sufficiently perform these functions (Herman & Chomsky, 2002; Curran, 2011; McChesney, 2000). Some of the failure has been attributed to structural changes such as growing consolidation and concentration of media ownership. In addition, mainstream media are closely tied to the political system through campaign financing. These factors, and others, have led to eroding public trust (until 2016) towards mainstream media (Jones, 2018). In this context, it becomes relevant to research alternative media and their functions in a society. In contrast to mainstream media, alternative media have been more peripheral in the information landscape. They have been small scale, change-driven, and capable of generating a civic culture necessary for political participation (Atton, 2002; Downing, 2001; Kenix, 2011). While such characteristics are consistent in the literature about alternative media, most of the studies focus on left-wing outlets. Meanwhile, the research on right-wing alternative media and their potential to spur participation remains scarce and fragmented (Atkinson & Berg, 2012). Since democratic participation is about change of power relations in a society (Dahlgren & Alvares, 2013), we cannot afford ignoring the role of right-wing media outlets in the power struggle. As Mouffe (2000) argues, “denying to conceive democratic politics exclusively in terms of a struggle of multiple groups of minorities for assertion of their right is to remain blind to the relations of power” (p. 20). To fill this gap in the literature, this study has two main purposes. The goal of this study is first, to expand our understanding of heterogeneity within alternative media landscape. Second, it aims to identify the ways in which right-wing and left-wing alternative media could promote or stifle political participation. Accordingly, the study poses the following research questions: What are the roles of alternative media platforms in the American Democracy? How do these roles differ from and resemble the roles of mainstream media? How do these roles differ within the alternative media?

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Finally, what are the ways in which right-wing and left-wing alternative media foster political participation? I adopted two-pronged qualitative methodological approach to answer these questions. On the one hand, focus groups helped to find out audience perspectives on alternative media, their perceptions of this phenomenon, as well as their reactions to the content of alternative media. On the other hand, critical discourses analysis was used to identify the discursive choices the alternative media outlets used to overtly and covertly perpetuate opposing ideologies. In the next section of this introductory chapter, I discuss different models of democracy to justify why the democratic model of governance is so crucial as a legitimate form of political life. This section also aims to establish the foundation for the discussion about the relationship between media and democracy and the functions media are expected to perform such a system. Paradigms and Models of Democracy Origins of democracy are traced back to the ancient Greek and the Athenian city- state. Demokratia or ‘rule by the people’ implied that citizens had a civic duty to directly participate in the governance of the city-state as a way of self-improvement and bettering of the community (Held, 2006; Urbinati, 2006). The seemingly inclusive term ‘the people;’ however, was exclusionary from the very beginning of the democratic system, as it only implied a specific group of male citizens who had the privilege to participate in a political life (Held, 2006). The Athenian democracy was based on the developmental democratic perspective, whereby participation in public affairs was viewed as embracing civic virtue that benefited both the individual citizen and the community. This relationship between the state and the citizens shifted with the emergence of the Roman model of republican self-governance (Held, 2006). The new system challenged the notion of God-given power of rulers, recognizing that citizens were free to participate in public affairs. Participation was viewed as a way to safeguard people from the tyranny of rulers (Held, 2006). This shift of perception about the source of power and the role of participation marked the birth of classic , based on ideals of

6 freedom, , and equal opportunity (Viroli, 2002). The republican system embraced the protective perspective of participation. As Held (2006) describes, for the republicans, “Political participation is an essential condition of personal liberty; if citizens do not rule themselves, they will be dominated by others” (p. 44). The engagement in public life for the common good was not the only strength of this model. The republican system institutionalized accountability of the elected (Held, 2006). This is essential, since the accountably requires institutions such as media to ensure that public are aware of the wrongdoings and the ways the governance is conducted. Information and awareness enhance the opportunities for deliberation and formation of a political will (Habermas, 1996). The Roman republicanism model institutionalized separation of powers, established a majority vote system, and led to the creation of electoral bodies. The liberal democratic model borrowed key political ideas from the Roman model (Viroli, 2002). John Locke’s (1632-1704) thinking became instrumental in this process. He emphasized the instrumental role of political participation as a form of citizenship and an instrument of protection of liberties. Hence, a constitutional state and representative governance became “essential for both protection and enhancement of both liberty and reason” (Held, 2006, p. 91). These models evolved and were modified to establish the representative form of governance, which has hardly changed since the 18th century (Urbinati, 2006). Contemporary paradigms of democracy, discussed in the next section, reflect elements of the earlier models. Held (2006) defines democracy as “a form of government in which, in contradistinction to monarchies and aristocracies, the people rule. Democracy entails a political community in which there is some form of political equality among people” (Held, 2006, p. 1). It is important to mention that Held is talking about political equality, which empowers the disadvantaged groups (Bachrach & Botwinick, 1992). The form of equality among people depends on the paradigm and model of the democracy. . The participatory paradigm (Meyer & Hinchman, 2002) of democracy stems from the developmental perspective of participation (Held,

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2006). This paradigm favors a bottom-up engagement in politics, which leads to citizens’ self-development citizens and to the well-being of the larger community (Bachrach & Botwinick, 1992). Bachrach and Botwinick (1992) argue that participation is an augmenting force, since it brings people together and gives power to those who might have otherwise been powerless. Furthermore, individuals discover their interests and needs in the process of participation, due to group empowerment and solidarity. While it could be argued that mass mobilization of citizens could endanger the stability, the authors explain that meaningful political engagement will leave no space for non-political distractive activities (Bachrach & Botwinick, 1992). Participatory paradigm includes both and deliberative democracy models. Representative democracy. A representative system ensures accountability, protection of liberties through reasoned debates as well as institutions of professional governance (Held, 2006). The representative system offers a unique relationship between the state and the society in which people elect representatives (Christians et al., 2009). Perrin (2014) conceptualizes elections as structures and practices that amalgamate and capture public opinion in a given geographic location, within a defined time. Elections are a formal institutionalized channel of citizen participation in politics. Urbinati (2006) offers a more expansive conceptualization of representative governance. She defines democratic representation as “a political process of consent formation, political deliberation and decision-making” (Urbinati, 2006, p. 8) that “ is intertwined with participation and the informal expression of popular will” (p. 10). She views representation as an interactive process that both reflects and shapes public preferences. Furthermore, Urbinati (2006) proposes that democracy requires deliberative institutions, public sphere, political movements, and new communicative strategies. The next section discusses the deliberative model of democracy based on these communicative processes. Deliberative democracy. Deliberative democracy falls under the democratic civil society paradigm offered by Meyer & Hinchman (2002). This paradigm has been characterized as “talk-centric, deliberative democratic theory” (Chambers, 2003, p. 308),

8 since it is based on the discourse theory. Jurgen Habermas (1998) suggested the arguing that participation in political life as equals is a positive liberty that allows citizens to exercise autonomy. The autonomy is achieved through participation in communicative processes that lead to public will formation. In deliberative democracy, the public will-formation happens in the public sphere (Habermas, 1989). According to Habermas (1998) “the public sphere is a network for communicating information and points of view; the streams of communication are, in the process, filtered and synthesized in such a way that they coalesce into bundles of public opinions” (p. 360). It is the social space where the private voices are not only expressed and heard but also transformed without coercion. From a procedural perspective, for the outcome of a discussion to be legitimate, the deliberation process has to be legitimate as well. According to Cohen (1997), legitimate deliberative procedure should be free, pluralistic, independent, and should nurture mutual respect based on egalitarian principle of participation. In other words, the process of will formation is the source of legitimacy for the deliberative model (Chambers, 2003). Benhabib (1996) defines deliberative democracy as the streaming of public power in the main societal institutions that produce decisions reflecting those people’s views who are affected and who had an equal opportunity to participate in reasoned deliberation. Deliberative democracy provides “conditions for a rational political will- formation not only at the individual levels of the orientations and decisions of single actors but also at the social level of institutionalized processes of deliberation and decision making” (Habermas, 1998, p. 341). Non-coercive deliberation generates public will formation. The quality of the deliberation depends not only on the legitimacy of procedures but also the quality of information citizens have on a given topic. The information helps them to form an argument in the public forum. In this model, media are expected to adequately inform the public, and to serve as the public sphere (Harper, 2011). Media are the intermediary between the political system and the lifeworld of citizens (Habermas, 1996). The relationship of the two is captured by the concept of “communicative power” (Habermas, 1996, p. 28). Perrin (2014) describes it as the

9 process, whereby citizens’ preferences are channeled [through media] into political institutions as outcomes of deliberation in public sphere and come back [through media] to the citizens from administrative institutions in a form of a political decision or public policy. Political theorist, Chantal Mouffe (2000), critiques the deliberative model for its consensus-based nature. She argues that the political antagonism is ineradicable and it is impossible to “establish a rational consensus without exclusion” (Mouffe, 2000, p. 45). According to Mouffe (2000), deliberative democracy establishes a moral dimension of a decision-making, which is unable to solve the problem of interest contestation in a political sphere. Moreover, Mouffe (2000) argues that consensus-based logic of deliberative model dismisses plurality of political interests and paralyzes the process of collective identity construction necessary for political processes in a democracy. In an effort to address the limitations of the deliberative model, Mouffe (2013) proposes the agonistic model of democracy as an alternative. It is discussed in the next section. Agonistic democracy. The agonistic model of democracy is uniquely focused on the role of conflict in a political system. Mouffe (2013) argues that any social or political order within a society involves some level of conflict. Her model is based on ’s idea of political enemy. Schmitt (1929) critiqued democracy and argued that political power stems from the ability to define the enemy. However, for Mouffe (2013) political as an ontological concept that requires distinguishing between a friend and an enemy. The core of political is the formation of collective identities. The agonistic model of democracy seeks to find a way to form an “us/them” distinction without dismissing pluralism in democracy. In Mouffe’s (2013) theory, collective identity of “us” is only possible through the distinction of “them” (p. 5). According to (Mouffe, 2013), the weakness of the liberal democratic model is that it either dismisses or sees “them” as an enemy, which leads to intense polarization and even violence. Adversaries also need some form of consensus to reach a common ground for constructing a collective identity. This should be a ‘conflictual consensus’ (Mouffe, 2013, p. 8) where citizens have channels to interpret diverse ethno-political values. Thus,

10 decision-making involves “choices between conflicting alternatives” (Mouffe, 2013, p. 3). Moreover, the agonistic struggle is about pluralizing hegemony within representative political institutions. It points to the need “to grasp the crucial role of hegemonic articulations and the necessity not only of challenging what exists but also of constructing new articulations and new institutions” (Mouffe, 2013, p. 11). Currently, the institutions (mainstream media and political parties) are unable to be the medium for expressing public demands. Thus, they have to be transformed into platforms of agonistic engagement and counter-hegemony (Mouffe, 2013). She suggests that the agonistic model is only an alternative model, allowing re-articulation of discourses and practices that will lead to pluralism without exclusion.

Table 1 Models of Democracy

Paradigm Main characteristics Participatory People participate in political decision-making processes through political parties. Political party is a source of important political information. Representative/ Representation is about the relationship between the state and society, liberal whereby people in aggregate elect competent elites for governing. Legitimacy comes from majoritarian vote. Deliberative Talk-centric democracy focusing on the importance of communicative processes. The citizens’ will stems from free, non-coercive deliberation ensured by functional and legitimate institutions and procedures.

Agonistic In a political dimension there can never be a coherent consensus. Conflict is contingent for social order, which can only be changed through an agonistic re-articulation of hegemony.

Summary. Democracy is a political system that relies on citizen participation and engagement in public and political life. Representative, deliberative, and agonistic models of democracy all attempt to address practical and normative aspects of participation. These models are not mutually exclusive. A combination of various democratic models and practices could provide citizens with a “repertoire of political 11 action” (Perrin, 2014, p. 77). All three models require social institutions that can provide additional pathways of participation. Functions of Media in a Democracy As mentioned earlier, media have essential functions in each model of democracy. Schudson (2008) is a media scholar who studies relationship between media and democracy. He views representative democracy as an effective form of participation, which should not be diminished by other forms of popular participation. He identifies seven functions the media have in a representative democracy: informing the public, investigative , analysis (explanatory journalism), social empathy, public forum, and mobilization through partisanship, and publicizing representative democracy (Schudson, 2008). This view of the functionality of media in a democracy differs from the reality. Schudson (2008) argues that mainstream media have at least three constraints to fully perform all seven functions. One of the challenges is that media industry is based on professional norms. Too much professionalization and institutionalization have somewhat jeopardized mainstream media’s commitment to democracy. Mainly, the “conventional wisdom” (Schudson, 2008, pp. 50-53) in the journalistic field limits the ability of mainstream media to promote civic infrastructure necessary for participation. The other challenge is the economic pressures of shareholder demands and market competition (Curran, 2011; McChesney, 2000). Media concentration and conglomeration stifle diversity of the ideas in the public sphere and weaken it (Harper, 2011). Additionally, mainstream media are source dependent and look for information subsidies from the government officials, and other power actors (Gandy, 1982). Research has shown that the American mainstream media have not been free of government and political pressure, especially when reporting on the continuing or newly launched overseas (Curran, 2011; Van Leeuwen, 2008). The external pressures and the internal organizational factors have contributed to the growth of entertainment content and orientation towards soft news (Aalberg & Curran, 2012). As Harper (2011) describes the growth of the spectacle has undermined the place of investigative journalism. He argues, that media have given to the age of

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“homo spectacular” (Harper, 2011, p. 71), which has “distanced citizens from the self- rule” (Harper, 2011, p. 3), favoring private gratification and diminishing the significance of the public sphere. In this context, self-display creates the illusion of participation and replaces meaningful deliberation. Despite the failures and challenges, media have vital roles. In a representative democracy, media are the intermediary between the people and the government (Raeijmaekers & Maeseele, 2015). This is the reason they have ethical responsibilities. Kovach and Rosenstiel (2007) assert that media have to keep the government in check and represent the people, which is why it is important that they remain independent (Kovach & Rosensteil, 2014). Similarly, Schudson (2008) advocates for a journalism that will provide unbiased information to help citizens to make informed political decisions in their interest. An accurate representation of people’s voices and the reality of public affairs is possible only if media adhere to the ethical journalistic principles of truth telling, independence, and objectivity (Kovach & Rosensteil, 2014). The journalistic principles of truth seeking and fact-based reporting are the sources of public trust (Kovach & Rosensteil, 2014; Pérez-Latre, 2014; Society of Professional Journalists, 2014). A deliberative democratic model anticipates that media function as the public sphere (Curran, 2002; Harper, 2011). Raeijmaekers and Maeseele (2015) describe the deliberative model requires media able to foster a viable public sphere, which has horizontal and participatory structures. It should allow everyone to participate in a reasoned discussion. This model entails direct involvement of citizens in content creation, participation in media (Carpentier, 2011). The hierarchical, top-down structures and one- to-many mode of communication of the mainstream media have limited their ability to adequately fulfill this function. The role of media in an agonistic democracy is similar to the deliberative model, whereby media are expected to serve as a public sphere. However, the agonistic model demands a public sphere of contestation of ideologies where the struggle is about disarticulation and re-articulation of alternative hegemonies (Raeijmaekers & Maeseele,

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2015). Additionally, Mouffe (2013) argues, the agonistic model cannot disintegrate from political institutions because media have to rely on political institutions to promote contesting discourses and debate. The major functions of mainstream media can be summarized as informing citizens, foster dialogue between different power holders, holding powerful accountable, and practicing investigative journalism. Also, “media should demonstrate a sense of respect for its audience and treat them as able to be involved in and concerned with political life” (Harper, 2011, pp. 39-40). Finally, media should provide citizens communicative channels of participation. These functions also equip media with vital with immense social power (Couldry & Curran, 2003). Most of the functions and the power that comes with them have been attributed to mainstream media while alternative media were on the periphery. This study attempts to understand the social power and functions of alternative media. The next chapter opens with the discussion of the existing literature about alternative media. It highlights the heterogeneity of such outlets and their functions in a democracy. Next, it conceptualizes political participation and presents paradigms of citizenship, which are key for different forms of political participation. The third section of the chapter demonstrates the relationship between media and political participation followed by the review of literature about coverage of irregular immigration. Finally, the chapter closes with the presentation of theory of hegemony, which is the main theoretical framework of the study.

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Chapter 2: Literature Review What We Know about Alternative Media? Due to the lack of a comprehensive and universally agreed definition, the term ‘alternative media’ has been discribed as media (Traber, 1985), (Downing, 2001), citizens’ media (Rodriguez, 2000), community media (Jankowski, 2004), and activist media (Lievrouw, 2011). Atkinson (2017) categorizes alternative media literature into studies focusing on the production, the content, the audience and more recently, studies looking at the intersection of alternative and mainstream media. One of the early attempts to define alternative media in terms of production has been contrasting their non-commercial structures to the corporate-owned mainstream media (American Library Association, 1980). While the lack of corporate ownership grants alternative media independence, it is a challenge for their economic stability. Alternative media outlets have heavily relied on voluntary contributions of movement members, activists, and citizens (Atton, 2004). Technological developments have allowed reduced transaction costs for both the production and dissemination of information increasing the mobilizing potential of alternative outlets (Shirky, 2008). The organizational aspect of alternative media and production of radical content are the aspects that John Downing (2001) characterized as radical. In his view, media are radical to the extent of their ability to foster political consciousness and lead to collective action towards social and political change (Downing, 2001). Clemencia Rodriguez (2000) has theorized alternative media as ‘citizens’ media’ enabling the citizen to self-educate and gain political power to better represent tehmselves through participation. Due to horizontal participatory structures, alternative media allow the audiences to redefine media power by constructing their own stories (Atton, 2004). They generate oppositional knowledge and mobilize people based on alternative views of the reality (Atton, 2002; Downing, 2001; Lee, 2015; Rodriguez, 2000).

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According to Chris Atton (2002), alternative media should be instruments of empowerment for the marginalized groups. He states that the goal of alternative media should be to provide access to encourage and normalize such access for people of low status in terms of their relationships to elite group of owners, managers and professionals, make their own media, whether by appearing in it as significant actors or by creating news relevant to their situation (Atton, 2002, p. 11).

Alternative media have historically been instrumental for the success of social movements (Atton, 2002; Kenix, 2011). Social movements have always been in need for access to mass audiences and struggled for the access to the frames of coverage. On the other hand, mainstream media had the power to discredit or certify a movement through their frames (Gitlin, 2003). To some degree, social movements still depend on the mainstream media because of their massive outreach necessary for the recruitment of new citizens (Kenix, 2011). Success or failure to expand the movement is correlated to the negative or the positive coverage of the movement by the mainstream media, however it is also a matter of the activists’ ability to establish effective cooperation with media. The dismissal of social movements by the mainstream media has inspired activists to use alternative media creating democratic communication spaces that are based on the principles of accessibility, accountability and participation (Coyer, Dowmunt, & Fountain, 2007). Alternative media have dissolved the producer-consumer barriers apparent in the mass media due to the horizontal structures (Forde, 2011). She argues that these structures offer opportunities for new types of journalism. For instance, she proposes that they enable alternative journalism that “encourages audience participation and action in public affairs” (Forde, 2011, p. 66). This type of journalism could also incorporate right- wing media. As a form of alternative media, it also helps to “advocate programs of social change through the framework of politicized and in-depth social commentary” (Kenix, 2011, p. 19). In short, alternative ways of doing journalism become a way of participation for amateurs and volunteers committed to social change (Lievrouw, 2011).

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Mainstream media’s systematic misrepresentation of the social movements as well as the oppression of marginalized voices have led to exclusion of these groups from the public sphere. The activist groups have turned to alternative media to launch their struggle for social change and give voice to the voiceless (Fenton, 2007; Forde, 2011). They have done so by creating “their own news based on alternative values and frameworks” (Atton, 2002, p. 10). From this perspective, creating content that counters the mainstream frames and offers alternative narratives becomes an essential function of alternative media. When the dissident elements of the society create alternative media to break the dominant hegemonic culture, they also establish alternative or counter-public spheres (Atkinson, 2010; Atton 2004; Fraser, 1990). In other words, alternative media have the potential to democratize communication spaces and narratives prioritizing access for the marginalized groups. It has to be noted, the relationship between alternative and mainstream is not inherently dichotomous; rather they coexist on a spectrum. Alternative media do not reject professional norms of professional journalism while producing their own content (Atton, 2004; Forde, 2011). Some forms of alternative media production, including participatory journalism, embrace fair and truthful coverage (Lievrouw, 2011). Similar to mainstream media, they aim at informing citizens for better political decision-making. What is more, mainstream media depend on alternative media for news stories and information subsidies (Gandy, 1982). Kenix (2011) argues that the convergence of alternative and mainstream could be a crucial force in the society. The society would experience considerable changes regarding the representation of social reality if and when the counter-hegemonic ideologies created by alternative media expose and change the dominant hegemonies established by the mainstream media (Atkinson, 2010; Kenix, 2011). Finally, mainstream and alternative media share hybrid audiences (Rauch, 2015). These are the audiences whose media diet includes both types of media. One of the limitations of alternative media also is that such outlets are typically small scale and do not have the reach of the mass media (Atton, 2004). Sometimes the alternative platforms are small because of the scarcity of resources and other times, the

18 activists who create alternative media refuse to be large scale. The refusal is strategic, since the social-justice oriented outlets avoid engaging in mass production and consumer culture. Being small scale also stimulates fast mobilization, immediate action, and more creativity (Lievrouw, 2011). Alternative media have also been criticized for being elitist. This could be attributed to their early success within the movement led by the intellectual student elites of the 1960s (Flynn, 2008; Gitlin, 2003). Such criticism does not hold much weight considering that alternative media are heterogenic and invite variety of people and groups to take part in the production of content (Atton, 2004; Kenix, 2011). Alternative media have been concerned with and involved in distribution of social goods and of political power. Such grassroots media negate the idea of elitism. Jeppesen (2016) offers a comprehensive taxonomy where alternative media are organized into four theoretical categories: culture or DIY media; community and citizens’ media for social change; radical or anarchist media, and finally, critical media. For the purposes of this study, I will focus on the critical alternative media. These are the outlets target that target niche counter-publics, focus on personal experiences, and are concerned with counter-hegemonic constructions of social reality that could generate a collective behavior (Jeppesen, 2016). The two alternative media examined in this study mostly fall under this categorization. In short, alternative media are described as participatory, horizontal, counter- hegemonic and able to create alternative public spheres, democratizing communicative practices. One area that remains understudied is the heterogeneity of the alternative media landscape in regards to ideological leanings. It is unclear whether alternative right- wing media share same characteristics or perform the same functions in a society. To fill this void, this study focuses on alternative right-wing and left-wing media. The next section of the chapter provides some historic background and context about right-wing and left-wing alternative media in the American society.

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The Conservative Movement and the Right-Wing Alternative Media History of the development of political and ideological movements in the United States can go back for centuries, however, given the limited space in the framework of this work, I chose to start this overview from the 1950s, since this era marks the development of major media outlets helped to amplify conservative voices in the public. The conservative movement in the United States started in the 1950s as “grassroots ” (Viguerie & Franke, 2004). Conservatives were decentralized and unorganized, structurally however, they were unified ideologically. They supported anti- communist foreign policy and the America first policy (Hemmer, 2016). The relationship between the mainstream media and the conservatives was complicated. Media organizations such as the Post and dismissed some prominent conservative figures and award-winning journalists. This move made conservatives feel exiled from the local and national media (Hemmer, 2016). Thus, to promote their political and economic ideas and build a movement, conservatives had to overcome what they considered the liberal media bias. Major (2012) explains that the right-wing rhetoric of ‘liberal media’ originated during Civil Right Movement in the early 1960s. The idea of ‘liberal media’ gained more traction during Goldwater’s campaign and became a common wisdom among conservatives with Nixon’s administration (Major, 2012). The conservatives had to establish alternative means of communication with two goals; first, they would help to refine and communicate a conservative political identity and agenda, and second, it would undermine the isolation from the mainstream media by giving a platform to the conservative voices (Hemmer, 2016; Viguerie & Franke, 2004). This was an effort to gain political power and to make conservative voices a part of the public sphere. Initially, such efforts led to failures; however, the creation of alternative right-wing media organizations brought the conservative movement to life (Hemmer, 2016). The conservatives started to utilize multimedia platforms to mobilize a network of ideological supporters.

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The development of the movement and the right-wing alternative media system was an incremental process. The old right and alternative media. The first step of building a movement was to circulate conservative ideas in the public sphere. The conservatives did this through print media and houses in the early 1940s. The magazine was one of the first and the most influential conservative media platforms established in 1944 (Human Events, 2017). It aimed to influence the post- political agenda and public opinion through promotion of conservative ideas. The Human Events had a significant influence on the American journalism at the time. Mainly, it made the “dichotomy of and objective reporting the defining feature of conservative media” (Hemmer, 2016, p. 32). Criticizing mainstream media for blocking conservative voices and preserving the liberal bias, the magazine undertook the task of accurate and fact-based reporting (Hemmer, 2016). Meanwhile, it had an overt bias favoring conservative viewpoints. The other conservative thinkers who saw the opportunity to shape the post-war agenda were Henry Regnery, who established the (Regnery Publishing, 2017) in1947, and William F. Buckley Jr. who established the magazine in 1955 (National Review, 2017). Buckley understood the demand for conservative ideas among niche audiences started to provide them content that amalgamated elements of , libertarian economy, and anti-. The National Review became “the center of gravity for the conservative movement” (Viguerie & Franke, 2004, p. 64). This first generation of conservatives saw their role as ideological leaders and used media for promotion of messages; rather than business channels (Hemmer, 2016). The conservative media activists of the time aimed at building an institutionalized movement by mobilizing the youth and engaging them in politics. The National Review became the backbone for the young conservative movement called Young Americans for Freedom (YAF) (Viguerie & Franke, 2004). By the end of the 1950s, YAF was the largest conservative youth organization across college campuses in the United States.

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Similarly, the Human Events supported the Intercollegiate Studies Institute (Hemmer, 2016). Many conservative trained young conservatives to master journalistic skills (Viguerie & Franke, 2004). To sustain the movement, media activists solicited donations and provided subsidies for members of the YAF and ISI to read their conservative books and magazines. Moreover, they trained them for journalistic practices and fostered political engagement (Hemmer, 2016). The birth of the in 1958 signaled the beginning of the new era of the conservative movement as an organized ideological power outside the Republican Party (Viguerie & Franke, 2004). Even though JBS grew into the largest grassroots conservative organization in the country in a short time, the controversial character of its founder, Robert Welch, gained negative media attention (Hemmer, 2016; Viguerie & Franke, 2004). The mainstream media failed to distinguish different fractions of conservative movement at the time and took Welch’s controversial claims as a to frame all conservatives as the “Radical Right” (Hemmer, 2016, p. 96). The controversies within the conservative movement necessitated a new philosophy and innovative communicative strategies for effective messaging in the new era. The and alternative media. By the late 1950s, the right-wing media activists had accumulated enough social and political capital to turn their into a political leadership (Hemmer, 2016). The new strategy was to consolidate conservative political power through endorsement of independent candidates using alternative media. This effort culminated in the political campaign for in the early 1960s. However, Goldwater’s loss forced conservatives to shift from ideological dogmatism to political pragmatism, when it came to media use for political outcomes (Hemmer, 2016). The New Right replicated communicative strategies of the Left and used media platforms as a way to promote political activism. One of the innovations on the Right was the use of direct mail. As Viguerie and his co-author Franke (2004) explain: direct mail helped conservatives to bypass liberal gatekeepers, expanded the nation’s base of active citizenship and gave conservatives voice in setting nation’s agenda, enabled conservatives to become free of fetters imposed by Republican political hierarchy, freed conservatives from dependence on the big

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financing GOP and Democrats, made Washington politicians accountable to their conservative grassroots constituents and it can bring the conservative candidate over the top of victory (pp. 109-117).

The innovations of messaging continued as the right-wing activists continued to adopt new technologies for establishing a conservative voice and gaining political power. Right-wing alternative media: television, radio and . Alternative right- wing media are often associated with radio talk shows because radio has always been at the forefront of conservative communication strategy. This goes back to the late 1980s, when deregulation policies opened the waves for imbalanced coverage of political campaigns. Most significantly, in 1987, the Federal Communication Commission abolished the Fairness Doctrine marking the Golden era of conservative radio talk shows. The history of radio talk shows as an alternative conservative platform started with Clarence Manion. He launched the Manion Forum in 1954, to use persuasion as a tool to consolidate a conservative audience base. His visionary appeal to the donors helped him to make his radio show one of the most controversial and influential public forums (Hemmer, 2016). He was actively involved in the political mobilization of the conservative movement. ’s radio talk show became the hallmark of this era. Limbaugh started his show in 1984 and within a few years, spread it from Sacramento to the rest of the country (Hemmer, 2016). He was not highly educated or polished, as many first generation conservative media activists were; however, his provocative and personalized style appealed to millions of Americans. Burack and Snyder-Hall (2012) state, “Limbaugh’s innovation was the creation of an exclusively conservative, call-in radio show format” (p. 447). Limbaugh occupied multimedia platforms including print and television. He also adopted digital media; however, did not utilize the interactivity of this platform (Atkinson & Berg, 2012). Similarly, ’s radio show, Glenn Beck Program, attracted younger audiences in the early 2000s (Hemmer, 2016). After working for , he became a political conservative activist organizing episodic pro-Iraq war rallies. Similar to

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Limbaugh, his program and website were not very interactive, even though he appealed to the conservative audiences (Atkinson & Berg, 2012). Absence from the most visual media, television, was intensifying the sense of exclusion among the conservatives. C-SPAN became a minor but effective platform for the conservatives. They fundraised and used “special order” sections of C-SPAN to put Republican politicians on the stage. This strategy turned the neutral platform into an indirect ideological vehicle for the conservatives, followed by a relative success and episodic appearances on PBS (Viguerie & Franke, 2004). The New Right gained permanent presence in the media landscape with of Fox News in 1996 (Hemmer, 2016; Viguerie & Franke, 2004; Burack & Snyder-Hall, 2012). Rupert Murdock’s investments helped to grow the cable channel within the mainstream media realm as an alternative to the “liberal cable media.” The role of Fox News in journalism was remarkable challenging the principle of objectivity. Conservatives believed that journalism could not be objective; rather it had to be ‘fair and balanced’ (Hemmer, 2016; Viguerie & Franke, 2004), which remained the slogan of the Fox News. Perhaps, the most prominent role of the Fox News in the contemporary history of the populist right-wing movement was fostering the (Meagher, 2012; Minnite, 2012). Fox’s success has been contested with the rise of digital platforms and right-wing messaging on them. The Internet and the alternative right-wing media. The Internet introduced unprecedented opportunities for taking the right-wing alternative media. It offered enhanced interactivity and wider outreach, which could be capitalized for monetary gains. One of the pioneers of digital platforms was Matt Drudge with his , launched in 1998 (Viguerie & Franke, 2004). The right was using the Internet as a proselytizing tool, rather than an instrument of political organization, which the Left was doing (Viguerie & Franke, 2004). The newest generation of the conservative media activists was radically different from Buckley. The latter had a mission of building and intellectual conservative movement whose ideologies would be communicated through alternative media outlets targeting niche audiences. The vision was building a strong

24 ideological and politically powerful movement. The new generation on the other hand, utilizes media for profit gain (Atkinson, 2010; Viguerie & Franke, 2004). Their educational and political profiles were more entrepreneurial and were significantly different from the astute first-generation conservatives. By the late 1990s, the conservative media “talk radio, magazines, television networks, and internet sites have numerous connections, both direct and indirect, to the think tanks, interest groups and advocacy organizations, academic research centers, and foundations that develop and promote the Right’s key ideas and policies” (Meagher, 2012, p. 2). The older media in general, and the Internet, in particular, have enabled a network of conservative communication structure, which matches the networked infrastructure of the Internet and the modern society allowing to create multiple [alternative] public spheres connected to each other (Van Dijk & Hacker, 2018; Fraser, 1990). The network of mediated digital public spheres and the offline public spheres facilitated by media and non-media actors, amplify the communicative power of conservatives (Habermas, 1996). Thus, the conservative forces function with a powerful mobilization potential, which gave rise to the populist right-wing forces as a “a response to the particular social, economic, and political conditions in which they arise” (Burack & Snyder-Hall, 2012, p. 442). The Internet has served as a suitable platform for releasing the anger against corporate media by proliferating existing media outlets and spreading propaganda (Minnite, 2012). The Daily Wire. The Daily Wire is an online media outlet, founded in 2015. The editor-in-chief is the conservative political commentator Ben Shapiro. The Daily Wire delivers content in audio-visual, textual and live-show formats. In addition to articles published on the official website, this media outlet offers at least four podcasts. The most popular podcast is , which he describes as “the top conservative podcast in the nation” (The Daily Wire, n.d.). The subscriptions for the podcast are above 1.5 million. Shapiro offers content on a daily basis. The Shapiro Show is mostly the

25 individual commentary by Ben Shapiro. He sometimes offers Sunday guest specials. The content of the Daily Wire and Shapiro Show is political commentary. Summary. The conservative movement of the United States started to establish its own alternative media network to fight what they saw as left-wing establishment media. The activists of the Right used multimedia platforms to consolidate a conservative base. They used print media to shape a conservative identity, mastered the direct mail as a mobilizing and fundraising tool, and used radio talk shows to appeal to conservative voters emotionally. The digital platform is another area conservatives have build a network of public spheres amplifying conservative messages. Left-wing Alternative Media In order to establish some degree of temporal equivalence with the Right, I start the discussion of the left-wing alternative media from the Progressive era, the 1950s. Alternative media of this era have their roots go back to socialist and communist media in the late 19th throughout the 20th centuries (Flynn, 2008; Jeffreys-Jones, 2013; Zaretsky, 2012). However, the socialist and communist alternative media platforms were not influential ideologically. The progressive era and left-wing alternative media. The Left has always been more diverse in terms of representation and inclusion of minority groups. Unlike the focused agenda of the Right, the Left unified subgroups of democrats, socialists, union members, workers, and (Flynn, 2008). The Left of the era promoted the ideals of social equality and welfare state (Zaretsky, 2014). It had to face challenges posed by the growing conservative movement (Viguerie & Franke, 2004). Using radio talk as a prominent platform for spreading their messages, the conservatives started a smearing campaign against , which according to Jeffreys-Jones (2013) gave publicity to the issue. It also inspired some utopian radical subgroups of the Left to use the same tactics and brand the Conservatives as “ultra-right” fascist groups (Flynn, 2008, p. 248). The new left and alternative media. The 1960s and the1970s were the most populated years of the post-war era in the Universities across the United States. Not

26 surprisingly, the New Left that emerged during these years became synonymous to the Student Left. Established in 1962, the Students for Democratic Society (SDS) became the hallmark of the New Left (Flynn, 2008; Jeffreys-Jones, 2013). SDS leaders presented the Port Huron Statement, which was the manifesto of the organization declaring the priorities of the New Left and its focus on participatory democracy (Flynn, 2008; Zaretsky, 2014). Soon, the New left distanced itself from the socialist label and its members started to identify as liberals (Jeffreys-Jones, 2013). The movement expended and started to raise a wide range of social issues. In the 1960s, the New Left consisted of fractions and subgroups that focused on racial issues and equality rights. Jeffreys-Jones (2013) eloquently summarizes: … problem was the heterogeneity of the New Left and its tendency to feud with the Old Left and sometimes with black militants. To be sure, young followers liked the freedom to do their own thing. And yes, the diversity, made the movement difficult to repress. But the movement could appear formless and directionless (p. 134).

The New Left was close to the Civil Rights movement and even though the two never merged, the Left of the 1960s is characterized as the “movement” (Zaretsky, 2014). Poverty issues, community organizing of the New Left (Gitlin, 2003) were efforts of “diversification beyond the goals of socialism, opposition to War, antipoverty and civil rights” (Jeffreys-Jones, 2013, p. 146). It also included environmentalist issues, and embraced second-wave . Since media have the power to certify a movement (Gitlin, 2003). So similar to any other movement, the New left had to its position in the mass media to gain publicity, attract new members and gain legitimacy. According to Gitlin (2003), the mainstream media coverage of the New Left in the 1960s reinforced the hegemonic ideologies. Particularly, using journalistic routines and frames, the established media covered the New Left as another stereotyped social movements. Instead of certifying it as a complex social, political force, the New Left was covered as a sensationalized news event (Gitlin, 2003; Kenix, 2011). Following journalistic traditions of oversimplification of the events, the movements of the 1960s were framed as insurgencies, trivial, deviant 27 and at times violent. In other words, the press challenged the authority of the New Left marginalizing it (Zaretsky, 2014). This is one of the reasons the Left had to create alternative media to gain autonomy and legitimacy. Alternative media of the 1960s and 1970s is referred to as the underground press (Atton, 2002; Forde, 2011; , 2015). The goal of underground press was to make the voice of margins heard (Atkinson, 2010). The influence of underground press on creating a movement was limited. As Flynn (2008) suggests, in the mid 1960s, the Left “had the system as its common enemy but it had no common ideology” (p. 291). Without a unifying ideology the Left could not turn into a comprehensive movement even though it had multiple tools for mobilization. Challenges of mobilization efforts carried to the 1980s and 1990s. During these years, the Left lost inspiration as the radicalism started to fade away. The newer left and alternative media. In the late 1990s and the early 2000s, the Internet amplified the participatory capacity of alternative media. With the advancement of technology and reduced costs of production and distribution of information (Shirky, 2008), the Left had more opportunities to create and use its own alternative media platforms. With the digital technology, “The Newer Left had developed a Blogging Left tendency” (Jeffreys-Jones, 2013, p. 168). This partially explains why it suits the needs of the New Social Movements, which “seek to articulate their subjective experiences and interests and to maintain independence from institutional domination” (Lievrouw, 2011, p. 49). Moreover, for social movements, “the Internet is an essential resource for action and contested landscape of meaning, identity, knowledge and values” (Lievrouw, 2011, p. 54). The Internet has been characterized to have an anti-capitalist spirit, and allowed unprecedented opportunities to engage in both online and offline (Atkinson, 2010). It enables networked nature of organizing (Gil de Zúñiga, Molyneux, & Zheng, 2014; Lievrouw, 2011). One of the early examples of the Internet-enabled alternative media platforms of the Left is (IMC), otherwise known as Indymedia (Independent Media Center, n.d.). It was established in 1999 to protest the World Trade

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Organization meetings held in , Washington (Forde, 2011; Pimlott, 2015). These platforms published “exclusively left-radical, anti-globalist, anti-capitalist viewpoints” (Lievrouw, 2011, p. 134). Local Media Centers provided hundreds of activists and correspondents with resources and tools to report the street version of news of WTO meeting and break the mass media news cycle. Anyone with the Internet access could access Indymedia news (Pimlott, 2015). Since alternative media “is to some extent a product of its immediate social and political environment” (Forde, 2011, p. 44), one could argue that Indymedia also symbolizes the shifts in modes of organizing, alternative media and forms of journalism in the face of rapidly changing technological and political environment. Crooked Media. Crooked Media was established in the aftermath of the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election, because “in 2016, a sane conversation about politics was most needed but hardest to find” (Crooked, n.d.). Crooked Media was founded by Jon Favreau, who is the former speechwriter for president , , the speechwriter for and the White House, and , the National Security Spokesman for President Obama. Crooked Media’s content is delivered in multimedia formats: audio-visual, textual and live-shows. It offers ten podcasts ranging across political, cultural, and social topics. The most popular podcast is “Pod Save America” (PSA) with more than 1.5 million subscribers. It generally ranks among the top podcasts or episodes on the Apple podcast list (iTunes Chart, n.d.). Both the PSA podcast and the articles published on the Crooked Media website provide an in-depth analysis and commentary of the on-going political events. Definition and Paradigms of Citizenship Participation is both a process of inclusion and exclusion. The boundaries and parameters of these processes are often defined by the paradigm of citizenship at the particular historic moment. According to Marshall (1992), “citizenship means the right to participate in the exercise of political power, as a member of a body invested with political power or as an elector of such a body” (pp. 10-11). This definition of citizenship reflects strictly

29 representative democratic model. However, representative democracy falls within the participatory paradigm, which provides room for other forms of participation including protests, mobilization, letter writing and other (Dahlgren, 2009). Thus, Mrashall’s (1992) definition is too narrow to capture the actors involved in such activities. According to Dahlgren (2009), citizenship should be viewed beyond the legal rights and responsibilities, and should include “social agency” (p. 57). He explains, “democracy resides with citizens who interact with each other and interact with power holders of various kinds” (p. 73). The focus on social belonging (Dahlgren, 2009) has been at the center of different paradigms of citizenship that have evolved in parallel with democratic theory. The conventional mode of participation through clubs and membership (Putnam, 2000) has long been at the core of the American political system and reflected the dominant citizenship paradigm of “dutiful citizen” paradigm (Bennett, Wells, & Freelon, 2011, p. 838). The notion of dutiful citizenship later included community level service and volunteering activities as additional forms of civic engagement (Ekman & Amnå, 2012). The dutiful citizenship and the ideal informed citizen (Schudson, 2008; Carpini & Keeter, 1996) require proper knowledge and awareness of daily issues and political events that help to influence political decisions through conventional participation modes (Zuckerman, 2014). The dutiful citizen paradigm and the informed citizen ideal align with the liberal democratic model, whereby an individual citizen is free and protected to make a rational choice based on knowledge they have (Dahlgren, 2009). The broadening of the definition of citizenship over time (Zuckerman, 2014), has led to new paradigms of citizenship. Bennett et al. (2011) suggested the actualizing citizenship paradigm, which is a cause-oriented, expressive form of citizenship. It is appealing to younger people because it reflects a lifestyle and corresponds the consumer behaviors of the youth (Bennett et al., 2011). Actualizing citizenship entails “looser personal engagement with peer networks that pool information and organize civic action using social technologies that maximize individual expression” (Bennett et al., 2011, p. 839). The model encourages an individual identity-based action over a collective political

30 behavior typically observed in the dutiful paradigm (Ekman & Amnå, 2012). Fragmented and issue-oriented protests and cause-oriented activism connect actualizing paradigm to the Golden Era of social movements in America (Jeffreys-Jones, 2013). Loader, Vromen, and Xenos (2014) have proposed the networked citizenship paradigm, which they characterizing the following way: networked young citizen are far less likely to become members of political or civic organizations such as parties or trade unions; they are more likely to participate in horizontal or non-hierarchical networks; they are more project oriented; they reflexively engage in lifestyle politics; they are not dutiful but self- actualizing and their social relations are increasingly enacted through a networked environment (p. 145).

Networked model does not replace, rather compliments dutiful or actualized paradigms. Closely related, Ethan Zuckerman (2014) offers the “participatory civics” paradigm, whereby engagement is mostly mediated through digital media. According to him, young people who are alienated from politics should be given opportunities to engage using media structures that they use on daily basis. In the following quote shows both networked citizen and participatory civics indicate the centrality of mediated participation empowered by digital media. Practitioners of participatory civics have grown up on participatory media: they are used to being able to share their perspectives and views with the world, and to seeing their influence (Zuckerman, 2014, p. 156).

Table 2 Paradigms of Citizenship

Paradigm Definition Characteristics Dutiful citizen The citizens fulfilled his/her duty of Community participating in political process by being a service, member in a political club or party and voting. volunteering Actualizing This model encourages individual identity based Use of technology citizen action over collective identity based political for individual behavior. It is more issue-oriented. expression. Networked Participation through horizontal and non- Lifestyle politics citizen hierarchical social networks. Participatory Young people use participatory media structures Participation civics to engage. through media 31

Political Participation Political participation entails some form of actualized change of power relations within a given society (Dahlgren & Alvares, 2013). This is why, it is important to locate participation within the realm of political where the contestation of powers actualizes in outcomes that affect people’s life. Following Mouffe’s (2000) differentiation between politics and political, Carpentier (2011) suggests that political participation should be understood as “involvement of the citizenry within institutionalized politics” (p. 16). In other words it is “any activity of ordinary citizens with the aim of influencing the political outcomes” (Brady, 1997, p. 737). Political participation always entails “a confrontation of some sort with power arrangements and therefore is always preconditioned” (Dahlgren, 2014, p. 257). This is one of the reasons why representative, agonistic or deliberative models of democracy do not in themselves ensure participation. Participation depends on existing “civic infrastructures” (Carpini, 2000, p. 343) that provide opportunities for engagement. Civic infrastructures are comprised of structures and processes that allow a range of prospects for involvement from voting in elections to volunteering and political interaction. In other words, political participation is structured through institutional, legal and cultural logics (Dahlgren, 2009), hence it depends on the capacity of social and political institutions such as civil society and media to foster participation in various forms. Some of the forms are discussed next. Typology of political participation. Some scholars have made early attempts to operationalize participation proposing multidimensional models (Teorell, Torcal, & Montero, 2007; Verba & Nie, 1972). However, these were limited in their focus on conventional forms of participation and did not capture the changing structures, values and behaviors of people. Ekman and Amnå (2012) developed a comprehensive typology of political participation reflecting the behavioral and conceptual changes in the society. First, they distinguish between latent and manifest forms. In its simplest form, latent participation includes discussing politics, helping others in the community, contacting editors, writing

32 commentaries or blogs (Ekman & Amnå, 2012). On a higher level, the concept of latent participation allows to identify alternative ways of political participation (Dahlgren & Alvares, 2013). The manifest form consists of observable participatory actions such as voting, contacting officials, protesting (Ekman & Amnå, 2012). Both latent and manifest participation can be individual or collective. Zuckerman (2014) characterizes these as “thin and thick participatory civics” (p. 158), and suggests that both forms are needed and they exist as a continuum. Depending of the end goal, either form might be prioritized. Ekman and Amnå (2012) also propose the category of “social involvement”, which is comprised of “attention to and interest in political and social issues” (p. 293). Involvement extends dimensions of participation, and shows that people can be involved not in one aspect of societal life but many. Describing their innovative typology, Ekman and Amnå (2012) state “Civil participation with latent forms of social involvement and civic engagement. Political participation takes a manifest form, which encompasses formal participation, activism in legal and illegal actions” (Ekman & Amnå, 2012, p. 295). Finally, the last element of the typology is non-participation. Ekman and Amnå (2012) distinguish passive and active forms of non-participation. The passive form manifests when someone is simply disinterested in politics, while, the active disengagement is when a person is not only disinterested, but is anti-political. It is noteworthy, that in a given socio-political context, non-participation can be considered a form of mediated political action (Casemajor, Couture, Delfin, Goerzen, & Delfanti, 2015). The next section identifies functions of media and its relation to participation.

Table 3 Typology of Political Participation

Participation type Definition Activities Latent Non-manifest or alternative Political discussion, blogging, Manifest Overt participatory actions Voting, protesting Social involvement Interest in larger social issues Volunteering in community Non-participation Depending on context no action Withdrawal from public is mediated political action sphere

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Media and Political Participation The overarching function of media in a representative, deliberative or agonistic democracy is to foster political participation. Mainstream media possesses the power over and power to elements of civic culture that spur political participation (Dahlgren, 2014). Media can promote participation not only through fulfillment of their functions, but also through integrating the changing citizenship paradigms into their production and philosophy. The dutiful citizen model is compatible with the top-down structures of mainstream media and with its one-to-many communication stream. Meanwhile, the actualizing and the networked citizenship models imply a convergence of consumer and producer roles (Jenkins, 2006), horizontal, networked information structures and sharing that goes beyond traditional modes of communication (Bennett, et al., 2011; Dahlgren & Alvares, 2013). Dahlgren and Alvares (2013) also propose, “media should be seen as not just facilitating participation, but also as preparing for participation in the affective and normative dispositions they may help engender” (p. 50). As discussed earlier, mainstream media has so far been a part of weaker civic infrastructure that failed to attract young audiences and provide them with sufficient political knowledge and civic skills needed for participation (Carpini, 2000). Additionally, Dahlgren (2014) suggests that media use for participation has structural and subjective contingencies. The first implies consideration of the political economy and technical architecture of media platforms. The subjective contingencies of media use for participation reflect emotions, values as well as tap into civic subjectivity: one’s inner placement and emotions. Politics is not comprised of sole facts, rather embedded in the everyday life; it sparks anxiety, desires, disappointment and hopes among interested citizens (Dahlgren, 2014). Sotirovic and McLeod (2001) have found that people with predominantly materialist values of economic and personal security are driven towards more entertainment content and TV watching. Meanwhile, the post materialist value-driven people seeking self-expression and sense of belonging to community; prefer newspaper reading of hard news as well as integration of content from different sources. They find

34 that it is not the medium but the content that provokes more reflection and learning about politics (Sotirovic & McLeod, 2001). Additionally, discussions and interactions with others foster better understanding of political reality and motivation to participate in politics (Rojas & Puig-i-Abril, 2009; Sotirovic & McLeod, 2001). The communicative practices and the mediated political information influence political behavior too (Rojas & Puig-i-Abril, 2009; Wojcieszak, 2009). A study by Mutz and Martin (2001) indicates that people are exposed to dissimilar views from mass media. People exercise more control over the media content they consume as opposed to face-to- face social interactions with others where they have less control (Cambell & Kwak, 2011). Similarly, Rojas & Puig-i-Abril (2009) found that the use of mobile technologies, the Internet and access to political information increase the capacity of political expressiveness. A meta-analysis of social media use and participation studies has shown that social media use is positively correlated to political participation (Boulianne, 2015). Even though studies do not show a strong causal relationship between social media use and political participation, there is consistency in anticipating increased citizen knowledge of political issues among those who use social media for seeking information or consuming news. According to a recent study, news consumption through social media surges civic awareness, which facilitates engagement in an indirect manner (Boulianne, 2016). In addition, people use social media for relational purposes. The study shows that similar to mobile technologies; social media empowers online political expression, which leads to offline political participation (Gil de Zúñiga, Molyneux, & Zheng, 2014). Related to the social interaction and its link to participation, Cambell & Kwak (2011) found that in larger social discussion networks of people with similar worldview, people tend to use mobile technology for political discourse more than in a smaller size homogenous network. Previously, focusing on social network ties within online radical environmentalists and neo-Nazi groups, Wojcieszak (2009) showed that “overly supportive and unanimously oppositional networks seemed to decrease political engagement” (p. 580), while looser social ties did not have direct impact on participatory behavior.

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Overall, social media is essential for political information and socialization (Wojcieszak, 2009). Not only the horizontal structures of social media empower a civil culture (Dahlgren & Alvares, 2013), but they also match the networked citizen and actualizing paradigms of citizenship. However, these platforms alone are not sufficient for fostering participation (Loader et al., 2014).

Table 4 Democracy, Citizenship, Participation, and Media

Model of Functions of Media Citizenship Type Democracy Paradigm Representative Watchdog of the government. Dutiful citizen + Manifest / Catalyst of discussion in public actualizing citizen and latent liberal sphere. Intermediary between the state and citizens. Deliberative Media have to serve as a public Actualizing citizen + Manifest, sphere. Media should have participatory civics latent or participatory structures. non- participation Agonistic Contributes to creation of Actualizing citizen + Manifest agonistic public spaces. Media participatory civics can stimulate discussion within contesting sides.

Mass Communication Theories and the Role of Media in Society One of the central questions of mass communication studies has been the role of media in society. The dynamic nature of media depends on social, political and economic context within which it is embedded. Changes in the context imply changes in the media- society relations, which has been captured by various theories. Baran and Davis (2012) identify four eras of mass communication theories. The first is the era of mass society and mass culture. The theories of this era mostly interpreted the role of media as negative. To some degree, they reflected the fears introduced by the 19th century industrialization and urbanization, whereby technology was seen to take over individuality and community life. Additionally, it identified the

36 elitist control over the media industry. The limitation of this era was that it viewed audiences as passive consumers with no or very limited agency. The second era of mass communication theory was based on more advanced research. Paul Lazarsfeld’s team used scientific methods of data collection and analysis to propose the idea that media had limited influence on people (Baran & Davis, 2012). The limited-effect theory recognized that media were not the only social institution influencing people. According to limited-effects theory, media mainly reinforced the social status quo, rather than being a disruptive force. Regarding the audience, the theorists suggested that people are somewhat protected by the direct influence of mass media because there are opinion leaders who serve as intermediaries between the pluralistic elites and the people. Even though it moved closer to an active audience perspective, the limited-effects theorists did not see audiences’ agency as an essential element of the media-society relationship. It was the European Marxist scholars, known as the Frankfurt School, who highlighted that the media audience was not passive as it was assumed before (Baran & Davis, 2012). They though of the audience as able to interpret the media content and even resist the hegemonic content. The fourth era of mass communication theory marked a shift from media-centered to audience-centered studies. For the first time, the audience was seen as active and the questions shifted from what media do to people to what people do to media, how they us them and to what ends (Baran & Davis, 2012). The early stages of the active audience research and theory were more descriptive of the audiences of mass media. One of the most prominent audience theories is the uses-and-gratification (Baran & Davis, 2012). Uses-and-gratification allowed application of new methods and data analysis and considered long neglected aspects of intended consequences of media use triggered by active choice of audiences. Nevertheless, in the early stages, this theory was limited, as it understood ‘activity’ only as the selection and utility of the content. What remained understudied were the activities that granted autonomy to the user. There is also the ambiguity related to the term active. On the one hand, ‘active audience’ refers to the

37 activities of the users of media; on the other hand, it refers to the “activeness” (Baran & Davis, 2012, p. 253) of the audience, whereby they use media to construct new experiences and situations. This ambiguity posed research challenges. According to Carpentier (2011), reading of polysemic media texts is a part of an activity distinguishing active and passive audiences. Moreover, he argues that the audience activity consists of “interaction and participation dimensions” (Carpentier, 2011, p. 66). The interaction refers to the interpretations of signification, whereby the audience interacts with the text. This process also helps the audience to build a social identity. The participation dimension refers to the participation in media and through media (Carpentier, 2011). Participation ‘through’ media embraces the idea of self- representation and presence at a public space. The intensity of participation is contingent on the ideological and social environment. The communicative form of participation is significant because it not disintegrated from the institutionalized politics; rather democratizes alternative public spheres (Carpentier, 2011; Fraser, 1990). The participation ‘in’ media is about content production and organizational decision-making (structural) (Carpentier, Dahlgren, & Pasquali, 2013). Carpentier (2011) asserts that engagement on structural and content levels allows citizens to practice their right to communicate. However, the institutional nature and hierarchically structured production logic of mainstream media give more power and autonomy to media professionals. Even though media professionals can decide to delegate power to non- professionals, it still remains a unidirectional form of participation. From a critical perspective, such participation is non-political and is distanced from the societal context (Carpentier, 2011), which is why it is important for the audiences to also have offline “participation in society” (p. 70). The theoretical frame that informs this study is the theory of cultural hegemony discussed in the next section.

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Table 5 Four Eras of Mass Communication Theory

Mass Society Limited –Effects Critical cultural Active Audience (1920s-30s) (1930s-40s) (1950s-70s) (1980s-present) Media played an Media has a limited Mass media promoted People have the influential but impact on people hegemonic ideologies power to use media negative role of in who are also due to the power of in different ways to society. The elites influenced by social elites. make their ultimately family, friends and experiences controlled every other factors. meaningful and social aspect of life. gratify their needs.

The theory of cultural hegemony. In order to understand the universally acknowledged educative function of mainstream media in a society, one has to refer to the theory of cultural hegemony proposed by Antonio Gramsci (1971). In contrast to , where the ruler achieves its objective (satisfaction of interest of the ruling class) through coercion and hard power, a democratic or civilized state achieves such goals through its influence on the cultural and ideological domain. With the consent of the governed, the state undertakes the role of an educator. Since the political and civil societies are divided, different actors of the two spheres carry the educative functions, media being one of those actors. Locating Marxist theory in the cultural realm, Gramsci (1971) claimed “every state is ethical as much as one of its most important functions is to raise the great mass population to a particular cultural and moral level” (p. 258). In the United States, the government does not exercise hard forms of power to exert influence over people; it rather relies on mainstream media to reproduce hegemony. In the US system the state does not own or control media, however, in Gramsci’s (1971) conceptualization, the state does not only include government institutions but also and more so the “private apparatus of hegemony or civil society” (p. 260). Recognizing the proliferation of elements, the state enhances cultural policies reducing its interventions and coercive authority giving a way to a “regime of hegemony” driven by “private forces” (p. 261), which represent the ideas of the ruling class. The educative function of the mainstream media corresponds to the overarching educative role of the democratic governance. Media organizations and 39 government institutions depend on each other and have coinciding interests, which incentivize them to sustain hegemony. This could explain why mainstream media have largely failed to represent the voices of marginalized or portray social movements and dissident groups in a positive light. Similarly, Couldry (2003) suggests, it is essential to recognize that media power is not limited to the concentration of organizational and economic resources or ownership; rather it has a cultural dimension. This dimension is where democracy, media, and political participation intersect. Following Gramsci (1971), Laclau & Mouffe (1985) explain, in a democratic system emergence of political agents is not through the construction of class identity, rather it is through the hegemonization or symbolic crystallization of relations. In other words, political agents “are not classes, but complex collective wills similarly the ideological elements (Laclau & Mouffe, 1985, p. 67).

The collective wills are products of ideological articulations, which happen in the cultural domain. This does not imply that articulations are non-political. Ideology is political and is “the precise terrain on which the relations are constituted” (Laclau & Mouffe, 1985, p. 67). Moreover, the identity of the political agent derives from the relations that are formed through a process of -ideological articulation. Hence, the political struggle is embedded in the hegemonic articulation and the structures allowing it. In a democracy, the heterogeneity is central and forming or reconstructing hegemony becomes the only way of winning a political struggle. Heterogeneity makes the modern system vulnerable to emergence of the alternative forces. Gramsci (1971) distinguished civil society and political society, whereby the civil society comprises cultural and educational institutions; while political society is equivalent to the state. The civil society contributes to the formation of political consciousness and serves as the “marketplace of ideas” (Bates, 1975, p. 353). In other words, civil society is in some form a public sphere. It is a cultural organization and reflects the ideological sphere (Bates, 1975; Gramsci, 1971). The civil society is a sphere, where new ideologies can be born to replace the old and this is why the state has to

40 maintain hegemony within this sphere. One of the ways to maintain it, according to Gramsci, was creating public opinion (Bates, 1975). Thus, it is important that the intellectuals or proponents of new ideologies move beyond criticism of the old ones and find ways to insert their ideology through counter-hegemonic spheres (Keane, 1998). The heterogeneity of civil society enables multiplicity of counter public spheres (Fraser, 1990) that can emerge depending on the circumstances of the context and time. According to Couldry (2003), in order to identify and challenge dominant symbolic and representational powers of mainstream media, there needs to be an external social site of counter power. Alternative media is often viewed as a constituent of power imbalance in relation to mainstream media (Carpentier, Dahlgren, & Pasquali, 2013; Lee, 2015). Radical journalism or alternative media that privilege advocacy over objectivity, eyewitness reporting and citizen engagement have been recognized as counter-hegemonic social sites (Atton, 2004). Immigration is one of the most debatable topics in the American society and the media coverage of it demonstrates the processes applied in real situation. The next section presents what is DACA and media’s coverage of irregular immigration over time. Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA). The topic of immigration is highly contested in many societies including the United States. The United States is at the top of the 25 destination countries for international migrants (Migration Policy Institute, 2017; UN, 2017). The rough estimate number of unauthorized immigrants in the United States ranged from 10 to 11 million in 2016, which is a decline compared to the rates before 2007-09 recession. Over 50% of these population group are Latino/Latina (Zong, Batalova, & Burrows, 2019; Krogstad, Passel, & Cohn, 2018). This paper focuses on the second one as it examines the media discourse on DACA. After a number of failed attempts to pass a legislation that would help to authorize the legal stay of undocumented immigrants, Barack Obama signed an executive order in 2012, known as the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), ordering the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security and the US Citizenship and Immigration Services and US Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency (ICE) to

41 practice “prosecutorial discretion” towards a certain group of undocumented immigrants (Schmid, 2013). DACA allowed certain people who came to the United States as children and meet several guidelines to request consideration of deferred action for a period of two years, subject to renewal (USCIS.gov, n.d.). While DACA did not provide lawful status for any recipient, its beneficiaries were eligible for work authorization. Deferred Action is the use of prosecutorial discretion to defer removal action against an individual for a certain period of time (USCIS.gov, n.d.). In 2017, president D. Trump decided to end DACA (Shear & Davis, 2017), this decision to halt this Obama era policy, stirred an intense political debate and turmoil about what happens to about 800, 000 DACA recipients who all of a sudden became subject to deportation from the country where they grew up. The policy took over the national headlines and shared different takes on the issue. This study focuses on the discourses of the alternative right-wing and left-wing media when covering DACA and its recipients. Media Framings of Irregular Immigration The source of social power of the media is their direct control over production and distribution of information. Social power manifests in the ability of media to represent and frame issues (Couldry & Curran, 2003). Media use symbols, myths and beliefs that grant them power over symbolic communication that allows promoting certain ideology (Gitlin, 2003). This section discusses the media framing and representation of immigration, irregular immigration in particular. First about the language! In response, to the debate on the effect of terms used to discuss immigration, some scholars have reconsidered their own choice of terms increasingly using “irregular immigration” and “unauthorized immigration” to replace “illegal immigration” (Aalberg & Beyer, 2015; Benson & Wood, 2015; Beyer & Matthes, 2015; Caricati, 2018; Thorbjørnsrud, 2015). I join this group of scholars using irregular immigration or undocumented/unauthorized immigrants because I believe these terms are more humanizing.

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Immigration is highly contentious issue in every society and the media’s coverage of can either deepen the conflicting views or create more solidarity. Haynes, Merolla, and Ramakrishnan (2016) conducted a comprehensive analysis of the media frames of immigration in the United States. Haynes, et al. (2016) mention, the polarization in media coverage has increased influencing media framing patterns. To empirically test the differences in framing the same policy issue, they compared conservative, mainstream and liberal media outlets (Fox, Washington Time, MSNBC, CNN and Washington Post). They distinguish three main categories of frames used by the media include “equivalency, episodic, and issue frames” (Haynes, et al., 2016, p. 19). Equivalency frames are used to create equilibrium between opposing categories. This entails the debates over the use of specific terms to cover irregular immigration. The International Organization of Migration (2011) defines ‘irregular migration’ as the process of entering another country, working or staying in it without proper documentation required by the immigration law of the country, or crossing the border to another country without proper documentation or permission. The organization acknowledges the lack of a universal agreement on the right term for describing migration that falls out of the legal boundaries. It establishes that “There is, however, a tendency to restrict the use of the term "illegal migration" to cases of smuggling of migrants and trafficking in persons” (IOM, 2011). According to the international law, the term “illegal” implies severe violations of human rights of the immigrants by a third party, a perspective that is often neglected in the discussions about immigration on the domestic level. The United States Department of Justice (DOJ) is one of the government agencies that shape the discourse around immigration. The DOJ has referred to unauthorized immigrants as “illegal immigrants,” “illegal aliens,” and “undocumented immigrants”. In its most recent Strategic Plan 2018-2022, one of DOJ’s priority goals is ensuring border security and enforcement aiming to “Prioritize criminal immigration enforcement” (JOD, 2018, p. 5), which indicates a language strictly tying immigration with law and crime. The conservative Right has adopted a similar language (Merolla, Ramakrishnan, &

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Haynes, 2013). Recently, Hans von Spakovsky, a Heritage Foundation contributor, endorsed DOJ’s use of “illegal alien” arguing that the term “undocumented immigrant is a politically correct, made-up term adopted by pro-illegal alien advocacy groups and liberal media outlets to obscure the fact that such aliens have violated U.S. immigration law and are in the country illegally” (Von Spakovsky, 2018, July 30). Conversely, in 2016, the National Association of Hispanic Journalists (NAHJ) called for the journalists to refrain from using the term “illegals” which dehumanizes the immigrants (Lopez, 2016, June 24). Dehumanization entails exclusion from humanness, which is achieved through semantic devices and rhetoric tropes such as animalistic metaphors, disease metaphors, characterization of incivility, lack of cognitive sophistication and moral (Essess, Medianu & Law, 2013; Van Leeuwen, 2008). Esses et al. (2013) found, that the political cartoons effectively portraying refugees and immigrants as ‘bogus and terrorists’ effectively dehumanized these groups and created negative attitudes toward them among the Canadians. The negative stories also triggered implicit predisposition to justify strategies to eliminate these “threats.” Studying the effect of dehumanization through disease metaphors, Utych (2018) found that such strategies directly cause negative attitudes towards the immigrants and indirectly trigger such feelings as anger, hate, and disgust. Such attitudes and feelings also cause harsher restrictive views on immigration policy. The most aspect of dehumanization, which has been shown through research on use of metaphors by the Nazis and against Japanese, is that dehumanizing helps to justify the eradication of “the vermin or disease” by all means. Several scholars have underscored the racial and ethnic biases perpetuated by dehumanizing metaphors as well as terms such as “illegal alien/immigrant.” Media portrayal of immigrants as ‘threats’ to the host society “mediates the relationship between national identification and support for immigrant exclusion regardless of income inequality and of nations” (Caricati, 2018, p. 47). Similarly, Valentino, Brader and Jardina (2013) found that "attitudes about Latinos dominate the contemporary immigrant schema in the minds of ” (p. 155), as Whites did not seem

44 concerned about the impact of African, Asian or Eastern European immigrants. However, they were concerned about the effects of the Latino immigrants than other out-groups. Valentino et al. (2013) argue that due to ethnocentrism, the negative coverage of Latino immigrants causes anxiety among the Whites. However, it is not only the negative stereotype (Picker & Sun, 2013) that helps to perpetuate stereotypical representation. Chuang and Roemer (2015) examined media portrayals of DREAM Act, challenging the negative stereotyping of Latinos/Latinas, and use of positive exemplars and success stories. They found that the coverage of human-interest stories and policy issues was predominantly through the use of exemplars. The stories highlighted the cultural dimension to Americanness, which portrays how fluent immigrants are in English, what American food, music or sports they prefer. Chuang and Roemer (2015) show that the most common signifier of constructing an image of Americanness was blamelessness or innocence, indicating that these individuals were brought to the Unites States before they were 12. Positive stereotypes included mentions of economic struggles, implicitly suggesting the insufficiency of the home country (other) and hard work and success as a symbol of American Dream and assimilation. Episodic frames (Haynes, et al. 2016) are typically human-interest topics and coverage of the overall policy with a special focus on a particular aspect of the issue. The human interest framing is oriented towards representing a personal experience of an individual or family rather than a generic issue. These frames are affective, often used by the media for “telling story of an individual, and often include perspectives that take immigrant’s own viewpoint” (Aalberg & Beyer, 2015, p. 860). Human interested-frame use for the coverage of irregular immigration is the more prominent in the Norwegian media, and less so in the United States, even though the American audience prefer such frames, even though they also have a negative attitude towards them (Aalberg & Beyer, 2015). The same study finds that the liberals have more preference for the human interest-framed news, while conservatives do not support such frames. The comparative analysis shows that the American public has more restrictive (negative) views on irregular immigration than other nations (Aalberg & Beyer, 2015; Beyer & Matthes,

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2015). While the evidence suggests that negative framing (which has stronger effect on public) is more common across all the American media than the positive frames (Haynes et al. 2016), the public believes that media do not cover crime and border effects of immigration sufficiently (Aalberg & Beyer, 2015). In fact, the national security and the threat are the most two salient frames that have a mobilizing effect for participation among non-immigrant, Republican groups (Merolla, Pantoja, Cargile, & Mora, 2012). Issue frames concentrate on various dimensions of the policy. Immigration policy is multidimensional, and the media can choose to either frame the specific aspects as related to law, safety, employment, etc. These overall frames actualize into specific frames that perpetuate certain political ideologies. The issue frames demonstrate the differences and polarization of attitudes toward irregular immigration most vividly. The research indicates that one of the prominent anti-immigration frames is amnesty (Haynes, et al. 2016, Merolla, Ramakrishnan & Haynes, 2013). It is related to the use of the term ‘illegal,’ which implies a violation of the law, a socially unacceptable act. The idea is immigrants who violate the law by coming to the States, should not be granted an amnesty-right to stay in the country legally. While the use of this frame has been on decrease, especially in regards to the DREAM Act (Merolla, Ramakrishnan & Haynes, 2013), its negative connotation has been the most effective as it fosters more restrictive attitudes among Republicans. Even CNN, which is considered a center-left media outlet (All Sides, 2019), utilized this frame, when it had conservative commentators on air (Haynes, et al., 2016). In contrast, pro-immigration advocates had used “path to citizenship” frames to support legalization of immigration (Merolla, Ramakrishnan & Haynes, 2013, p. 791). Other legal frames including rule of law, public safety and national security. Unauthorized migrants are not a homogenous group despite the stereotypical representations in the media (Caricati, 2018; Thorbjørnsrud, 2015). In fact, the demographic of the Latino/Latina undocumented immigrants have changed from single men seeking employment opportunities, to families, women and children fleeing poverty and violence (Benson, 2014). Nevertheless, media representation has not caught up with

46 the social reality yet. Based on the ideological leaning, the conservative outlets often portray immigrants as law-breakers (Haynes et al., 2016) and criminals who threaten the national security of the American public (Benson, 2014). On the other hand, the liberal media use frames endorsing legalization of unauthorized immigrants; this is especially effective when mentioning number of years immigrants have been in the country (Haynes, et al., 2016). Some issue frames focus on economy indicating either the economic cost of unauthorized migrants or their economic benefit to the society. Haynes, et al. (2016) state “liberal and mainstream media were most likely to include pro-economic frames, and pro-rule of law frames” (pp. 64-65). Meanwhile, the conservative outlets, for instance, Fox, covered the negative effect of immigration on the economy or the economic cost of the undocumented immigrants on the country. This finding is consistent with the comparative analysis of immigration framing in France, US and Norway, which shows that overall, the framing of immigration as a problem for society dominates over other frames (Benson & Wood, 2015; Estrada, Ebert & Lore, 2016). This frame does not only perpetuate the idea that immigrants cost money to taxpayers, but also they agree to low wages, hurting the employment of average Americans who would do those jobs but for a better salary (Benson, 2014). On the other hand, the liberal media emphasize the economic benefits of the undocumented immigrants. Liberal and mainstream media also emphasize humanitarian frames such as the need for the families to stay together to avoid social disruptions (Haynes, et al., 2016; Benson, 2014). Interestingly, the use of the word “children” when mentioning unauthorized immigrants has a strong mediating affect across the political spectrum. It is noteworthy; Republicans demonstrated less restrictive response to this frame (Haynes, et al., 2016). Overall, the research indicates that the media portrayal of irregular immigration is more negative than positive and that negative frames have stronger effect on public opinion and aptitudes. While the existing literature provides invaluable insights, two aspects stand out. First, there is a scarcity of qualitative methods such as discourse

47 analysis to identify ideological frames, especially in regards to the coverage of such value-laden issues. To address these issues, this study employs a two-pronged methodological approach. I analyze the coverage of DACA by alternative right-wing and left-wing media using critical discourses analysis, which is discussed in the second part of the method section.

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Chapter 3: Methods Media perform “a symbolic crystallization of social relations within a political community” (Laclau & Mouffe, 1985, p. 67). Media articulate ideas and relations that citizens utilize to form a political identity that may dictate their decisions to be engaged in or restrain from political participation. The goal of this study is first, to understand how media consumption changes the experiences of political participation for young adults. Secondly, it attempts to assess the potential of right-wing and Left-wing alternative media outlets to stifle or facilitate political participation among young people. This research project aims to answer the following questions: What are the roles of alternative media in the American democracy? What are the ways in which right-wing and left-wing alternative media foster political participation? How do they differ or resemble? This chapter describes the methodology and the research design of the study. It consists of two parts describing the complimentary methods (Patton, 2015). The first section discusses use of focus group for the audience reception part of the study. The section about focus group outlines the instruments of data collection, procedures of participant recruitment, interviewing and data analysis using thematic analysis. The second part defines critical discourse analysis, details the data collection tools, procedures of the selection of media texts, as well as their analysis. Qualitative Research and Phenomenology Qualitative research is multi-dimensional and is suited for studies where the researcher aims to interpret certain phenomena in relation to the meaning it carries for people in their daily experiences (Denzin & Lincoln, 2004). Qualitative research “involves the use and collection of variety of empirical materials, case study, personal experience, interview, interactional and visual texts to describe routine problematic moments and meanings in individuals’ lives” (Denzin & Lincoln, 2004, p. 2). In this study, I utilized two of the mentioned empirical materials. First, focus groups helped me to collect data uncovering personal views and experiences of the participants. Second, I analyze the articles from digital alternative media outlets to identify how right-wing and

50 left-wing media cover DACA. I intend to evaluate the discursive ways the outlets might foster engagement. This study is based on an interpretative paradigm within communication research (Lindlof & Taylor, 2011). I adopt the phenomenological tradition, which according to Husserl (1931 as cited in Lindolf & Taylor, 2011) is always intentional and requires consciousness of the object under investigation. Phenomenology guides the process of exploring and understanding the complexity of individual experiences in two main phases (Sage publication, Chapter 5, p. 30). The first phase includes “bracketing” or deconstruction of the structures or normal order surrounding daily experiences (Lindlof & Taylor, 2011). Most of our daily experiences are mediated due to the fact that media and technology are embedded in our lives. To understand the relation between media and political participation as it forms within the context of individual lives, this study first brackets the media consumption as a separate activity from other daily activities. To further explore the complexity of media consumption, it narrows the focus to examine consumption and role of alternative media in the lives of the participants. The second phase is reduction or epoche, which captures the essence of alternative media consumption for the young adults (Jensen, 2012). Understanding this phenomenon will help to explain the relationship between people’s communicative and political behaviors. In the framework of this study, digital media do not only represent and offer conditions for contextual behavior, but also serve as resources of social action (Jensen, 2012). The phenomenological methodology allows to closely investigate participants’ experiences with alternative media (Atkinson, 2017), how the negotiate the realities that inform their decision-making. The second methodological approach is critical. The critical perspectives in media studies trace back to the Frankfurt School. Established in 1923, the Institute of Social Research gained prominence when Max Horkheimer (1895-1973) became the Director and defined the interdisciplinary direction of the Institute. He decided that it should combine various theoretical paradigms and empirical methods to understand culture, psychic development of the society, politics and economy (Mills & Barlow, 2012). In the

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1940s, the Marxist theorists suggested that mass culture was a product of capitalist valorization of cultural commodities and the line between classes, state and economy was blurring, which was a troubling sign of a rising “one-dimensional society” (Pietilä, 2005, p. 147). They saw culture industry as the main catalyst of the status quo or ruling ideology, which meant the sophistication of production techniques, augmented production of the dominant ideology (Pietilä, 2005). As Atkinson (2017) summarizes “cultural studies focus on how ideological assumptions and cultural values embedded within mediated communication constitute a structure that shapes the way in which the audience experiences the world” (p. 32). The focus of this study is on alternative media. One of the goals of this study is to demonstrate that alternative media are heterogeneous and can reproduce dominant hegemonic discourses regardless the political leaning. Only a critical theoretical framework will allow unveiling the ways this reproduction occurs (Jeppesen, 2016). This study is particularly focused on identifying how the status quo manifests in alternative media content using the theory of hegemony. Research Methods in Alternative Media Research of alternative media is a relatively young subfield in the broader field of mass communication. It faces a number of challenges including the one-dimensional nature of many research initiatives. Rodríguez, Ferron, and Shamas (2014) have identified that studies that examine one aspect of alternative media tend to be reductionist and fail to capture the prolific social processes involving political action. To avoid reductionism, they suggest that the research design has to acknowledge and highlight the complex history and the current political context within which it is taking place. The authors also call for research in the field of alternative media to “adequately understand the rich historical contexts, political economy frameworks, and complex modes of communication involved in these media happenings” (Rodríguez, et al., 2014, p. 162), which necessities pushing boundaries of research frameworks and directions within the field. Despite the multi-level research efforts in mass communication in general (Pan & McLeod, 1991), Atkinson (2017) suggests that alternative media studies

52 have to expand in four dimensions: “production, content, audience, and feedback” (p. 180). A common method of examining the content of alternative media is qualitative content analysis (Atkinson, 2017). Guided by the purpose and critical methodological frames of this study discussed above, I used critical discourse analysis to identify the ideological and hegemonic patterns reproduced by the selected alternative media outlets in their coverage of immigration policy. Since this method is not common within alternative media studies, this study expands the methodological boundaries within the field (Rodríguez, et al., 2014). The audiences of alternative media have mostly been studied through interviews and focus groups (Atkinson, 2017; Rauch 2015). Audience research relies on two main traditions: audience reception and everyday contexts of media (Jensen, 2012). This study captures both dimensions. I conducted focus groups to explore participants’ experiences with alternative media content consistent with the phenomenological approach (Atkinson, 2017). In the next section I the application of comparative analysis, which is another methodological dimension of this study. Comparative Analysis Approach in Alternative Media Studies Comparative analysis has been mostly used within the field of political communication. As Pfetsch and Esser (2004) suggest “every observation is without significance, if it is not compared with other observations” (p. 7). In this sense, comparative analysis has fostered a nuanced understanding of processes and structures in various contexts that could otherwise be universalizing and reductionist (Esser & Pfetsch, 2004). A comparative approach helps to contrast different political contexts within which the media operate. It also helps to identify problems and consider solutions applicable to various groups of the society (Esser & Pfetsch, 2004). Comparative analysis is not a common approach in alternative media studies. I applied it to examine different ideological outlets within the alternative media system in the U.S. (Kleinsteuber, 2004). Some of the common methods used in comparative research are content analysis, audience ratings and readership, interviews or a mix of strategies (Kleinsteuber, 2004).

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The main strategy of this study is to compare the right-wing and reft-wing alternative media in the US, combining the discourse analysis and audience reception. One of major challenges of comparative analysis is the choice of the unit of analysis (Pfetsch & Esser, 2004), which requires establishing a “functional equivalence” (Pfetsch & Esser, 2004, p. 9) or a compatibility of units under investigation. Wirth and Kolb (2004) argue that equivalence has to be analyzed in different levels of research and its presence or absence should not be assumed, rather it should be methodically established and explained. In the next section, I discuss how I established equivalence between the two outlets. Establishing equivalence: Selection of the alternative media outlets. The rise of the Internet has proliferated the field of alternative media. On the one hand, there are more outlets citizens can select as sources of information and news. On the other hand, the abundance had created methodological difficulty when establishing compatible digital alternative media outlets. Kleinsteuber (2004) argues that comparative studies should have two central features “the objects to be compared must be neither identical nor completely lacking common features. Every comparison has to ask the two-sided question as to similarities and differences. A focus on only one of these two components is incomplete” (Kleinsteuber, 2004, p. 65). First, I compiled a list of right leaning and left leaning alternative outlets, which included DemocracyNow, BlazeTV, NewsmaxTV, Weekly Standard, The Young Turks, Crooked Media, Network, , the Intercepted, and Daily Wire. These outlets were selected due to the results of most common search results and the limited available data on their audience demographic, content update frequency and popularity. Second, by comparing and contrasting the characteristics of alternative outlets on the list, I developed selection criteria to establish equivalence between possible outlets. This included different characteristics of the media outlets such as their overview, content, most commonly used medium, and the size of audience. Going back and forth among the list of the outlets, comparing the characteristics, I decided that the appropriate level of equivalence was established between two digital outlets, Crooked Media (Media

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Bias, n.d.), which leans towards the political Left, and The Daily Wire, which leans towards the Right end of the political spectrum (Media Bias, n.d.; All Sides, n.d.). Crooked Media and the Daily Wire have some equivalence in terms of their audience sizes, both are relatively new, and they deliver content on multimedia platforms. While the information on their audience demographic is not available, they appeal to the younger people who look for interactive, non-traditional formats of political commentary. Both media outlets criticize the mainstream media and attempt to distance from conventional reporting. Their biggest difference is that they are on the opposing poles of the political spectrum. The next section presents the first method used to examine audience perspectives. Part I: Focus Groups Focus groups are one of the most prominent qualitative methods applied in audience research (Atkinson, 2017; Mytton, Diem, & Van Dam, 2016). They are most commonly used in studying the experiences and perceptions of media audiences (Krueger & Casey, 2009; Mytton, et al., 2016). Focus groups are small group discussions with the goal to collect information about people’s understanding, attitudes, thinking and experience regarding a specific topic (Brennen, 2013; Mytton, et al., 2016). It is an effective method to understand the reality and sense making of the participants. That is the reason why it perfectly aligns with the goal of this study. As Atkinson (2017) notes, “studies of alternative media audiences typically either focus on audiences’ interpretive strategies or reveal the ways in which audiences use the information through alternative media content” (p. 185). I employ focus group to understand how young adults use the content of alternative media to co-construct meanings of the everyday events and how their interpretations of media content might influence their political behavior. Participants. Due to the goals and the methodological approach of the study, I used open or purposive sampling because “phenomenological research uses sampling … to understand the full complexity of the individual’s experience” (Bailey, 1992, p. 30). Purposive sampling implies that the participants are selected based on intentionally defined criterion. Based on the accepted norms of conducting focus groups, as well as the

55 purpose of the study, I developed the following inclusion and exclusion criteria. I decided to conduct focus groups with people who share common characteristics, experiences or knowledge on the subject matter (Krueger & Casey, 2009; Mytton, et al., 2016; Wilkinson, 2015). The groups were homogenous in terms of demographic features and experiences and knowledge regarding the topic. The first inclusion criterion was that the participants had to be between 18-34 years old, enrolled in college courses. Mytton, et al. (2016) do not recommend conducting focus groups with a mixed group of female and male participants. However, since this study does not investigate gender specific issues, gender was not an inclusion or exclusion criteria to be considered when composing the groups. As college students, the participants share somewhat routinized lifestyles, they are mostly digital natives or savvy media users, meaning that they can talk about the influence of various media consumption affects on their decisions. This study focuses on the political behaviors and consumption of ideological media content. One of the challenges of sampling was the decision whether or not to include the criteria of ideological leaning of the participants. This was a consideration in the initial stage of the study as the plan was to separate participants into groups based on their identification either as Republicans or Democrats. This would help to mitigate the stress of discussing politics with people who have differing views, especially considering the state of polarization in the American society (Gramlich, 2017). However, such grouping could lead to a and confirmation of existing biases. In consultation with a political science professor at the Ohio University, Dr. Elliot-Dorrans1, who studies political participation, I decided that including an ideological criterion would limit the scope of the findings. Specifically, it would limit the ability to evaluate the impact of alternative media use on political participation, since people who strongly identify with a certain political organization are most probably already actively engaged in politics regardless their media consumption habits. Instead, I wanted the study to provide the participants with an additional

1 https://www.ohio.edu/cas/pols/contact/profiles.cfm?profile=elliotl3 56 opportunity to engage in discussions with people who might have different worldviews. Moreover, they would be exposed to media content from opposing political poles and experience how others co-construct meaning. Experience of the phenomenon is the most important criterion in a study using phenomenological approach. The exclusion criterion was being under 18, and not being eligible to vote, since voting is a key mechanism of political participation. This qualitative study does not “attempt to claim an ability to generalize to a specific population” (Bailey, 1992, p. 30); rather, its goal is to provide a more in-depth understanding of the experiences of few participants (Krueger & Casey, 2009). The concentration of the study is on young people, because the turnout of youth in elections is typically low. According to the data from the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (2019), youth turnout has increased eight percentage points between 2014-2018 elections in 17 states (CIRCLE, 2019). The highest turnout rate in 2018 was in Minnesota reaching 43.7% and the lowest rate was in Oklahoma with 19.6%. Even with the notable increase and the highest participation rate, less than half of young people voted in Minnesota and these numbers were even lower in other states. A better understanding of the reasons what media can do to motivate or discourage political activities of young people can help to make suggestions to meaningfully engage them in decision-making through alternative media. The participants were all enrolled in a Midwestern public University. The age of participants ranged from 18 years old to 35 years old. Six focus groups were conducted with 24 participants. While the majority were undergraduate students, three participants were graduate students. With an expectation of three participants, all participants were students of the Communication College. These three students were from the HTC program. Six focus groups were conducted during October 4-25, 2018. All focus groups were conducted in the room 348, at the Schoonover Center. The room is small, accommodates about 20 people who seat around a table placed in the middle of the room. It is convenient and often used for small meetings and studies. Having focus groups in the

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Media School was a part of the strategy to make access for the participation easier. Moreover, a university classroom is the natural environment of the everyday experience of students, which was another reason it was selected as the venue for the study. The average duration of the focus groups was 50 minutes. I stopped the data collection when an adequate level of saturation was reached (Josselson & Lieblich, 2003), whereby the response patterns became redundant. This started to happen from the third focus group. Procedures. In order to recruit human subjects in the study, I had to undergo an IRB clearance. This process included completing an online application to the IRB, which consisted of the description of the study, purpose, explanation and justification of research methods involving human subjects. It also included the details of procedures of recruitment of participants, acquiring consent, issues of anonymity, confidentiality, and terms of compensation. After minor revisions, the IRB approved the application and the recruitment process followed shortly. The Communication College possesses a master list of all enrolled students in its five schools, which is used for disseminating information and announcements. I sent the IRB-approved email invitation to the communication department of the Dean’s Office, after which, the coordinator shared the email with all the students in the College enrolled in courses for the Fall semester of 2018-19 (see Appendix A). The invitation letter described the study, its purpose, duration, inclusion criteria, and what the participants would be expected to do during the focus groups. They were also informed about the risks and benefits related to participation. The students were asked to contact me, the researcher, to confirm their willingness and interest to participate in the study. The recruitment was one of the most challenging steps of the study due to students’ lack of interest in participating in research. After the first round of invitation letter, only few students expressed interest to participate in the focus groups. One of the problems that later mentioned by some students who received the invitation, was the generic form of invitation via email (regulated by IRB), which is mostly ignored by the students. They who are more responsive to personalized messaging (Krueger & Casey, 2009). I sent personalized follow-up emails thanking them for the interest. It also

58 contained information and details about the upcoming focus group. Since the minimum number of participants for each focus group had to be three to four people, with schedule differences, it was not sufficient to hold the discussions. Another difficulty was that, the topic of political participation is not a priority for the students to be incentivized to engage in a discussion. To address this problem, I used a snowball sampling to recruit more participants. I asked students who already expressed interest to participate and the faculty at the School of Media Arts & Studies to share the email and invite people who they knew would be interested to participate in the study. I also presented the study in person in large-undergraduate communication classrooms, where students were invited to sign up for participation. This was another way to make the recruitment more personalized. Five instructors and faculty members offered their students an extra credit for the participation in the study. As Krueger and Casey (2009) suggest “incentives are needed because it takes effort to participate in a focus group” (p. 77). In addition to the IRB-approved extra-credit incentives, the participants were also offered free pizza. Combined, the sampling strategies helped to recruit participants who greatly contributed to the study. After the first emails were received, I followed up with the potential participants asking them to participate in a doodle poll, which offered four dates and times available for a focus group. Since the intention was to give each participant an opportunity to share their views and experiences, focus groups consisted of four to six participants. This mini group tactic is becoming increasingly common in audience research (Krueger & Casey, 2009). Despite the planning to have at least four to five participants in each group, some students did not attend the focus group after confirming the dates. As a result, for six focus groups, the average group size was four, the largest group had six participants and the smallest group consisted of three participants. I moderated all six focus groups. Each meeting started with a welcoming of the participants and the introduction to the study, the ground rules, and the oral consent form. To protect the confidentiality and the anonymity of the participants, they were asked not use their real names unless they agreed to be identified in the reporting of the findings or

59 quotes. During the discussions I used short verbal responses, humor and appropriate gestures, such as head nodding to encourage more participation among the participants (Krueger & Casey, 2009). Only in one situation I interrupted a participant to provide a clarification and remind the question before the discussion derailed off the main topic. Sharing additional information helped to move to the next question and facilitated active discussion afterwards. While there was initially a concern about how the discussions with people from different political poles would proceed, all the focus groups proceeded in friendly atmosphere where all participants freely engaged in conversations, agreements and disagreements. To encourage a discussion, a semi-structured interview guide (see Appendix B) was used (Wilkinson, 2015). The guide consisted of opening, introductory, transition, key and ending questions (Krueger & Casey, 2009). The opening questions were mostly about the media and news consumption habits of the students. Participants shared what their news sources were and how frequently they consume news. To transition into the main topic of the discussion, they were asked to define alternative media or what the phrase meant. They also brought examples of outlets they followed and considered or characterized as alternative. One participant shared a response that triggered an extra question. It became instrumental for the rest of the focus groups. Having a semi-structured protocol made it possible to add this question to the interviews. Mainly, the student associated alternative media with alternative facts (discussed in more detail in the results chapter), which became a question I added to the questionnaire and asked in the end of the following five focus groups, unless the participants already brought it up before the question was stated. The reasons I decided to include the question because the social context influences our perception of different phenomenon, and the research should acknowledge it (Rodriguez, et al., 2014). This decision was justified further by the results of the discussions. Mainly, all but in two focus groups students made this association instantly. In the other two, I asked the additional question towards the end and heard similar responses.

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Other topical questions were about their understanding of political participation and connection to media consumption. Some key questions aimed to probe the interpretative stances of the participants. At this phase, textual and audio-visual materials were used (Wilkinson, 2015). Specifically, the participants were asked to read to articles about immigration policy. The first article was from the Daily Wire titled “Democrats Back Away from DREAMers, Won't Force Vote On 'Clean' Immigration Bill2” and the second one was from Crooked Media titled “Democrats, don't leave the dreamers stranded-again3.” One article represented the political Left written by the staff of Crooked Media and the other was from the Right written by The Daily Wire contributing staff. Each participant was given two articles (an example from each side) without identifying the author or source and was asked to read through; in a way they would read a regular news article and share their thoughts and experiences of reading about the policy. Next, they were asked how the articles could potentially influence their decisions to engage in politics. The selection of the articles was not random. Considering the concerns about the sensitivity of political conversations, especially on the topic of immigration policy, which is a rather dividing issue, the texts had to be chosen carefully. First, due to the time constraints of the focus group discussions, where everyone needs to have time to contribute, the articles had to be brief, each a page-long. Second, the texts had to have some common features such as a brief overview of the situation, details and differing views on the issue. The third criterion was the genre of the articles had to be the same. All articles were opinion pieces. The participants were all provided with a printed copy so they could take notes and highlight important sections, while identifying the political leaning. Using articles and podcasts, posed a risk to slow down the dynamic of the discussions; however, positioning it after the transitioning questions helped to use the

2 https://www.dailywire.com/news/24645/democrats-back-away-dreamers-wont-force-vote-clean-emily- zanotti 3 https://crooked.com/articles/democrats-dont-leave-dreamers-stranded/

61 discussion about participants experiences as a transition point to key questions regarding relation between alternative media content and political participation. This helped to transition to the use of audio materials. First, they listened to the podcast episode segment from Crooked Media’s podcast- Pod Save America-Episode releases January 18, 2018 titled “The Shithole shutdown4.” The episode is an hour and about 11 minutes long, however during the interview the participants only heard the discussion about DACA, which lasted five minutes, from 18:55-23:55. The second podcast they listened to was from the editor of the Daily Wire who runs an affiliated podcast called The Ben Shapiro Show. The segment was from Episode 458, titled "Shutdown Showdown5”, which is 56 minutes long. Again, the participants listened only to the part about DACA –5:25-10:00 or five minutes. I used my laptop to play the episodes. In contrast to the articles, the students knew the sources of the episodes beforehand. The reason to identify the sources was because the voices of the hosts and the jingles of both podcasts are easily identifiable. In the first two focus groups, PSA’s segment was played first, and Shapiro’s segment was played the next. However, in the third focus group, the order was reversed, which notably shifted the dynamic of the conversation. In groups where I played PSA segment first, the discussions were more concentrated on the topic, while the group that heard Shapiro talk first, focused their discussion on his personal way of speaking and presentation style. To be more consistent, all of the fourth following discussions preserved the original order. After listening to both segments, the participants were asked to share their opinions and attitudes and experiences with the content. The discussions ended with closing questions about the role of alternative media in a democracy. All six focus groups were audio-recorded with the consent of the participants. I transcribed the discussions shortly following the focus groups, and stored the transcripts

4 https://crooked.com/podcast/the-shithole-shutdown/ 5 https://soundcloud.com/benshapiroshow/ep458 62 in a password-protected computer. The audios will be deleted in June 2019 due the IRB protocol. I produced full, verbatim transcriptions. Limitations. The quality of the data is correlated to the dynamic of the discussion in the focus group (Atkinson, 2017). Some group discussions can be more vibrant than others, which was certainly the case with the six focus groups. The group dynamics depended on the composition of each focus group and the knowledge of the participants about alternative media or politics. Participants who were consuming alternative media were also more politically active and contributed more. In some focus groups, having a small group helped to generate more insightful discussions, in other cases, the small size led to limited discussions. I had to constantly measure the dynamics and navigate the atmosphere for each focus group to moderate the conversation accordingly. Data analysis. Thematic analysis was the analytic instrument I used for the data analysis of focus groups. It is “the process of identifying patterns or themes within qualitative data that are important or interesting … and use these themes to address the research” (Maguire & Delahunt, 2017, pp. 3352-3353). Braun & Clarke (2006) distinguish two types of themes: semantic, which are explicit and easily observable, and latent, which are themes hidden under the surface level articulations and come out through interpretation and explanation. To avoid a common mistake of simply summarizing the data into semantic themes mirroring the interview questions, a two- cycle coding was completed (Saldana, 2016). Coding is a heuristic process, which serves for “explanatory problem-solving; meaning-making by linking ideas; complicating data by breaking it up” (Saldana, 2016, p. 9). Coding allows dissecting, and deconstruct the data to assign new or refreshed “essence-capturing meaning” (Saldana, 2016, p. 4), which further develop into categories and themes. According to Saldana (2016), coding is the analysis. The first cycle of codes captured the surface level information, which I used to form the semantic themes. On the other hand, the second-cycle coding requires a deeper engagement with the data and unearths the hidden ideas, implied meanings and explanations, which I used to develop the final themes.

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Figure 1 Two Cycles of Data Coding

The analysis of the data starts with its organization (Saldana, 2016). I printed hard copies of transcripts for a manual coding. Five copies of transcripts were printed with larger margins to allow space for the codes. After the initial familiarization with the data through reading and re-reading it (Rabiee, 2004; Wilkinson, 2015), I used colored pens to assign the initial codes. Then, I coded each pile of focus group transcripts using one coding method at a time. Each new coding method was applied to the text line-by-line. Once the manual codes were generated I compiled them on electronic files (word documents). The files were saved with the list of codes and sometimes examples corresponding to the method. These electronic files with the lists of initial codes helped in the second cycle to reorganize and group the codes into categories. The following section describes the details of each coding cycle (Figure 1). The first cycle included Elemental and Affective coding methods, each with additional sub- coding processes. The Elemental coding methods included Structural coding, InVivo coding, and Process coding chosen in correspondence with the purpose of the study. The Second cycle methods included Pattern coding, and Focused coding commonly used in inductive studies. First-cycle coding: Elemental and affective coding methods. “Structural coding reflects an aspect of research question” (Saldana, 2016, p. 98). In this study, structural codes emerged based on the responses to the topic questions of the questionnaire. The use of a semi-structured protocol made the development of structural codes appropriate and 64 organic for this analysis. Following the sections of the interview protocol, designed to reflect the overarching research questions, structural codes started to capture the definitions and perceptions of such phenomenon as alternative media, political participation, use of media and political participation, reactions to the podcast episodes and the articles and the role of alternative media in a democracy. The structural codes were further used to identify the first categories as a way of transitioning to the next cycle of the analysis. While this coding method is useful for focus group transcripts (Saldana, 2016) and it fitted the goal of the study, it had to be complemented with other first-cycle methods to capture all possible surface level codes. More coding methods at this stage helped to avoid deterministic interpretations and added rigor (Tracy, 2010). The next Elemental coding method was InVivo. It stands for “the actual word or phrase used in the recorded data” (Saldana, 2016, p. 105). This method allowed to make sense of the ways the participants defined alternative media and political participation. Instead of using literature-driven formal pre-defined codes, I used verbatim codes were used to capture the participants’ understanding of the concepts. These codes allowed to see a new side of the alternative media, and provided an avenue into the minds of the participants who were trying to construct new meaning and explain those during the discussions. InVivo codes were compiled in a separate list and were later organized and rearranged into categories in combination with Structural, Process and Affective codes. The third Elemental coding method of the first-cycle was Process coding. Process coding, also known as “action coding,” is about the “use of gerunds to signify action” (Saldana, 2016, p. 111). This coding method is best suited for capturing the processes, activities and their sequences. In the context of this study, process coding was especially beneficial for coding activities that the participants qualified as political participation. The challenge of this method was to remain consistent in coding the processes described by participants. To mitigate challenges, I coded the utterances describing observable activities and processes. As for the Process coding, it was applied to those sections of responses when the participants talked about political participation, and about their political behaviors. Codes

65 were also ascribed to processes describing developments, patterns in actions (Saldana, 2016). Process codes were compiled in list without full quotes. Not having quotes for each code was helpful to distance from the complete corps of the data and see individual data points. This also helped to see certain codes in a different light. To sum, while Structural codes applied to the overall data and reflected the structure of the protocol, the InVivo codes helped to bring the participants’ voices at the fore, prioritizing their meaning making and experiences. The Process coding, on the other hand, complemented the two by showing activities, which is important for a study that examines participation. The second major first-cycle coding method was Affective coding. Affective coding methods help to identify and capture “values and emotions” (Saldana, 2016, p. 124) embedded in the data that could not be captured through Elemental codes. These methods are useful to unearth and highlight the feelings, experiences and attitudes of the participants. They are especially relevant for this study investigating the issues of alternative views, comparing conflicting political ideologies regarding value-laden issue. For this reason, the Affective coding was a perfect method to identify the participants’ overt and covert values, emotions, beliefs, emotions, and attitudes. As Saldana (2016) suggests, “the researcher should have a clear paradigm and perspective to analyze categories resulted from value coding” (p. 135). I described in the Preface that I am to the Left of the Center on the American political spectrum and was self-reflective while coding. Due to the dichotomous constructs that were asked about and the comparative approach of the study, Versus coding was applied to capture contradictions and conflicts in participants attitudes views and comments. It helped to reconsider my own perspectives on some issues, which I originally perceived as binary. Versus coding was applied to the full data set and the codes were saved on a code list. Eclectic coding “can be considered both first and second cycle approach” (Saldana, 2016, p. 212), which makes it perfect for transitioning from first cycle coding to the second cycle. This method implies using “two or more purposefully selected first

66 cycle coding methods” (Saldana, 2016, p. 213) to organize the codes into schemes or categories. This method was perfect to combine and reorganize the first cycle codes and prepare a stage for developing categories. Using Eclectic coding, I combined InVivo and Structural codes, Versus and InVivo codes and partly, Emotions and InVivo codes from the first cycle. Given the goal of the study to understand the perceptions and experiences of the participants, InVivo codes were omnipresence in most of the 2nd iterations of the Structural and Versus codes. These, however, were not the only codes applied. To understand the perceptions of alternative media, I combined Structural, InVivo and Versus codes into the first categories appealing to this question. Process and Emotion codes did not apply to this aspect of the question. As a result, eight initial categories were developed to capture responses to this aspect of the research question. InVivo, Structural, Versus, and Process codes were further combined to develop initial categories answering the question about the role of alternative media in a democracy. Interestingly, organization and reorganization of the codes helped to distinguish normative and pragmatic approaches that the participants offered answering this question. Only two categories emerged from this process. Emotion coding already consists of such sub fields as Emotions, Values, Attitudes and Believes, so reorganizing the codes resulted seven categories determining the values of the participants, six categories describing their emotions, four categories showing the attitudes and two categories reflecting the participants’ believes. To understand whether the participants saw any correlation between media use and political participation, I organized the InVivo and Structural codes together. As a result, three categories of responses were formed. I also formed three additional categories capturing the participants’ perceptions of political participation. The Versus codes and InVivo codes were reorganized into seven categories addressing all the aspects of the questions concerning alternative media, their role in democracy, political participation, its relation to media, and reactions to alternative media content.

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Second-cycle coding: Pattern coding and focused coding. After the Eclectic coding, I went back to the summary notes I took during the first readings and initial coding. These included codes I jotted down on blank sheets of paper when first reading through the transcripts. This process was useful to revisit the categories in an attempt to grow them into bigger themes. For this, I first had to perform a Pattern coding. This coding method is “a way to group summaries into a smaller number of categories, themes and concepts” (Saldana, 2016, p. 239). At this point, the data had been coded using three Elemental coding methods, three Affective methods with three sub-coding methods within the Emotional coding. The challenge with the Pattern coding was trying to organize categories without letting the Structural codes become dominant and block new ways of organizing the categories. What helped to mitigate this challenge was writing analytical memos (Saldana, 2016). Memos allowed deeper engagement with the data, extracting meaningful patterns and ideas embedded in the responses. With the help of the memos and using the category lists, I combined the initial codes and summaries into the 1st iteration of Pattern codes. Next, using the list of categories from the first-cycle coding and summary notes salient categories and themes started to emerge. These categories, which were analyzed further into the 2nd iteration of Pattern codes were used to start the second coding method of the second cycle. Through the Pattern coding and memo writing, the analysis proceeded to the Focused or Selective coding (Saldana, 2016). Focused coding is the term, which Charmaz (2014) describes as the process of “using the most significant and/or frequent earlier codes to sift through and analyze large amounts of data. Focused coding requires decisions about which initial codes make the most analytic sense to categorize your data incisively and completely” (Charmaz, 2014, p. 138). I selected the most frequent and significant codes (Maguire & Delahunt, 2017) and organized them in smaller and meaningful categories. Frequency, which will be described further, was not a decision about numeric value of the responses; rather, it was about the codes that addressed the research questions emerging in most of the codes.

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These codes were related to each other and kept emerging at different stages of the interview. As Charmaz (2014) describes “it is possible that you will construct a new code with greater theoretical reach and centrality during focused coding” (p. 146). This is what happened while comparing the codes from the Pattern codes, the analytical memo and the initial codes; I started to elevate those codes to a higher analytical level (Charmaz, 2014), selecting the codes (focusing on) with the most conceptual promise and rigor addressing the research questions. Focused coding method was utilized (Charmaz 2014) as a heuristic tool to define the most salient, and “essence-capturing” (Braun & Clarke, 2006, p. 92). After testing and comparing these codes I categorized them with the corpus of the data, and developed the final seven salient themes (see Appendix C). Thematic analysis. The focus group part of the study aimed to understand the roles the participants think alternative media have in a democracy. They also generated ideas about the potential influence of alternative media on their political behavior. I used thematic analysis to interpret the data. Nowell, Norris, White, and Moules (2017) define thematic analysis as “a qualitative research method that can be widely used across a range of epistemologies and research questions” (p. 2). Among the advantages of the thematic analysis is that it is not bound to certain theoretical paradigms or methods and is a useful way to organize the key aspects of the data (Nowell, et al., 2017). While the literature on practical application of thematic analysis is scarce, Braun & Clarke’s (2006) six-step process is commonly used in qualitative studies (Maguire & Delahunt, 2017). The steps include familiarizing with the data, initial coding, generating themes, reviewing the themes, defining those, and writing up (Braun & Clarke, 2006). In qualitative research, the trustworthiness of the analysis (Golden-Biddle & Locke, 1993) stems from following the standards of interpretation criteria. Krueger’s (1994) list of criteria encompasses seven criteria: actual words; the context; frequency and extensiveness; intensity of the comments; internal consistency; specificity of responses; and big ideas. The first criteria means that the research captures the words the participants use to reveal their experiences, even if they do not fully align with common

69 sense definitions. As Rabiee (2004) describes, it is a process of “coming to terms” (p. 659) with re-definitions, which happened with the participants of the study. The context of the focus groups influences what participants say, and some interpretations of the themes came from reading the room and observing the body language. Frequency and extensiveness refer to the number of times a comment has been made throughout the focus groups by different participants, and some of the categories within this analysis derive directly from the frequently used comments. Such example is distrust towards media, credibility, fake news, and social media. The intensity of the comments in this study was captured by Affective codes and the categories that eventually formed the Affective politics theme. The intensity s about how participants felt. Changes or the stability of opinions and the positions speaks to the internal consistency of the data. There were only a couple of cases when the participants changed their comments after rereading the articles and listening to the comments of others regarding the original source. When asked about hypothetical behaviors, there was a risk that during the interpretation, the analysis will be limited to abstractions. However, I followed up with questions about particular behaviors of individual participants. Finally, as the codes were arranged and organized into categories and those were revisited and formed themes, the bigger picture started to emerge. The big ideas bring the analysis and interpretation closer to plausible explanations and answers to the research questions. The next section discusses critical discourse analysis as the second methodological approach of the study, highlighting that it is a novice method used to analyze alternative media content. Part II: Critical Discourse Analysis This study attempts to highlight the ways in which two alternative media outlets construct social reality through their discourses. Since discourse is not value neutral, I employ a critical tool to analyze the overt and covert manifestations of ideologies. The mediated language has been widely studied using discourse analysis. James Paul Gee (2014) claims that examining “the structure of language as it is being used can help us to uncover different ways or saying things, doing things and being things in the

70 world” (p. 9). The method helping to unveil how the reality is presented to us and how we see it can be descriptive and critical. Descriptive discourse analysis focuses mainly on grammar and the structure of the language (Gee, 2014), it describes but does not explain or challenge the opaque ideological effects of the discourse (Fairclough, 1995). Gee (2014) argues, “all language involves perspectives on distribution of social goods” (p. 87). The contestation over the distribution of social goods happens through the language, which makes the latter political. Any analysis of political (power struggle) has to be critical, even if being critical is not the primary goal of the analysis. As method of studying language use, discourse analysis does not carry the normative burden of identifying power struggles, thus, it remains a descriptive method. I applied critical discourse analysis because it aims to “elucidate naturalizations [of ideological representations] and to make clear social determinations and effects of the discourse, which are characteristically opaque to the participants” (Fairclough, 1995, p. 28). I employ critical discourse analysis rather than descriptive discourse analysis, because the former aligns with the goals of the study. First, political discourses analyzed here include contestation of distribution of power and social good. Second, this study aims to show the normalization of established power structures I do so using CDA. Finally, critical discourse analysis is multidimensional, which helps to highlight the interconnectedness of content, its reception by the audience, and their political behavior. Critical Discourse Analysis originated from discourse analysis, which itself was rooted in social theory and discourse studies until the 1980s (Gee, 2014). After a critical turn in linguistics, discourse analysis paved way to critical discourse analysis and became a major interdisciplinary methodology (Blommaert & Bulcaen, 2000; Schrøder, 2002; Tuchman, 1991; Van Dijk, 2002). Critical Discourse Analysis has been developed by such prominent scholars as Ruth Wodak, Teun Van Dijk, Theo Van Leeuwen, and Norman Fairclough. Wodak (2009) has mostly contributed to the discourse-historical approach, while Van Dijk and Van Leeuwen have developed the socio-cognitive and recontextualization approaches of CDA respectively (Wodak, 2009).

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Recognizing the strengths and advantages each of the approaches brings into an analysis, I apply Norman Fairclough’s approach to CDA. Here is a brief description of the reasons I did not choose other approaches. First, I believe to apply a historical approach, I would need to have more solid knowledge about the history of the Untied States, the Parties and many more actors involved in the discourses I am analyzing. Second, the socio-cognitive approach is challenging because it involves an analysis of the audience’s abilities to interpret and analyze the text, which would require a combination of discourse analysis with more ethnographic methods. The recontextualization approach is not appropriate for this analysis since I am interested in the direct impact of the text on the audience within the given context. Norman Fairclough is one of the most prominent scholars in the field of critical discourse analysis whose work has been used and adapted in numerous studies. One of the reasons why I am employing Fairclough’s approach is because it is the foundation for all the others, which means that its elements are present in all others. Second, he provides the most comprehensive definition of CDA. He defines CDA as a method that aims to systematically explore opaque relationships of causality and determination between a) discursive practices, events and texts, b) wider social and cultural structures, relations and processes; to investigate how such practices, events and texts arise out of and are ideologically shaped by relations of power; and c) to explore how the opacity of these relationships between discourse and society is itself a factor securing power and hegemony (Fairclough, 1995, p. 132).

To Fairclough (1995), any representation through language is tied to an ideology, a particular viewpoint of the reality, which is value-laden but not transparent. As he explains, “language is a material form of ideology” (Fairclough, 1995, p. 73), which is why the examination of the structures of the language that construct the present events, or are outcomes of the previous ones, can help to identify the hidden ideologies. Denaturalization of ideologies by bringing them to light make it easier to challenge rather than reproduce them as a secondary discourse. The process of denaturalization requires an analytical framework that can denaturalize discourse. According to Fairclough (1995), the theory of hegemony is the most suitable framework for a critical discourse analysis

72 because Gramsci’s theory of hegemony theorizes the analysis of ideology without economic determinism or idealism. The connection between the theory of hegemony and critical discourse analysis is discussed below. Hegemony as a theoretical framework to analyze ideology through CDA. Antonio Gramsci developed the theory of hegemony based on Marxist teachings. Hegemony, as other critical theories, is about power within a society, it rests on the principle that “man is not ruled by force alone, but also by ideas” (Bates, 1975, p. 351), which are usually the ideas of the dominant classes. What makes hegemony unique is the idea that domination is achieved through consent facilitated by the “ethical state” (Gramsci, 1971, p. 258). The state creates a moral population through hegemonizing culture. Unlike a blatant , hegemony is achieved through alliances and the consent of the people by normalization and popularization of the ideas of the ruler (Bates, 1975). According to Gramsci (1971), ideologies are implicit in structures and are unconsciously materialized through practices and institutions that make them common sense because they are present in many spheres of individual and collective lives. Moreover, ideologies are “construction/signification of reality which are built into various dimensions of the forms/meanings of discursive practices and which contribute to the production, reproduction and transformation of relations of domination” (Fairclough, 1992, p. 87). The ideologies are embedded in the common sense is naturalized in discourses, social and political practices, which make them more effective. These practices are reproduced by institutions of civil society and media (Fairclough, 1995). Meanwhile, the transformation of political power, or a redistribution of it within a society (Keane, 1998), starts with a “Critical understanding of oneself,” which according to Gramsci (1971) “comes through the struggle of political "hegemonies," of opposing directions, first in the field of ethics, then of politics, culminating in a higher elaboration of one's own conception of reality” (as cited in Bates, 2002, p. 254). The reality is constructed through a top-down change of discursive and social practices by the cultural institutions, which restructure the hegemony instead of challenging it. This “cultural and ethical engineering is the reshaping of the subjectivities or selves” (Fairclough, 1995, p.

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93). Using conventional norms and processes in discursive practices the institutions reproduce hegemony. This is why the freedom from the control of the hegemonic dominance starts with the “awareness of being part of a definite hegemonic force” and it “is the first step towards a progressively higher self-consciousness” (as cited in Bates, 2002, p. 254). CDA aims to uncover manipulations and power abuses through highlighting the manufactured discourse formed by conventional and normalized ideological practices (Sipra & Rashid, 2013). In this sense, critical discourse analysis serves as a sight of a hegemonic struggle. Fairclough’s 3D model of CDA. Fairclough (1995) distinguished three dimensions (3D) of CDA: the text, discursive discourse practice and sociocultural practice. The first dimension is concerned with the description of the text linguistically. This dimension of the analysis includes analysis of the grammar, genres and other linguistic systems to construct discourse. This micro-analysis of the text is a response to the critique that CDA is too abstract. The second dimension of Fairclough’s (1995) model is discursive practices. It is the analysis of the processes of production and interpretation or consumption of the text. For example, it is useful for analyzing media texts, since those are “institutionally based” (Richardson, 2007, p. 75). Discursive practices serve as intermediaries between the text and social practice mediating the relations happens due to intertextuality and conversationalization, which should be closely examined through a discourse analysis (Fairclough, 1995; Gee, 2014). Intertextuality refers to the relationship of the text to other texts and discourses in the given social or cultural context. Intertextuality can be horizontal, which means integration or reference to prior texts; on the other hand, it can be vertical referring to the larger context (Hodges, 2015). Conversationalization implies discourse that is informal, more participatory and transforms a discourse of a private realm to a public one (Fairclough, 1995). Finally, the last dimension of CDA is sociocultural practices, which can focus on a micro-situation level, organizational level or a societal level (Fairclough, 1995). Richardson (2007) explains, the analysis of sociocultural practices goes beyond the text itself and investigates the relationship between journalism and society at large. This dimension

74 includes consideration of such factors as the political stance of the media organization, its ownership and business model (Richardson, 2007). The analysis of this dimension connects micro and macro analysis. The three-dimensional model of CDA allows a comprehensive analysis of the opaque and transparent strategies, structures, power and ideologies that manifest in media discourses (Wodak, 2008). This analysis aims to highlight the ideologies in the discourses that could influence political behavior. Selection of the articles. Crooked Media and The Daily Wire are two online alternative media outlets that provide textual, and audio-visual content on multi-media platforms. Both of the outlets use their websites for publishing articles mirroring the news, on-going public affairs and political issues. I started this study in 2017, exactly a year after the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election, when the immigration policy, DACA, became a subject of public debate. I was planning to start a comparative project involving right-wing and left-wing alternative media outlets online, however due to lack of comparative studies in this area and guidance, it was challenging to decide how to conduct the comparison. Informed by discussions with established media scholars and reflections about the approach to take, I decided to choose the most politically salient topic at the moment as my thematic reference point to investigate and contrast the discourses of the two media outlets. I know from personal experience and from the literature on participation that people are more likely to engage in activities and political action if they find the topic relevant and salient. Third, immigration policy has historically been a topic of debate and showed the stark contrast of Democratic and Republican views on such policies. This to me meant that selecting this theme/topic as the main reference point, I could capture the differences and similarities of representation in the media. Finally immigration is my lived experience even though I am not a DACA recipient or undocumented. Crooked Media and The Daily Wire are not news producing media organizations, rather they provide commentary and opinion pieces. The dataset of this analysis consists of 20 articles that were published during the most heated discussions regarding repeal of DACA. The biggest challenge of the comparative study is to establish equivalence, and

75 since it is impossible to do so perfectly, the practical solution is to establish at least some degree of it. One of the equivalence points that I selected was the number of the articles and the time period of their publication. I chose ten articles from each media outlet all of which were published between November 2017 and April 2018. Since the topic was highly discussed, there were many nuances that started to emerge every day and a difference of only a few days between the articles published on the two different outlets would make the comparative analysis harder. The time gaps result in difference of number of articles published by both outlets. Accordingly, I prioritized the timeline as the main criterion of the selection of the articles. To find the articles, I used a keyword search on the websites of Crooked Media and Daily Wire. First, I utilized the integrated on The Daily Wire website where I typed the following key words “DACA, Deferred Action, immigration, government shutdown, budget.” I used exactly the same search technique and words for the Crooked Media website. It has to be noted that the search results might have been driven by algorithms embedded in the websites that could have altered which articles appear first and which ones are not shown. For both of the outlets, I found lists of articles with the key words in their headings. I checked every article to evaluate whether the keywords were random matches or the article was about DACA. I copied each article with its link and saved those on a word document. Once I compiled all articles I could find, I started to filter them again. I deleted the articles that had the key words; however, were unrelated to the topic. After the initial screening, I compiled 10 articles from Crooked Media and 23 articles from Daily Wire. I applied the publication timeline criterion to selected articles that were published within the same day or maximum of three days difference. Based on this, I eliminated the articles that did not meet the main criteria of inclusion (meaning they were published too far apart from each other). This also solved the issue of content, since the articles covered the same topics and developments related to DACA. To match the number of articles, as another point of equivalence, I had to consider that Crooked had only 10 articles and by eliminating half of the Daily Wire

76 articles, I was better able to establish the equivalence. The unit of analysis of the study is an individual article. This is not a multi-model analysis, which means I did not analyze visual parts of the text. I also excluded the Tweets and quotes of third parties, since they are not direct utterances of the authors. Data analysis. Fairclough’s (1995) three-dimensional model of CDA is comprehensive as a methodology; however, it remains relatively abstract regarding the practical steps of the analysis. CDA is based on the analysis of the text, which sets the ground for the two other dimensions, as a linguistic unit and it is the most systematic phase of the CDA. Machin and Mayr’s (2012) book on “How to do critical discourse analysis” offers CDA tools fits for a systematic analysis of the representation of actors, practices as well as linguistic processes within the text. A systematic analysis of the text consists of well-defined procedural strategy. According to Machin and Mayr (2012), the steps of CDA include analysis of people, processes, nominalization and propositions, use of metaphors and modality. I analyzed the selected 20 articles from The Daily Wire and Crooked Media following Machin and Mayr’s (2012). The first step was to create an inventory of linguistic and semantic elements used in the texts (articles). Using excel sheets, I created two separate inventory lists for each of the media outlets which consisted of the following sheets: participants or actors, processes or transitivity, nominalization, metaphors and modality. Once the sheets were defined according to the categories suggested by Machin and Mayr (2012), the next step was to create columns representing each sub-element of the linguistic categories, which could be filled in with the corresponding segments of the data.

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Table 6 Inventory List of Semantic Choices

Linguistic elements Sub-elements Actors and personalization, impersonalization, individualization, participants collectivization, specification, genericization, nominaton, functionalization, honorifics, objectivation, anonymization, aggregation, and suppression. Processes or mental processes, behavioral, verbal, rational, abstraction of transitivity action, granting agency and backgrounding Nominalization prioritizing quantification and making causality secondary, action not agent, nominalization as a stable entity, presupposition Metaphors hyperbole, personification of objects, metonymy, and syndoche Modality epistemic modality, deonic modality, dynamic modality, hedging

The second step of the analysis was to read the articles one-by-one, identify segments corresponding to each of the mentioned categories and its sub-category. In a systematic way, I read each article first to analyze the actors and participants within the texts. Machin and Mayr (2012) relied on Van Leeuwen’s work on representing social actors in discourse. I followed both models for identifying and analyzing each major and minor category defined by all the authors. As Machin and Mayr (2012) indicate, “representing a person is not neutral, it draws attention to certain aspects of identity in association with certain kinds of discourses” (p. 77). To uncover the values behind certain types of representation, the analysis should consider which linguistic categories are included in a particular discourse, and what is left out. Van Leeuwen’s (2008) “socio-semantic inventory” (p. 2) or classification of linguistic categories is a perfect fit to analyze the representation of social actors. First, it is linguistic based meaning that it can be applied to analyze the first- text dimension of Fairclough’s (2013) abstract model. Second, the classification of categories helps to make the analysis more systematic and consistent. Van Leeuwen (2008) suggests that the representation of social actors within a discourse is achieved through backgrounding and foregrounding, depending on the linguistic categories used. Thus, the analysis of the actors starts with the consideration of exclusion and inclusion of actors in the text. Reading through the articles, I found

78 instances when the actors were included, that is explicitly mentioned in the text. There were also articles where the social actors were not mentioned at all or were represented using passivation forms. Such linguistic choices are instances of suppressions of the social actor. It is backgrounding, if the actor is mentioned not in the particular segment but elsewhere in the text (Van Leeuwen, 2008). The social actors can also be represented by the roles assigned to them. Van Leeuwen (2008) identifies active and passive roles, in the case of the latter, social actors can be subjected, referred to as objects, or they can be beneficialized, represented as a party that benefits (negatively or positively) form the outcome of the action. Using generic references and specifically mentioning individuals are linguistic tools that lead to either genericization or specification of the social actors. A common linguistic category in immigration coverage is assimilation, on the opposite side of it would be individualization. Using first names and describing the specific characteristics of an individual helps to achieve individualization. On the other hand, assimilation indicates plurality. It has two types-aggregation and collectivization (Van Leeuwen, 2008). Both indicate a group of social actors sharing some characteristics. Similarly, social actors can be represented by association or dissociation. The former implies use of possessive form, and words indicating belonging. Close to this category are indetermination and differentiation (Van Leeuwen, 2008). Anonymous speeches, use of such pronouns as some, indicate indetermination, while a discourse that differentiates two or more groups of social actors into categories such as “us” or “others” are means of differentiation. The next categories on the inventory list are nomination and categorization, which include using names and constructing an identity of the social actor based on the shared features or functions with other groups. Van Leeuwen (2008) further distinguishes categories he calls functionalization and identification. The former is when social actors are represented by reference to their occupation or role. Identification is representing the identity of social actors and is comprised of three subcategories, including classification, relational identification, and physical identification. To show the human aspect of the social actors, speakers or writers can use personalization by presenting actors as humans.

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However, Van Leeuwen (2008) suggests that impersonalization is also a powerful linguistic tool with negative outcomes. Impersonalization manifests in two types- objectification and abstraction. If the text represents a social actor referencing them as a place, then that is a spatialization type of objectification. If the social actor is represented in association with or by reference of what they say, then the objectification is achieved through utterance autonomization. Two additional categories within objectification are instrumentalization and somatization, which refer to the representation of social actors by referencing an action or mentioning a part of the body respectively. The final category of the inventory is overdetermination. Van Leeuwen (2008) offers four subcategories for this type of representation. First, if social actor is represented as involved in two opposing practices at the same time, that is an inversion type. Symbolization is when “a fictional social actor or a group stand for actors or groups in nonfictional practices” (Van Leeuwen, 2008, p. 30). Finally, connotation and distillation are categories that represent social actors through another layer of classification and abstraction. In addition to the social processes, grammar and discursive choices construct social action (Van Leeuwen, 2008), or transitivity (Machin & Mayr, 2012). Transitivity or processes, have been categorized into material, mental, behavioral, verbal, and rational (Machin & Mayr, 2012). Depending on the actor and the type of the processes associated with him/her, the author can create more abstraction, grant the actor agency or take the agency away. The latter happens with the use of nominalization, when the author removes any sense of time, space or uses presuppositions (Machin & Mayr, 2012). Finally, processes can be represented through modalities, which are classified into epistemic, deonic, dynamic, and hedging (Machin & Mayr, 2012). Metaphors are a significant linguistic choice and a rhetorical trope that have been essential for the representation of actors in mediated discourses. It is important to analyze metaphors, since this figurative speech has been used and misused by media for negatively representing minorities and marginalized social groups. In addition to actual metaphors, this element also includes hyperboles, personification of objects and use of

80 metonymies for creating abstraction (Machin & Mayr, 2012, Van Leeuwen, 2008). The intensity of the use of these linguistic elements in not random, rather they are intentionally reduced or increased to make exclusions and inclusions, signify some ideologies and backgrounding others. I created a semantic inventory list for capturing representation of the social actors and actions by deconstructing twenty articles. I first read all the Crooked media articles, then all The Daily Wire articles, one-by-one, identifying the segments of the texts that were fit for each category and linguistic element. Afterwards, I copied and pasted them in an excel sheet, matching the texts with the categories (Appendix, excel sheets). Once the semantic inventory was complete, I was able to complete the analysis of the text dimension of the CDA, examining the linguistic choices of representation in each article. Parallel to the analysis of the text; I started to analyze the second dimension- discursive practices. According to Fairclough (1995), discursive practices are where the production and the interpretation of the text take place. These practices are based on the linguistic choices, however they indicate the practices, principles and discourses of the particular field. In the context of this study, this means the digital news commentary and journalism field. Thus, analyzing the grammatical choices in terms of meaning making, I referred to the discursive practices to understand and explain the possible explanations of particular choices. The combination of the analysis of the first and second dimensions immediately necessitates the analysis of the third, social practices, dimension. This includes the relationship between the context within which the text exists. All three levels are interconnected and cannot be analyzed separately, especially not in the context of this study. In the following chapter consists of two parts. In the first part I present the findings from the focus group method. In the second part, I analyze and present the results of the critical discourse analysis.

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Chapter 4: Results Part I: Summary of Focus Group Results This study aims to understand how the college students perceive alternative media, and their role in democracy and political participation. Six focused groups were conducted and thematically analyzed to answer these questions. This section presents the summary of the findings of the analysis. It then moves to expand on the results, provide explanations and examples from students’ elaborations on the questions. The participants defined alternative media as something that is different from the mainstream media on TV, which is a common characterization found in the alternative media study’s literature. This group of young people also considered the medium, social media platforms and the Internet to be the most important attribute of alternative media. The most interesting and unexpected finding was associating alternative media with fake news or alternative facts. It was also unexpected to find out that the participants who are overwhelmingly in communication majors, confessed to have never heard about alternative media. Only few participants provided a more scholarly definition of alternative media as DIY and underground media. In short, the participants’ definitions were wide ranging and deviated from the scholarly definitions in interesting ways. This finding might be contingent on the political and social context, which has been changing drastically within the past years. Knowing how people perceive alternative media can have practical implications especially in strategizing ways to engage youth in political processes. The second question the study attempts to answer is about the role of alterative media in democracy. The students’ perspectives on what role such media play in democracy depended on their definition of alternative media. The most common theme in the responses was that alternative media are a part of the marketplace of ideas and their role is diversification of views. On the other hand, the students who considered alternative media fake, talked about the manipulative aspect of such media and viewed their role as conspiracy incubators. What is more, the participants reflected on the

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American tradition of free speech and expression and thought even conspiratorial media should be a part of the information landscape.

Medium as an aternative Fake news & & Independent Alternative facts media

Marketpace of ideas Consiparacy & & Demcoratizatio Polarization n

Figure 2 Relationship between Definitions and Roles of Alternative Media

Related to the second question, it was attempted to find out what participants’ thought were differences and the similarities in the ways alternative Left and Right media foster political participation. The responses to this question were another unexpected result of the study. The students did not think of the media’s ability to encourage or demotivate political participation based on their political leaning. The features and factors they considered would affect their motivations and interests were the emotional appeal of the content, the format and the style of reporting and commentary. For many, the decision to be politically active was mediated through the establishment of an emotional connection and personalization of the abstract issues to make them more relevant. The theme of affective politics that came up as the students where describing that they are more responsive to political events that effect personal lives and the media tell the stories of these people, and to emotional and value-based coverage, since many follow the outlets they trust because they are reflective of their values and political views. The

83 mediated political participation depends on the type of the medium too. All participant groups seemed to be more responsive to the audio content, especially to podcasts. Unpacking the themes. Seven salient themes emerged from the analysis of the focus group discussions. The themes are Credibility of Media, Alternative media as fake news, Medium is the alternative, Democratizing role of alternative media, Alternative media as incubators of conspiracies, Mediated political participation, and Affective politics. The following sections discuss the themes in groups, addressing each research question. News consumption and credibility of media. The participants of the study shared that they consume news from social media. They particularly highlighted such platforms as , Snapchat, and YouTube. As one student described “I mostly get my news first from social media so like Twitter, occasionally, I will get like a Facebook article.” This picture is reflective of the general statistics of the news consumption in the American society. Increasingly, more people are getting their news from social media but there are differences in the demographics and preferences. 68% of Americans get their news on social media (Matsa & Shearer, 2018) and younger Americans tend to use social media platforms more than the older citizens (Smith & Andersen, 2018). There are also differences of consumption when it comes to the type of the social media platform. 43% of adults predominantly use Facebook as their source of their news, while those who are 18-24 years old, use Snapchat, Instagram and Twitter, substantially more. In general, 75% of the young adult population of Americans between ages from 18 to 29 gets their news from Snapchat, followed by Instagram, Reddit, and Twitter. YouTube and Facebook leg behind the mentioned platforms (Matsa & Shearer, 2018). Responses such as “I get all my news from Twitter pretty much” or “I go on Snapchat to check the news” were commonly the first answers to the question about where they check the news. The students’ news consumption, however, consisted of more than social media news; it incorporated some mainstream media sources as well. One student explained that he usually gets his news from social media, but “I sometimes go to the New York Times or Washington Post to read the articles in more detail.” Similarly,

84 another student explained, “I pay attention to the moments feature on Twitter a lot because I know that any big thing that happens will always be on the top but then I also follow AP and CNN.” Participants who seemed more actively following the news also used more sources to be up to date. One of them shared that she saw top stories on her Twitter and Googled and used MSNBC’s YouTube channel to find out more about the story. When asked what factors influence their news choices, some participants mentioned “convenience,” especially in regard to social media, which have such affordances as notifications and , placing a story on top of the feeds, which is more visible when they use the apps. However, what they valued and emphasized the most was “credibility.” One student summarized many responses saying “I think the most important thing about the news source is just how credible they are.” The issue of credibility starts with the observation of withdrawal of participants from the mainstream media. Some students mentioned that it is due to “the convenience of social media as a medium”, however, it was not the deciding factor. Many stated that they simply do not trust mainstream media. As one student stated, “I try to stay away from NYT, CNN and Fox or anything owned by Sinclair or transnational media corporations.” While this student did not trust big corporations in general, another one was distrustful towards the mainstream media because of polarization. He explained that he attempts to “stay away from outlets on opposite polar Fox and CNN” and also tries to form his independent opinion about issues. The polarization leads to the responses that were one of the most interesting revelations during the focus groups. The participants of this study judged the credibility of the news outlet based on one primary criterion, whether it was biased or not. The discussions of about media bias revealed the spectrum of opinions and reactions the participants had. On one end of it, are those participants who trust the mainstream outlets, even when they know there might be a bias. This was especially the case when the perceived bias aligned with the participants’ point of view “I go to CNN because I usually find people that pretty much care and think the same way I do.” Further on the

85 spectrum were the participants who thought that “Everyone has one (bias) and it inherently happens.” They suggested, it is important for the consumers to be more careful and skeptical. This was the category of people who recognized the bias and did not dismiss it. One participant explained, “I would not restrain myself but I’d not immediately trust it and would reference it with another article.” On the opposite end of the spectrum were students who were more critical of the media and had higher expectations form the media. They particularly mentioned FOX and CNN as biased media that they do not follow or trust. One student said ““I don't pay attention to FOX and CNN” and another one felt scared “that they call themselves news outlets.” These attitudes towards the news media are not isolated from the social reality and political context within which the focus groups took place. In 2017, and the Knight Foundation, jointly conducted a survey to assess the trust level of Americans towards media and democracy. The findings indicate low level of trust towards media. What is more interesting, is the factors leading to such attitude. The report states: “young adults (aged 18 to 34) are twice as likely as older adults (aged 55 and up) to say politically focused or partisan bias is a factor in their lack of trust in news media organizations 18% to 9%, respectively” (Gallup/Knight Foundation, 2018, p. 9). What is more, in a survey about the attitudes towards bias, 61% of the respondents found news coverage from a particular point of view highly problematic (Jones & Ritter, 2018). Overall, surveyed Americans identified inaccuracy and bias in the news media as a major factor leading to distrust. This trend is consistent with the findings of this study. In the light of these findings, one could assume that distrust towards mainstream media outlets might lead users to alternative media; interestingly that is not the case for the majority of the participants of the study. Many students found a way around the perceived bias by following individual reporters. As one student described “I really try and follow more reporters instead of CNN or Fox as a whole.” It is remarkable that the participants switched from following media organizations to individuals, even though these individual reporters still work in those media organizations, which they did not

86 trust. Two explanations could be offered to these phenomena. First, the participants lack substantial critical media literacy skills. This is not as plausible considering that a majority of them are majoring in media and communication. The second explanation is the shift in the media consumption habits and the personalized microtargeting (Murray & Scime, 2017) substantially used in social media for advertising and for political messaging. After all, the millennial generation members co-habituate with social media influencers and celebrities who promote personalized content (Marwick, 2015). In short, the participants are hybrid consumers of media whether they are intentional about it or not. The reason they are not as familiar and avid users of alternative media, is explained by their perception what such media is, which is discussed in the next section. Alternative media as fake news. The phenomenon of alternative media is complex, which is why no one comprehensive definition can capture it. The goal of the study was not to develop a grounded theory or a definition provided by the participants, rather it is to understand what alternative media means to them. Unexpected and important findings emerged from the discussions. Focus group discussions revealed that many students had not heard about alternative platforms. As one of them acknowledged, “I never really heard anything of alternative news, I don’t know what it was.” Another student waited for others to provide a definition, so she could make sense of it. She said, “Someone has to answer this first, I really do not know.” It is remarkable that young adults studying media and communication have not heard of the phenomenon of alternative media. More than anything, this highlights the weakness of the educational curriculum, which does not provide sufficient knowledge and exposure to alternative and activist media, which play a crucial role within a democracy. The participants who knew little about alternative media, associated them with alternative facts. As one student said,“it (alternative facts) bubbles up at first…. Its like, oh s*, what is alternative media, like stay away from that.” One of the participants started to think about the question on the spot and was contemplating out load, when she expressed surprise about how she initially though alternative was, “Oh, man, I

87 immediately thought about alternative facts, because I never heard about alternative media before.” Another participant shared that the first time she heard about alternative was from an official, “alternative was brought up by that White House personality as alternative facts. Alternative facts comes to mind thinking about that and then it kind of transformed into fake news.” Since the first discussion, the theme of alternative media as fake was present in all focus groups. The participants used ‘fake news’ and ‘alternative media’ interchangeably to define alternative media as fraud. These perceptions were closely related to their attitudes towards biased news. As one participants explained, “Any time that a reporter or a story inflates the facts or tries to make it into a frame favoring a candidate its not news, is a fake thing, that is what alternative media is to me, fake news.” As discussed earlier, the perceived bias caused distrust towards the media outlet. Many alternative media platforms are transparent about their leaning and views. Alternative media as activist media is justified to have bias, especially for advocacy work (Atton, 2004; Forde, 2011). Bias in such cases did not necessarily equate to inaccuracy, regardless, the participants still viewed it as fake. The participants distrust the media that they think has bias, even in case when the outlet is accurate and provides verifiable information, this is especially the case when it opposes to the participants’ views. Such attitudes have also been reported in four focus groups regarding perceptions of fake news, with a similar demographic group, and I interactions with students have all contributed to this conclusion. The term ‘fake news’ is not a new phenomenon; it has been a part of media ecology for decades. Tandoc, Lim and Ling (2017) suggest a typology of fake news depicting the iterations of fake news over years. Fake news has been understood as satire and parody, news fabrication, manipulation in advertising and PR, and propaganda (Tandoc, et al. 2017). Allcott & Gentzkow (2017) define contemporary fake news “to be news articles that are intentionally and verifiably false, and could mislead readers” (p. 213). Given the polarization level (Pew Research Center, 2017) and lack of civil discourse outside of echo chambers, dismissal of credible sources for perceived bias makes the American society more vulnerable to risks of increasing distrust towards the

88 media, which need the public trust to hold the government accountable and perform other democratic functions. Moreover, Bakir and McStay (2017) argue that fake news can be problematic for democracy and society on three fronts: “(1) its production of wrongly informed citizens, that (2) are likely to stay wrongly informed in echo chambers and (3) be emotionally antagonized or outraged given the affective and provocative nature of much fake news (p. 159).” If people make decision based on the mediated information they receive than the pollution of media ecology with fake news and its influence on how people treat and consume media has to be studied in more nuanced ways. This is one the reasons why this finding is significant. The perceptions of alternative media as fake news are not isolated from the socio- political reality of the participants and the context where the focus groups took place. Even the students made the connections between their responses and the context saying, “I think it is contextually relevant, definitely aligned with the time, hearing all of that (fake news), I immediately think about that first.” Another student had an associational perception too, however his opinion was influenced by the news a ban on a popular conspiratorial media. He explained, “I think just right now, I thought of that because if you heard about Alex Johns,6 I just heard about him that is why.” Considering the micro level is important, however, the possible explanations are found on the macro-level. Since 2016 Presidential Election, the terms ‘fake news’ and “alternative facts” have become buzzwords in the public discourse. This is after the president D. Trump and his administration started to use the terms in reference to most of the mainstream media critical of the White House. As the pundits and the politicians describe, this was the beginning of the ‘post-truth’ era, which became Oxford Dictionary’s word of the year in 2016 (Oxford Living Dictionaries, 2016). In 2017, “fake news” becoming the word of the year (BBC, 2017) and “misinformation” was declared the word of the year in 2018 by dictionary.com (The Guardian, November 2018). The official discourse has since spread

6 is a conspiratorial entertainer who has social media accounts and used YouTube to distribute his messages. What the person refers to here is that at the time of the focus groups in the fall of 2018, Alex Jones’ shows and accounts were banned by major social media outlets such as Facebook and YouTube. 89 across multiple public spheres of the network society (Van Dijk & Hacker, 2018), especially on social media, where young adults spend their time and where they consume news. The fake news discourse is a part of the lifeworld of the young adults, who meanwhile have not heard about alternative media. This context helps to explain the reason students have the negative association, which also implies distrust. There are two more explanations to why these responses are more contextual. First, it is the contrast between the responses of two international students and their American counterparts. As one of the students explained, “Aside from the American context of Left and Right, it (alternative media) is more grassroots journalism, frenzies, punk groups or other subcultures, anti-globalists, DYI media.” The second participant further contemplated, “We are coming from places where alt-right is not common, that is why when you hear alternative it is more actually Left, socialist, anti-establishment … My association alternative means more like hipster news kind of thing.” In other political contexts, the division of Left and Right is not as clear, especially in countries that had a Soviet past, and the evaluation criteria for the media content is not seen in binary terms. The second explanation for why the context is the major factor impacting the views is that the students did not discuss any other features of alternative media as fake or less credible. For example, they recognized that alternative media are often produced by amateurs, meanwhile they did not raise the issues such as lack of credibility, distrust or bias in such arguments. Neither alternative media literature nor fake news studies cross paths, while the perceptions of young people are on those crossroads. Future studies should shed a light on these definitions and provide practical implications to address the problem of distrust. Medium is the alternative. The next theme that demonstrates participants’ understanding of alternative media focuses on the medium. While a couple of participants mentioned financial structures and professional production as opposite of alternative, the overwhelming majority of opinions were focused on the medium. Participants thought that the Internet and digital platforms make media alternative. Put it in their words, “So basically I see alternative media to be anything that

90 is new within the last 10 years that is primarily an Internet phenomenon.” Another participant also emphasized the medium and draw the distinction with the content, saying “The medium itself, the podcast you go out and download, is kind of alternative, the content is not.” Such characterization could be explained by the possible effect of filter bubbles (Pariser, 2011), in which the participants stay within their information cycles and even if the medium and platforms of content consumption change, the message does not. Other participants too described alternative as , emphasizing the novice nature of the social media platforms. One participant stated, “I think social media, I think of Twitter Moments as kind of alternative because I mean they may give you a headline based off of the other headlines.” Another one listed more platforms, “I think of social media apps like Snapchat and how you have news on there, maybe on Facebook too.” When asked what they mean by news on social media, the participants clarified that they still follow the news outlets on some of the social media. This means that they are still exposed to the same content as on the cable news, with the difference of the medium they use to access information. Closely related are discussions about the other dimension of the medium. Television has traditionally been a one-to many mode of communication. While it was a new medium back in the time, it is not as significant for a new generation who sees and uses smartphones as the “extension of their bodies” (McLuhan, 1964, p. 26). They clarified “anything not on TV, would be alternative for me.” Many young adults defined alternative media as something that is not a part of or on TV. One of them described that alternative media “kind of exists outside of the mainstream umbrella”, while another one added that it is anything “Outside ABC, FOX, CNN, NBC, NYT, MSNBC, the big TV names.” In contrast, social media enable a different mode of communication. Due to their affordances such as liking, sharing, commenting, they allow many-to-many modes of communications. This is one of the areas where the medium becomes important for the user experience. A few participants mentioned YouTube channels to be alternative media, stating “It is more like independent stuff so it could range from some random

91 guy’s YouTube channel to something that is pretty wide spread on the Internet but it is not television.” Another one also agreed that YouTub-ers are alternative, “It does make sense to me that it (AM) is someone’s YouTube channel.” The terms ‘YouTube-er’ or ‘YouTube personality’ are used in reference to the medium. “YouTube combines functionalities of social networking with easy to use flash video player applications. YouTube enables simple and fast video uploads, shortened video download time, reduced cost of creating and sharing videos and creates new online sharing experiences” (Ricke, 2014, p. 10). YouTube has a person-to-person structure similar to the other social media platforms, allowing more interactivity, faster and easier outreach. Similar to McLuhan’s description of how texture, color and light in “cubism “drive home the message” by involvement” (1964, p. 25), YouTube and social media platforms with likes, comments and shares ‘drive home the message’ by engagement, interactivity and outreach. “The ‘message’ of any medium or technology is the change of scale or pace or patterns introduced to human affairs” (McLuhan, 1964, p. 1), the message or news of the social media are introduced to the users through notifications and features such as ‘moments on Twitter’ which are constant and fast spreading. As one participant said, “Twitter will tell me what the hot topics are and so I will Google or follow that up with different outlets.” In a sense, the Twitter moments and notifications have replaced the breaking news. According to McLuhan (1964), “personal and social consequences of any medium—that is, of any extension of ourselves—result from the new scale that is introduced into our affairs by each extension of ourselves, or by any new technology” (p. 1). To borrow from his example of the railroad, social media did not invent different elements of communication; they simply amplified our interactions. Growing up with Web 2.0, the members of the millennial generation and digital natives see the smartphones, watches, tabloids and laptops as an extension of the body. Social media platforms allow them to use their private profiles for public communication reaching out to potentially thousands of other users with an unprecedented speed. The convergence of the platforms and content has created a new type of media users who are both consumers and producers () (Jenkins, 2006). Groomed in such a culture, it is not surprising

92 that that non-professional aspect of alternative media does not seem significant for these participants. These young people have the tools and most of them the ability to create content and disseminate it. This was not available at the dawn of the alternative media scholarship, when alternative was defined as media that provide access to encourage and normalize such access for people of low status in terms of their relationships to elite group of owners, managers and professionals, make their own media, whether by appearing in it as significant actors or by creating news relevant to their situation (Atton, 2002, p. 11).

The divide has shrunk with the social media and the non-professional production has become ubiquitous. The shifts within the communication infrastructures, technology, media consumption and perceptions have influenced the perceptions about what is alternative and mainstream and have opened new avenues for future studies. There were responses that deviated from the definitions of alternative media based on the medium. Interestingly, these answers came from participants who were alternative media consumers or were at some point exposed to such content. One participant was adamant about the contrast of alternative media with the mainstream. He indicated that unlike the news read from the teleprompter, he considered “alternative news anything that is not scripted.” A few other participants thought, “Alternative news sources can hone in on some of the smaller stories” or as one student characterized, “it is something off the beaten path.” Another comment related to the content of alternative media was about the ideological divergence. The student explained, “Another thing about alternative is basically more opinion that is not within Democratic and Republican but different types of Right or Left wing.” The results could be different if the students were avid alternative media consumers. They are currently more familiar with the medium than the alternative content. Unless they follow alternative media platforms, they receive the news form social media, which is trending news and they follow up with what they perceive as credible sources to read more on.

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Finally, the results show that the participant where not concerned with the business aspect of alternative media. While two students mentioned that alternative media are “not sponsored” and are different from “transnational corporations”, their characterization of social media as alternative did not include discussions about financial structures, especially not the financial structures of social media. They did not emphasize the fact that social media are corporate owned and if the financial structure is a factor of qualifying an outlet as alternative, than their corporate nature would be more present and perhaps would lead to opinions that anything corporate is not alternative. The big TV of the past, are the social media of the present but the latter are alternative to the older medium not the ability to reinforce consumer-culture through corporate structures. Thus, they would not define social media as alternative. However, they did, because for this group, the new medium carries more significance. Democratizing role of alternative media. A major goal of this study is to find out the opinions of young adults about the role of alternative media in a democracy. Parallel to the definitions of alternative media as either fake news or Internet based platforms, the participants saw the roles of such media in accordance with these definitions. In other words, the participants thought that digital alternative media outlets diversify the marketplace of ideas, meanwhile those who thought alternative media are fake, thought that they have a manipulative role and are dangerous for a democracy. Participants identified a normative role for alternative media as outlets that democratize media content and voices. They thought that alternative media should diversify voices. This is reflected in one of the responses, “Internet makes a lot of small ones, which makes it more diversity of opinions and they could better illustrate the opinions rather than TV screen that is trying to appear more democratic even though it is not majority.” Similarly, participants perceived alternative media as outlets “closer to people” and able to introduce “more voices.” They placed a heavier burden on alternative media in terms of allowing more diversity and representation of voices. As one participant described, “[alternative media are] social media, which I think have democratized politics and gave a voice to a lot of people who didn’t have a voice.” The

94 diversification of the marketplace of ideas was constant in all focus groups. Those participants who valued inclusion and believed in competition and diversity expresses such views as “I think that we have more competing news sources that can create an actual marketplace of ideas.” Another person stated, “It is a lot more important to get a lot more voices, a lot more points of view out there.” Democracy is based on the diversity of opinions and the participants of the study seemed to value plurality and expressed a willingness to see more of it in the media landscape. Within this normative category, students believed some digital alternative media play act as catalysts of diversity of voices. There is some inconsistency in the views of the participants, since they speak to the functions of alternative media in terms of the content, however in the earlier questions, they mostly focused on the medium. This could be explained by a common pitfall of discussions of media, which often leave out structural issues. As Van Dijk and Hacker (2018) argue, digital platforms have amplified voices, however, in a media-rich environment, where audience attention is fragmented (Webster, 2014), it is important to consider who listens to these voices. Moreover, it is true that social media are more accessible for people to co-create, share and organize (Shirky, 2008); nevertheless, they are also corporate-owned, which means the companies have the monopoly over what gets posted and shared and how (Leister, 2015). The students did not talk to these critical issues, partly because they did not focus on the content or structures of alternative media. Similar to the participants’ differing views on the role of alternative media in a democracy, Van Dijk and Hacker (2018) demonstrated that in democracy, the political context, the properties of the networks, and the political resources impact the ability of media to foster or stifle political engagement. The participants focused on this negative potential of alternative media when discussing it as platforms of fake news. Alternative media as an incubator of conspiracies. Discussions about the roles of alternative media took a different turn when participants defined such outlets as conspiratorial or fake. At this point, the discussions about normative roles switched to practical implications. As much as the participants viewed the role of alternative media as

95 positive and able to pluralize the information landscape, they still cautioned against the potentially harmful roles of such media. One participant stated, “It is not always false… I think it is important and good to have but not in national news. Just for it not to be the news that people are reading to inform themselves.” This comment is only one of the many remarks about the lack of credibility of such media. Even those participants who initially talked about alternative media as more democratic, agreed that they are less credible than the mainstream outlets. One student explained, “More voices are good you can get different sides of the story, which is nice and you can get more outlets, but I think they lack credibility which can be very detrimental to a democracy.” The tone of the discussions in every focus group would change as soon as participants started to bring up the issue of credibility and reliability. Rauch (2015) argued that alternative media audiences are hybrid media consumers. The participants get their news from social media but they follow up with mainstream media for more credible and contextualized coverage. The participants of this study also break the dichotomy of the mainstream alternative media consumption (Kenix, 2011). However, when it comes to trust and consequently the role of the media in democracy, they seem to prioritize mainstream. One participant explained her view, I think it is very easy for alternative media to be manipulated in such a way that you get stuck in the feedback loop or you are getting fake news. Yeah, I think alternative news can also incubate conspiracy theories a lot better than what you have got the Fox or CNN like they are not going to push Pizzagate.7

In addition to concerns about the unedited conspiratorial content, the participants continually returned to the issue of bias as fake news. One student was trying to explain how providing a biased information can be dangerous for democracy, referring to lack of diversity of opinions, if alternative media promotes such bias among viewers who stay within their information bubbles. “It gives a point of view is dangerous because then

7 Reply All. (December, 2016). #83 Voyage into Pizzagate [audio podcast]. Retrieved from https://gimletmedia.com/shows/reply-all/emhwl5/83-voyage-into-pizzagate

96 people who only want to hear that, it is only what they will listen to and it is a dangerous thing to have it.” Once again, they confirm that bias is highly problematic in any type of media. In case of alternative media, the participants thought it is even more so because they did not believe alternative media undergo the same journalistic process, rigor and scrutiny. One student was particularly concerned about the ethics of such media, as he explained,“It is important to get a lot more voices and points of view out there, but I also do agree, there is usually no way to tell if someone a blogger, or anyone, do or don’t have a journalistic ethics.” This argument, about the lack of editorial control and ethical scrutiny to hold a media outlet accountable decreases the level of trust towards alternative content, which also explains why many did not see such media outlets as significant for democracy. Moreover, the comments about the professionally edited content and concerns about the lack of accountability of alternative journalism raise an important ethical question. The scholarship in alternative media mostly assumes that such media are grassroots, empowering and give voice to the marginalized, generally with the assumption that such media are ethical. However, more studies should be conducted examining the ethicality of alternative media, especially with the rise of conspiracy alternatives. Even if they do not trust the media, even if they find it openly conspiratorial or biased, participants still believed that they should not be banned and should be a part of the marketplace. The American tradition of free speech is embedded in the responses about the dangers of alternative media. The following verbatim quote, eloquently summarizes similar comments Anyone has the right to say whatever they want, like . I think that everyone has a right to media, it is created for that purpose, it is what you want it to be, so I think you have a right to, but as far as the intentions, I think that there are some pre-rooted intentions.

There were a few exceptions to the two patterns of responses discussed earlier. Both came from the opposite ends of a media consumption spectrum. Some participants

97 who did not trust mainstream media did not think such media were more credible. On the other hand, those students who consumed alternative platforms did not think of them as conspiratorial because they used these platforms for their content and alternative views. Overall, the democratizing and conspiratorial roles were not discussed as mutually exclusive. It seems that participants of this study saw a place for both of those functions to be performed by alternative media, and some even suggested that the burden should be placed on the individual citizens to be more educated about their media choices. Mediated political participation. The purpose of this study is to contribute to the existing knowledge about the ability of alternative media to foster political participation. One the questions that participants addressed then was how their perceptions and understanding about alternative media and their role in democracy influenced a decision to be politically engaged. The major theme that emerged in response to these questions was mediated political participation. Political participation has been defined as “any activity of ordinary citizens with the aim of influencing the political outcomes” (Brady, 1997, p. 737). Traditional activities included voting, protesting, and engagement in community, canvassing, and volunteering. Such activities are particularly typical for a representative democratic model. Considering that the United States has a representative democratic system where political changes happen through electoral and institutional processes, it was natural that many focus group participants spoke to these activities, when they were asked to define political participation. Many participants mentioned the conventional political behavior of “voting.” One of the participants suggested that participation is more than casting a vote, it is also “making sure other people are voting is the best way to be politically active.” Other conventional activities that participants emphasized included volunteering for campaigns and canvassing. As they described, political participation is about “Volunteering, for campaigns, for the Party as a whole” as well as “registering people to vote, making phone calls.” They highlighted that a key feature of these politically-oriented activities is

98 that they have to be “a bottom up thing.” In other words, political activities have to be voluntary and oriented towards the common good. These responses capture individual political behaviors. Participants also identified communicative activities that constitute political participation. The communicative dimension had several layers. The first layer described by the participants was simply being informed. As one student said, “Politically active is being informed about what is going on.” A majority of the participants thought that participation starts from being informed and up to date about the political events and developments is already political participation. Moreover, they thought people needed to do more than simply watch the news. Mainly, they talked about forming an opinion and sharing. One participant explained, “I’d say someone who is politically active has to be up to date with the news, they have to be actively responding deciding their own views on the news. Sharing.” They also added that in addition to knowing what is happening, it is also important to “write articles or share things online” and “Spread news online.” The participants see online activities such as accessing, analyzing and sharing news and information as important modes of political participation. It is surprising to find out that watching the news has become an activity that is considered political participation. Unlike the conventional participation activities, which have a higher burden and require more effort on behalf of the citizens, the participants of this study lowered the bar. Being informed about public affairs is not the default of citizenship anymore; it is not taken for granted by a group of members of millennial generation who have a deficit of news consumption habits. What is more, the participants talked about another dimension of communicative activities, which is having an agency and expressing political voice. Some participants said political participation implies “Having a voice and have to pick a side.” One student also thought, “being politically active it is just making your voice heard.” A couple of participants talked about the value of agency more than the practical expression of an opinion. The student who came to the focus group directly from registering voters said, “My personal opinion is that if you really need it, you should be really informed and

99 know what you are doing, understand the sanctity of it (participation) and respect how important it is.” Another participant also spoke to the normative aspect of participation, saying it is about the ability to “Impact political decision making by acting politically and having an agency to act.” Finally, the participants discussed the dimension of communicative activities that bring their views closer to deliberative democratic practices. Some participants saw political participation as the dialogue and conversations with people. As one of them described, political participation is “Having conversations with friends about political issues.” Another student expanded on that point, saying “I would still consider that political whether you are participating in a debate or you are participating in sharing communication.” The view that conversations and sharing information and views are important modes of political participation were expressed in all focus groups. However, in some groups, participants were more demanding in regard to the standards of conversations, they considered political. One participant specified that the conversation had to provide an opportunity to “Actually learn new things about each other’s perspectives and having a real discussion. Arguing about it on social media or something like that having a real dialogue.” Another student agreed that the best effort is listening to the other side and trying to have a conversation. As she described, “I am willing to sit down and talk with people who have completely opposite views, making sure that I am willing to be open to those views and talk with people in whatever form that maybe.” While the students are not elaborating on how the discussions would take place or what topic they would be ready to discuss, it is clear that they see conversations as a way to inform political decision making. It is important to note that when speaking about conversations and discussions, especially with people from opposing camps, there was an air of frustration and discontent that such conversations are not already happening. The participants did not directly talk to this issue, however they indirectly mentioned that the lack of constructive debate is problematic.

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Both the communicative and political activities described by the participants fall under the contemporary definition of political participation, stating that “Political participation is behavior that contributes to the governance of society and tries to affect opinion making and decision making by political representatives and ” (Van Dijk & Hacker, 2018, p. 50). The authors discuss participation within the context of digital democracy (Van Dijk, 2000), capturing conventional representative mechanisms and deliberative practices of participation. As one participant eloquently summarized the students’ perspective, “Political participation is a three-step thing, one is voting, two is being informed and three is spreading the word.” The findings of the analysis of focus groups demonstrate that the participants support traditional political behaviors but they emphasized the importance of discursive activities and communicative engagement too. Current forms of participation include not only voting and participating in rallies, but also mediated online communicative activities as clicking, and sharing. All activities and dimensions of participation are mediated, especially the ones that require actual use of media for sharing, voting, spreading the news, commenting or engaging in conversations. Affective politics. Dahlgren (2014) suggests that politics is not comprised of sole facts, rather is embedded in the everyday life. It sparks anxiety, desires, disappointment and hopes. People who feel passionate and emotional about political issues that touch either their lives or the lives of others take politics personally. Affective aspect of politics is what Mouffe (2013) describes as “passion” (p. 6) of democracy. Citizens use media for political participation based on subjective contingencies, which Dahlgren (2014) characterizes as their emotions, values and beliefs. This section demonstrates how the affective factors and media use impact participant’s decision to be politically engaged. The theme, affective politics, encompasses perceptions of participants about political efficiency, motivations, disappointments, intentions, fears and concerns regarding alternative media content and political participation. Participants became more animated towards the second half of each focus group, when the participants were asked to read articles and listen to segments of podcasts from

101 the right-wing and left-wing media. The discussions about their reactions to articles and episodes showed how media exposure could influence their decision-making. Participants’ reactions to the articles. The participants were first asked to read the article from The Daily Wire titled “Democrats Back Away From DREAMers, Won't Force Vote On 'Clean' Immigration Bill.” Then they read the second article from Crooked Media titled “Democrats, don't leave the dreamers stranded-again”. The participants were asked to try to identify the political leaning of the article and to explain whether they would be motivated or discouraged to be politically active after reading about the issue. Most of the participants correctly identified the political leaning of the sources of the first article. One of the participants said “It is a mix between Breitbart and FOX or just a general Right-leaning website, it doesn’t necessarily have to be from a news source, it can be some guy posting articles online.” Another student pointed to the headline, “It is Right-leaning, you can just read the headline.” The most common reason the participants thought made the article Right-leaning was the criticism of the Democrats. A participant thought, “Article 1 is definitely Right leaning, it is very critical of the Democrats and the way they are handling the DREAM Act” another student was more critical, stating that “The article is more like an excuse to bash the democratic part than actually report anything.” The second factor that helped the participants to identify the political leaning of the article was the language. One of the students described how the some phrases hinted at the leaning, specifically she pointed at “The language, it says ‘ Leftist’ and ‘Resistance,’ ‘pushing clean DREAM Act,’ almost seems condescending to me.” Other participants also criticized the article, describing its language and wording as “slanted” and its tone as “arrogant” and “cynical.” There were a few exceptions, whereby one student felt that the article was factual and informative. He said, I thought article 1 was Left leaning at first … it didn’t give much of an opinion it just kind of stated facts more and felt more like a general kind of like article from an unknown person” and he added “but now that I hear what you all said I am looking closer and it is harsh on the Democratic party.

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This participant did not criticize the article for its language or words; he simply agreed it is not Left leaning. Another participant told that “It wasn’t really obvious” and he was able to identify the leaning after contrasting it with the second article. A majority of the participants also accurately predicted the political leaning of the second article. One student described, “I thought this was a democrat speaking to her party pleading to them as a Latina voter, I think she is saying I like your ideologies, except I am seeing empty promises.” Some students, who seemed politically more engaged and informed, not only identified the leaning of the article, but also provided more specific characterization of the position. Here is an example, “It is interesting that it was a Left-leaning source that clearly didn’t agree with everything that the Democrats were doing, so it was a little bit further Left than the Democrats.” Similarly, another participant explained, “It is definitely pro-dreamers, because it says ‘as a Latina voter I am tired with the empty promises to my community,’ so it is basically an anti- establishment Left.” These students have more contextual knowledge, because they identify a problem of division within the Democratic Party, which they would not be able to other simply reading one article. The following responses support this conclusion too. First, one of he students mistook the criticism of the Democratic Part for a Right-wing technique only. The student thought, “It is more Right leaning because it formed arguments against the Democratic Party more.” Another student, who mischaracterized the first article, was also unable to recognize the leaning of the second one saying, “The first one is Right, then this one is like way-way Right.” These participants’ experiences with the articles were different, as they did not pay much attention to the details, the language or the other attributes of the articles. The misinterpretation as much as critical analysis, could potentially inform the communicative and political behaviors of the participants. Once the participants identified the leaning of the articles, they started to compare and contrast the two. First they spoke about the similarities, which were almost all negative. They felt as though both articles “Are at each other” and “They are basically

103 calling one another incompetent.” Second, they both expressed a “Sense of urgency.” They described the differences of the articles with more rigor and emotions. A few participants thought that the first article was more informative. One student shared his experience “The 1st one read more like an informative article and the second one read more like an op-ed to me.” Another student also shared his view saying, “Article 1 seemed a little more factual, than the second one, especially because the last paragraph in the second, the author is talking in first person, and in the end makes it a more personal appeal.” What felt less credible to this student, the use of a first person and more personalized language, was perceived as accurate by another one. As she described, I think the second one was definitely more personal coming from someone who is more personally affected, even though they both essentially give the same information they are reporting on the same story but I think the second one is more emotional but it also gives more facts.

Another student responded, “I do agree that article 2 seems more like an op-ed, considering they actually cite the source and hyperlink. It is automatically more credible and it also points out issues on the Republican side of D. Trump.” Other participants found the personalized language of the second article easier to understand the story. One of them explained, “I think because it is in first person, it does have that sort of, reading it felts easier to understand.” They correlated the “feel” of the articles to cognition of the content and to motivations to act. One student said, “Article 2 is more accessible in a way, you read your way through, versus mid-way through, so I guess it would be more motivating to do something but it feels more like an advocacy piece.” These participants stated that the main difference was the emotional tone, whereby the second article was more personal and emotional; meanwhile it also provided facts. Relatedly, many participants said that emotional appeal is more motivating to do something politically. It is not surprising that these participants felt they would be more motivated to act after reading the second article, which had more storytelling and context.

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One participant felt that “an article that is more personal, drags you in more, like the article 2, I was definitely more interested.” Another student spoke to the humanizing aspect of the emotional language, saying “[reading] article 2, I’d think of myself more as a person, so definitely get more personally involved with that one.” The following response also demonstrates how responsive student felt towards the second article “If I read the 1st article, I just want to take action, but if read the 2nd one, I would feel really motivated to do something or get involved or find more information.” Similarly, another persona stated that she is more motivated when knows that politics effects the personal lives of people, she described “it motivates me more to help them out or like to give people a voice.” Other participants described more practical steps of what they would do. One of them said after reading the Left-leaning article, he would “probably call my Democratic senator, that might motivate me to be like hey, you are a democrat, this is your base, why aren’t you taking action.” A participant that earlier talked bout being informed, said that such stories “made me feel connection” and are motivating to get educated on the issue. In addition to the emotional reactions and the role of values in analyzing the articles, the students also discussed the importance of contextualized coverage. One of them explained that “providing the history of when the Act was first introduced shows it has been going on for years and it still needs to be taken care of now.” Since she thought the second article was more contextualized, she also felt more motivated to act after reading it. Another participant agreed that the article was “a cry for help, talking about where it failed in the past.” Van Dijk and Hacker (2018) caution that many studies examining the issue of political participation assume that participation is inherently good and well-intentioned. Taking this into account, the participants were asked to share to what political end their actions would be directed. And a majority wanted to help the Dreamers. As one student explained, “There is obviously a need for something to be done, so if I could help that would be something I would want to do.” A possible explanation as to why the second article seemed more motivations, an explanation not described by the participants, has to

105 do with the demographic composition of the focus groups. A majority and all of those who said they would feel motivated to help the immigrants and agreed with the views of the article were more left-leaning. This is more or less a reflection of the college population, which is a progressive campus. While there is no study that directly asked people of and students to reveal their political leaning, the 2016 elections witness to this statement. In the 2016 Presidential Election, Athens was one of the very few Counties in Ohio that voted democrat (Politico, 2016). Some students saw both articles as biased or not factual enough. One student expressed his disappointment, saying “Article 1 is way more point and shout. Much more mascot-y and paints a better picture. Article 2 is a little less biased, I’d say, but still not great.” Another participant also contemplated “Yeah, second is definitely heating on the emotional aspect, more raising awareness than reporting anything, that is kind of using the nugget of events to talk about this.” From a critical standpoint, one student found it a weakness of the second article to use such a personalized language. He said, “She discloses her identity and this could be a good and bad thing, because you feel more connected to the writer, but also, it is kind of a weak loose-leaning on your audience.” The language that humanizes and makes a story more authentic for some is vulnerable and weak for others. A majority of participants felt motivated by the second article, however, there were students who claimed that neither of the articles would sway their position nor motivate them to do anything political. One of the students was adamant in his position as he described “I would just put it in a library box. I would probably not do anything, it is just another thing to have in the back of my mind.” Another participant said he would simply feel “indifferent.” A few participants elaborated on why none of the articles would motivate their political behavior. Particularly, they thought that political behavior would depend on the views and political believes of the readers. One student explained, “It depends on your view if you agree with the view, you really might as well.” Another participant agreed and expressed a similar view, saying “If someone reads this article can either like these two people, then they can be like I don’t agree and having hurt feelings.

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Bias can go either way.” This perspective is also supported in the political participation literature (Yamamoto, Kushin, & Dalisay, 2017) stating that political behavior depends on the pre-existing views, political knowledge and sense of political efficiency. The last factor, political efficiency, played a significant role in participants’ motivations. As one student described: I know for myself, whenever there are party issues, I tend to lose interest, I don’t like to affiliate with either… I don’t really feel if I reached out to Nancy Pelosi or Chuck Schumer, they would be like, oh you came just in time for us, thanks for reaching out. I think they have their own agenda.

The participants with a low sense of political efficiency felt their voice could make a difference in the political system were more likely to stay indifferent. This was especially observed in responses after listening to the podcasts, discussed later. Those participants, who had high sense of efficiency, felt more motivated to engage politically. Participants’ reactions to the podcast segments. The main finding from the discussions about the participants’ reactions to the articles is that the emotional language and tone of the second article was more motivating for the majority of the participants, with few exceptions. The results of the discussions about the possible effect of content on political engagement demonstrate a different outcome. The participants listened to five-minute segments of podcast episodes from Crooked Media’s podcast, Pod Save America-Episode releases January 18, 2018 titled “The Shithole shutdown” (Favreau, & Pfeiffer, 2018) and a segment from The Ben Shapiro Show- Episode 458, titled "Shutdown Showdown” (Shapiro, 2018). The original length of each episode was about an hour. The analysis of the interviews indicates that the young adults, who participated in the study have a strong preference when it comes to the medium over the content. The participants preferred the audio podcast to the articles. One of the students described why the audio-visual media are more influential: I think when people listen to podcasts and watch things that makes them feel more motivated than reading because you can hear someone’s voice and you can actually see reactions and hear how their voice changes, some people don't pick

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up on little cues.

Once again, McLuhan’s (1964) concept of the medium as an extension of the body is relevant in explaining these perceptions. As some participants explained, many of their friends “listen to political podcasts” and they thought since podcasts are “a good way for to get more educated.” Moreover, some considered podcasts as “more approachable it is more motivational, understanding it [the issue] more, so I feel more inclined to participate.” Hence, the podcasts playing from the phones through headphones wired or wireless are more sensory and appeal to younger people as more connected. Similar to the relationship between the arguments with the articles, when a storytelling one also seemed easier to understand, the podcasts that educate them on issues in a coherent way also motivate them. Two responses are of particular importance in this regard. First, one of the participants explained that people who listen to podcasts are already somewhat motivated. As he put it: Everybody knows that Ben Shapiro has his opinions and that Pod Save America people have their opinions. So, I think going and listening to it, you kind of already know what you want and most people that don’t care that much, aren’t going to listen to one of those. You have to care enough to go and listen to one of those.

His argument seemed to be that people come to these platforms with pre-existing values and views and they are either reaffirmed or opposed depending, which podcast they go to. Additionally, regular listeners of these shows are probably already active and motivated to do something. These motivations are also contingent on the emotional and personalized style of messaging and commentary offered by the podcasts. They are typically direct and informal and as mentioned earlier, can be encouraging for young people to be politically engaged. Moreover, the podcast personalities develop a fan base, an argument that was expanded upon by a participant who elaborated: It is interesting that I guess specifically the Ben Shapiro Show, but any podcast, people are tuning in more not necessarily because of the publications, as much as for the individuals. I think when someone like Ben Shapiro puts out his opinions so boldly, people can fall along because they already have an attachment through 108

the previous shows, they tune in again and again so they are familiar and fond of him.

A few participants were regular listeners of the podcast, even though they did not always know the companies producing the pods. Some participants had heard about the podcasts but did not have exposure and a few had never heard about the platforms. As with the articles, the participants first listened to each podcast, and were asked to share their views. Both pods aired the same week when DACA was cancelled and the government was under a shutdown. The first impressions demonstrated the participants’ feelings about the situation. One of them said, “The whole situation was commandeered by both sides to win.” Others moved the conversation towards a discussion about the hostility and binary commentary of the topic by both outlets. A student, who seemed a bit frustrated, described them as “Very black and white, like oh, Democrats are doing this, and Republicans are trying not to do this. Kind of attacking either side, not really focusing.” Another one also noted that the opposition was too much. He used strong words to describe his feelings “They are both cynical almost, both pin the other side as evil, terrible people.” Similarly, another participant voiced his disappointment saying “Both sides like to paint things very cynical and people are evil and everything is terrible and in reality it is not really like that.” As studies on political participation have shown, the feeling of cynicism leads to less engagement and apathy (Yamamoto, et al., 2017). This was one of the responses reflecting the negative emotions that participants expressed after listening to the pods. Disappointment, frustration, distrust and scepticism were sometimes expressed through a contrast to what they would like to hear. One of the participants pointed our ““Both sides being children. The Democrats blame the Republicans and Republicans blame the Democrats” he said that he was not interested to hear about that, and what he cared about was that “everyone has to work together it is everyone’s fault.” Another participant indicated the need for a bipartisan solution criticizing both for accusing the other side, instead of talking more about policy.... It is never like, ok this is the policy that I think is good and Republicans have as a policy and the Democrats have that policy, how can we work together. 109

The participants felt disappointed and sometimes frustrated with the inability of the both sides to talk about the policy. These responses indicate to the earlier point about how their reactions turn negative when they perceived the media to be biased. Both outlets have a clear political leaning and the participants knew it and a majority were unhappy that both sides fail to generate a unifying narrative around a ‘bipartisan’ issue. After a very brief discussion of the issue, participants moved to talk about their views about the style and delivery of each pod. They had varying views about each segment, and these views mostly reflected whether their political values aligned with the opinions expressed in the commentaries. Some participants criticized the Ben Shapiro Show segment for its aggressive and harsh language. One participant described, “I’d say Ben Shapiro is a bit more aggressive, he is definitely showing they are wrong more than he is right, that is not correct.” Other students agreed and added that his commentary was also too opinionated. One student explained, “I think the first one flat out says “it is stupid,” it is very aggressive and clearly says how he feels, and it is immature, but there is a better way he could have gone around.” As one participant said, “I just don’t like the fact that he put in his own personal opinion.” These responses go along with the previous comments about credibility. The participants do not appreciate pure opinions, as seen in the following comment “He was also saying “I like” a lot, but was not really giving a reason to why.” One response that stands out to show how this critical attitude worsens if the participants do not share similar views with the commentator is as follows He is using as like a back for people in Trump’s base…. he goes on to an opinion, and then doesn’t use facts to back up anything. He just states opinion and uses Trump as support behind it.

Another participant highlighted the allegiance and the ability to establish a base too, “Ben Shapiro was certainly the more entertaining person, he could probably talk on any subject and I feel like he would still have a fan base, I think that is really important in the American politics, which is a weird phenomenon.” A couple of participants expressed strong negative feelings, such as hate, anger

110 and anxiety regarding Ben Shapiro’s content. Two responses particularly stood out among all the focus groups. One of the students started with a deep sigh as she started to talk: I have very strong feelings against Ben Shapiro, I really hate him, honestly. Trump could say ‘he endorses killings publicly’ and Ben Shapiro would find a good way to spin this. I don't think anything he says should be taken seriously. So I don't think he is telling the whole story.

The other participant described her emotional and mental reactions to Shapiro’s content in a vivid way too: I don’t listen to Ben Shapiro, I don’t listen to alt-right news, so when I hear it, I get very anxious and very sad, because he is talking very fast and he is trying to keep his base from not letting the information sink in. Their strategy is just to keep going to see whatever will stick to their base, because they know their base is so unable to rationalize things.

This criticism fits with the previous concerns regarding biased coverage and issues of lack of credibility and trust. It is established that reliable, traditional journalism requires verifiable facts and contextualized sense making of the events not simply opinions (Kovack & Rosenstein, 2014). The belief that opinionated or biased media cannot be trusted does not immediately translate into indifference or no motivation to act. A couple of participants declared that they feel more motivated to act after hearing extreme and outrageous perspectives. One participant particularly, revealed that staying in her Left leaning bubble would not be as motivating as “when I listen to Ben Shapiro talk, or when I was watching old Vice or documentaries about neo-Nazis type of people speak.” As she described it, such phenomenon “impassions to be more involved” and “to make sure this doesn’t exist in a 100 years.” Another student too, felt a moral obligation to act against the extreme. In her words, “I’d be more motivated to be politically active after listening to Ben Shapiro, to do something to counter this kind of stuff.” Overall, the responses regarding motivations triggered by the podcasts represent a spectrum. This spectrum is more diverse than the one on articles. Opposite to the previous comments, some participants trusted and believed the

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Shapiro segment more. One student concluded, “In those two scenarios, Ben Shapiro was probably a little bit more unbiased just because he gave more of an accurate statement in terms of what actually happened.” Likewise, one student said, “I’d probably go for what he is arguing for because he has got facts to back up.” Ben Shapiro is famous for his fast-paced speech and this surfaced in every focus group in surprising ways. As discussed earlier, some students felt anxious because of the speed and style of Shapiro’s talk. In contrast, one student explained his experience as follows “I watched Ben a few times and he is very hard to argue against, he knows what he is doing so that is tough to go against.” Fast speech sounded more convincing and credible. Other students’ comments reveal the power of Shapiro’s style, which they characterized as relatable and authentic. One student extrapolated: I think the second one (Shapiro) was just more passionate. I just feel like he believes in what he is saying, so I connect to that tone more. Some people would agree more with the first speaker because he sounds less opinionated maybe but liked the second one.

In this case, the respond sided with Shapiro because of the speech style, even though he was able to indicate his bias. This supports the argument that bias is a factor in distrust of media, however it is not as strong of a force when the views of the receiver and commentator align. One participant was confused about what he could do to help the DREAMers, at the same time, he mentioned, “Ben gave more examples and I think I would be more motivated to do something than the first one.” These examples demonstrate the participants’ lack of attention to the content and prioritization of the medium and style of message delivery. Shapiro’s entertaining style was also characterised as more reasoned and rational, in contrast to the commentary of the Pod Save. Paradoxically, the participants found his speech both entertaining and reasoned. One participant specifically explained the contrast, a response worth a full quote, to capture many aspects of the perceptions about this show. The participant explained: Ben Shapiro is definitely a great public figure guy because, one thing, he is going for his fan base he talks fast, and he plays a lot of theatrics in his debates and his 112

fans think that makes him smart. He knows how to amuse the platform and he talks as I said fast, he has a loud voice, he doesn’t really startle that much so that sounds authoritative. As compared to the Crooked Media though their emotional thing is basically more the content, it moves the features and ‘you have to do this to help the DREAMERS’, while Ben Shapiro went to law school, so he is probably thinking of doing a consorted ideology through the legal thing. Basically he is putting the object through a critical tribalism, Democrats are trying to mess with the Republicans and how the Democrats and the Left want to destroy Judeo- Christian values or something like that.

It is noteworthy, this participant follows Shapiro’s commentary more than the others, because he brought up points [Judeo-Christian values and tribalism] that were not present within the short segment and could only be known to someone who consumes this content regularly. Overall, Shapiro’s entertaining, dramaturgical style and the “spectacle” are appealing to a number of predominantly male participants. Participants’ reactions to Pod Save America segment, ranged on a spectrum of negative and positive, as well. The students, who were already following Pod Save, described their emotional connection to the outlet. One participant explained that she listens to “PSA when I don’t have hope, when I lose hope, because of the political atmosphere because there are other smart, intelligent people, who get what I get, they think how I think.” Another subscriber of PSA podcast highlighted that she does not agree with all the points they make, however, she considered the hosts “interesting, smart people, they are informed, so whenever I am done listening to an episode, I find myself wanting to reference articles they talk about,” she added that PSA inspires to read and learn more, to listen to other pods and “want to be more politically active.” As it can be observed from the comments, intelligence of the hosts is an important factor of credibility. While in the case of Shapiro intelligence was with his fast speech, in the case of PSA, it was correlated to lack of sensation. As one participant indicated, I don’t listen to PSA as much as I would like to, but to me it was less sensationalizing even though they were blaming the other side, they were trying to stay as close to the normality, and also they were a bit calmer.

What appeared calm and normal to this participant, felt boring to another one, who said he “zoned out during the first one [PSA].” 113

The criticism against PSA grew as participants started to comment on their ideological differences. One student expressed his scepticism saying, “PSA are just going to continue using Trump, because it makes people talk. There is like a tone in their voice, like, oh we hate the Republicans we are going to shows in our voice, but we are not going to say it out loud.” In his opinion, PSA was biased and less transparent. Some participants faced an epistemic challenge of not knowing what to do. One participant described his confusion, “I don’t know, I wish I could have called the White House and do something or send a letter.” Similarly, another participant felt challenged, “I don’t know even if I could do anything.” Closely related, some participants felt too distanced from the political decision making system. One of them explained, “Even if I wanted to, I do not know what I could do other than sharing a word.” Students lack knowledge about accessible activities they can perform within or outside the political system. In addition to epistemic issues, the participants felt too disappointed to do anything because of the polarization. A student described his disappointment, “At the end of the day, the biggest policy on debate is immigration, that was a pretty bipartisan thing, but like it is sad.” Adding to the comment, another participant expressed, “It is demotivating, as much as I want to go fight for the DREAMERs.” Participants thought that the most significant factor of disappointment was the fact that they not see anyone willing to work together. One student explained, “Personally, I find it discouraging the pessimistic view about politicking in general and the messages people put out there. I think it just further cements people in their ways.” Participants want to see more bipartisan solutions that could lead to direct policy implications. Some participants remained adamant in thinking that the people’s ideological views are more decisive than the media content. One of the participants contemplated about listening to both segments and the potential influence on political participation, If you are a Republican, you are like, oh man he is taking funding away from the military, … It would make me mad but that is probably not the whole truth, because politics is a discussion on both sides not just one. Probably, I’d listen and 114

move on.

Similarly, one participant explained that the segments would neither “encourage nor discourage her to do anything drastic,” because her views were fixed. She also mentioned that regular listeners, however, could be “very trustful in their media they listen to and like things that go with their views.” This pattern was apparent in the reactions to articles as well and is consistent with the political participation literature, stating the importance of political knowledge and ideology in participation (Sotirovic & McLeod, 2010; Yamamoto, et al., 2017). Overall, the discussions regarding pods were more about Shapiro’s segment. His style trigger both support and criticism. Similarly, in the case of the articles, the more emotional article on the Left, sparked more discussions and reactions. Some interesting observations include: 1) participants prioritize style and medium over content; 2) those who felt Shapiro’s style was more motivating and credible were male and those who felt more motivated by the PSA article were mostly female and some male students; 3) bias and pre-existing political views are significant factors impacting the trust of the participants. The following section is presents the results of the second method of the study, critical discourse analysis. It first provides a summery of results for each outlet; next it presents the analysis of each article. Part II: Analysis and Results of CDA The Daily Wire articles: Summary of results. The Daily Wire has three main authors who write about DACA and the government shutdown during November 2017- April 2018. All authors used different semantic devices to represent participants and processes of the articles. All ten articles represented a set of social actors some of whom were represented as active agents, using personalization and individualization. On the other hand, other actors were more passive and mostly presented through their identification within a group. The most dominant grammatical device in the semantic inventory list for The Daily Wire articles was personalization. The authors at the Daily Wire heavily rely on 115 personalization to depict the social actors of the text. However, it is personalization, that allows granting agency to the actor, is not always positive. Representation of social actors (undocumented immigrants). Only two out of ten articles resembled a human-interest story, where the undocumented immigrants were the protagonists and were granted agency. In both cases, they were portrayed negatively. In the first, the undocumented immigrant, Juan Manuel Montes Bojorquez is introduced using his full name and engaged in a material and behavioral processes (re-entering US and being arrested). The author rhetorically connects his name to the criminal activity and omits the law enforcement from the process to foreground Montes as the law-breaker. On a discursive level, this frame fits into the pattern of conservative media’s coverage of immigration (especially the Latino population) using a criminal frame (Benson, 2014; Haynes, et al., 2016). With such coverage the Daily Wire reproduces the negative stereotypical images of unauthorized Latino/Latina immigrants perpetuating discrimination. Research has demonstrated that negative frames are more common and more effective in the media, especially among a population who already have more restrictive views on immigration, because they see immigrants as a threat (Caricati, 2018; Esses, et al., 2013). Perpetuating such frames and images overtly or covertly justifies and potentially could incite violence towards an already oppressed social group. The second instance when undocumented immigrants were personalized and granted agency was in an article, which combined a human-interest story and an opinion piece. In this case, the protagonists were two sisters. The author first used individualization to tell their story. As in other cases of the coverage of human-interest stories of immigration (Beyer & Matthes, 2015; Chuang & Roemer, 2015) the positive elements of their lives were associated with their fitness for and resemblance of an American way if living (having education and a business). This representation has ethnocentric elements (Valentino, Brader, & Jardina, 2013) especially considering how the author moves from personalization to objectification of the sisters using quantification. In short, she represents the sisters as invisible to society, which is unethical and indicates the tone of the apparent power position the author occupies in

116 relation to the social actors of the story. As a representative of a relatively elite class/group, she dismisses the lived experience of people from the vulnerable group. In all other instances when immigrants are even mentioned in the text, they are genercised and impersonalized. Typically, they are not represented through engagement in any mental, verbal or behavioral processes that could grant them agency. Finally, when individual immigrants appear in a the story they are often discussed in relation to the home country (specialization), or place they come from, which is a semantic objectification and dehumanization. Representation of social actors (politicians). The representation of the politicians in The Daily Wire articles differs depending on their role, status and political affiliation. The representation of Democrats and Republicans are proportional in terms of number of references, however the connotations differ even within each group. The Daily Wire used personalization to grant agency to Democrats Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer, who occupy leadership positions in the Democratic Party and negotiate with Republicans on its behalf. Schumer is represented as more active, engaged in verbal, relational and material processes. On one hand, these actors are represented less positively than Republican leaders such as Mitch McConnell, and as will be discussed Donald Trump. On the other hand, they are portrayed more positively than their fellow Democrats who are vocal advocates of pro-immigration and permanent protection of DACA recipients, such as Luis Gutiérrez (D-IL). Representative Luis Gutiérrez is also represented through personalization and individualization, participating in verbal, mental and relational processes, however negative ones. In the text, the author directly questions his understanding of the immigration law, dismissing Gutiérrez’s history of drafting immigration laws and advocating for immigrants. The article depicts him as an emotional rather than rational actor. It has an ethnocentric undertone, because it stereotypically represents the Hispanic- American representative as less cognitively sophisticated and more emotional than the white American counterparts. In contrast, high-ranking Democrats who are negotiating with Republicans and seem to be willing to compromise a long-term protection for

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Dreamers, are represented with more agency. The somewhat positive representation of Democratic leadership reproduces the status quo of the elite establishment actors by centralizing their roles in the discourse. Gutiérrez disrupts the process whereby the Democrat leaders legitimize the Republican leaders by engaging in negotiations. Hence, The Daily Wire maintains the coverage of the two from power positions, maintaining the hegemony. President Trump is another social actor who is represented as an active participant of the texts. He is always referred to using the name, and highlighting the agency through various processes. The only time D. Trump is represented, as a passive actor is when the author argues that his offensive comments towards African and developing countries were forced by negotiations. Removing his agency is a way to remove the responsibility and moral burden that comes with the highest power position. Not condemning the labeling of countries as “sh*hole,” moreover, justifying it, might perpetuates a feeling of disgust toward people coming from the countries. Disgust, as anger, is a feeling that is most effective in motivating negative attitude toward immigrants (Aalberg & Beyer, 2015), which is already apparent in the society, where and are on the rise. Representation of social actors (courts, government agencies, media). A few articles represent judicial decisions that are directly related to revocation of DACA. All the judges (one federal) and courts (Supreme Court and Ninth Circuit Appeals) are represented through functionalization, which indicates their function to establish the law in the society. In one case, the federal judge is objectified and personalized at the same time. Those decisions that are pro-immigrant groups incite more negative coverage because The Daily Wire calls them “leftist.” Supreme Court opinions are influenced by many sources even though some judges might seem more conservative while others are more progressive. For instance, Corley, et al. (2011), find that in addition to influence on federal law, “ systematically incorporate language from lower courts into the Court’s majority opinions” (p. 33). Particularly, when the justices see the majority opinions, if as catalysts of effective law. Similarly, Broscheid (2011) finds that “there are

118 in fact differences between federal appeals circuits that can be characterized as ideological, and some of the circuits commonly believed to be more liberal or conservative” (p. 188). His findings confirm the attitudinalist explanation for the differences, suggesting that the circuits consist of liberal and conservative judges and three-judge panel would skew the decision, meaning that political leaning in decision- making is overstated. Dismissal of the judicial system as “leftist” is dangerous, especially given that people already do not trust other democratic institutions such as the media due to the perceived bias. Since the conservatives do not honor the judicial system as the main arbiter of the rule of law and guarantor of freedom, then the problem with the irregular immigration is not breaking the law. Arguably, the conservative restrictive position on irregular immigration is more about ethnocentrism than the concern for the rule of law (Esses, et al., 2013). As for the government agencies, and political parties, they are all represented through functionalization. Political parties are depicted through collectivization and are activated demonstrating how they engage in relational and material processes such as negotiations. The Daily Wire perpetuates the opposition between Republicans and Democrats and deepens polarization because its representation of the situations leaves no room for political imagination of a bipartisan solution for the Dreamers (who are once again removed from the texts). Further division of the society is the opposite to the media’s role of fostering deliberation and dialogue among different social actors to agree on a common good (Habermas, 1996). The Daily Wire could not serve as a public sphere where various actors come to deliberate social issues; it could only be an echo chamber for conservatives who agree with restrictive immigration policies. The second most common way of referencing institutions is using metonymies. The only two media outlets activated in the articles were Breitbart and Washington Post. Both were discussed as actors participating in relational activities. Breitbart was referenced to indirectly use the “amnesty” frame, which The Daily Wire used to cover irregular immigration. This is another common negative frame used by

119 conservative media (Benson, 2014; Haynes, et al., 2016). Washington Post is mentioned to argue that Democrats are to blame for no deal. Use of metaphors and modalities. Use of metaphors in media is a common practice. Authors at The Daily Wire utilized animal, nature and other metaphors. The animal metaphors are few reflecting the hierarchy in nature and symbolizing the power relations within the society. For example, calling S. Miller a “superhawk” presupposes that immigrants are vermin, which is dehumanizing and historically has justified massacres and ethnic cleansing. Referring to immigrants as “political football” is another example of objectifying this vulnerable group of social actors. This is especially problematic given their invisibility and salience throughout the articles. Modalities granted the agency to the authors and not so much to the social actors of the texts. In The Daily Wire, Ben Shapiro makes the most use of modalities, especially epistemic and deonic ones. He does not provide details, rather makes vague statements using hedging and modalities. This device grants his articles an assertive and authoritative tone. Discursive practices and the social context. The articles mostly relied on intertextuality to construct particular meanings directly or indirectly referencing other media texts. Sometimes, the texts were linked to previous comments or statements of the officials, media and previous articles published by Daily Wire. Instances of intertextuality were not many, which explains the lack of contextualization in the coverage. This style of reporting requires high media literacy on the part of the audience who will be informed about the political developments to make sense of the news and form an opinion. However, if the audience is only reading these articles there will most probably be only a dominant (Hall, 1978) reading of the texts. Additionally, The Daily Wire remained within the patterns of the conservative media coverage of irregular immigration. None of the articles meaningfully gave voice or visibility to the undocumented immigrants. Consistent with the previous findings that immigrants need to be granted more agency in the media representation (Benson & Wood, 2015; Bloemraad, de Graauw, & Hamlin, 2015; Figenschou & Thorbjørnsrud,

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2015). Also, when the immigrants were present, they were portrayed negatively. The articles did not demonstrate any transparency in terms of reporting, some of the claims were not substantiated with statistics and data. Even though Ben Shapiro is the editor-in- chief, and he wrote the majority of the articles, none were marked as editorial pieces or even opinion pieces. Finally, on the social practice dimension, which includes societal changes and the overall cultural and political context where the discourse is taking place, DW articles fit into the nationalistic, discriminative narratives perpetuated by the current administration. They covertly and overtly justify the growing condescending narratives against the immigrants. The enthusiastic reporting of the hateful and at times racist rhetoric might potentially hype the atmosphere of hate, for the sake of appealing a small base of audience who are potentially consuming such information within the conservative network amplifying similar messages. Article 1: DACA Recipient Caught Illegally Reentering U.S. Author: Berrien, Published: November 9, 2017.8 To present the protagonist of the story, the first article uses foregrounding and backgrounding techniques (Van Leeuwen, 2008). The author uses personalization and genericisation in the same paragraph. The protagonist Juan Manuel Montes Bojorquez is personalized by mentioning his age and origins, which are grammatical tools of personalization and foregorunding (Machin & Mayr, 2012), at the same time, he is characterized as “a Mexican man who was caught jumping over the border wall last February” (Berrien, 2017, November 9). “Mexican” is a generic category used to represent a social and ethnic group (Machin & Mayr, 2012). This representation objectifies Juan Bojorquez by representing him in association with the country he comes from, Mexico, which is a grammatical technique calls specialization (Van Leeuwen, 2008). The only instance where Mr. Bojorquez is presented as an individual, is through foregrounding the fact that he was arrested for reentering the United States border and

8 https://www.dailywire.com/news/23356/daca-recipient-caught-illegally-reentering-us-hank-berrien

121 back grounding his status as the first recipient of DACA. This perpetuates the representation of DACA recipients and as criminals who are ready to break the law to be in the US. The arrest of Mr. Bojorquez is a material action (Manchin & Mayr, 2012), whereby the author omits the other social actor involved in the same action, the police or border security who performed the arrest. The visibility and invisibility in a text are both indicators of power relations. In this regard, the article uses the proposition that the immigrant is a lawbreaker and the border officers are normally doing their job by arresting him-a natural way to preserve the rule of law. The article uses quotes from the US Homeland Security officials claiming that Montes voluntarily returned to Mexico, which “caused him to lose DACA privileges” (Berrien, 2017, November 9). The quotes from a major official institution signify legitimacy and power adding credibility to the story. The article predominantly uses indirect discourse by citation and quotes. Citations and quotes are discursive practices common in journalism. However, quotes from the disempowered immigrants are not found in the article. The immigrants or their advocates have no voice. This could be related to the decreasing in-depth journalistic reporting. Digital platforms allow cheaper production and less investigation, which seems to be a pattern in the overall reporting of the Daily Wire. Similarly, this is a part of the pattern of passivation of immigrants. What is more, using the phrase “DACA privileges” implies some hierarchy or higher status granted to DACA recipients among other immigrant groups, which is misleading. DACA provides a limited eligible group of unauthorized immigrants who were brought to the US as children two years of protection to legally work and be enrolled in higher educational institutions. DACA, however, does not grant citizenship or long-term protection. The word choices perpetuate the conservative frame that immigrants are misusing and abusing the system (Haynes, et al., 2016). It also resembles the discourse and stigma of people who are on welfare support, a social security system that is often negatively labeled as “entitlement.” Such discourses reflect the social change that has been influenced by the economy and the idea of competition. First, the “privileged” immigrant, who is nowhere close to being privileged, survives the

122 competition; this is a way of assimilation in the free system ideology, second, the same immigrant loses the privilege due to lack of cognitive sophistication, because anyone would want to preserve the advantages. The latter is a latent form of dehumanizing, consistent in conservative coverage of irregular immigration, which leads to negative attitudes toward immigrants (Utych, 2018). In terms of portrayal of social action, the author mainly specified the verbal actions (Machin & Mayr, 2012) of public and political officials, legitimizing their positions. Irregular immigration has been debated through many administrations. Even though president Obama signed DACA in 2012, he was named “Deporter-in-chief” (Hasan, 2017; NPR, 2017) for the record number of deportations during his term of presidency. The restrictive policies continued with the transitioning of power to president Trump. He escalated the harsh rhetoric on immigration; calling Mexicans “drug dealers, criminals and rapists” (BBC, 2016). D. Trump also compared this immigrant group with the criminal MS13 gang and called them “animals” (Davis, 2018) further dehumanizing the undocumented immigrants, despite the demographics of families, children and women (Esses, et al., 2013). The media have to cover President’s speeches and if the outlet conforms to the slur and negative connotation, it normalizes discrimination. In short, on the text dimension, this article foregrounds the undocumented immigrant and personalizes him through material processes only to represent him as a negative actor who breaks the law. On the discursive and sociocultural dimensions, the author quotes and cites officials mirroring the power dynamics of social life in the text as well. Overall, the article is dehumanizing. Article 2: Congressional Hispanic Caucus ROASTS Sen. Chuck Schumer over 'Immigration Cave' Author: Zanotti, Published: December 24, 20179

9 https://www.dailywire.com/news/25045/congressional-hispanic-caucus-roasts-sen-chuck-emily-zanotti

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This article is about the internal politics within the Democratic Party as the leaders are negotiating with the Republicans to end the government shutdown and offer protection for Dreamers. The article uses more grammatical personalization and individualization (Machin & Mayr, 2012), than the first one. The reason could be that the article depicts the elites handling the immigration, including Democrats, Republicans and a judge. All these social actors hold power positions and are granted moderate to high degree of agency. For instance, the article states that representative “Gutierrez and others wanted a government shutdown” (Zanotii, December 24, 2017). This is a personalization technique using the first name of the public official; however, it is used with a negative connotation, indicating that the person is asking for a dysfunctional process, which will potential hurt government employees and people who receive government services. Gutiérrez’s speech (verbal action) is characterized as “dramatic,” typically used to characterize the speaker’s argument as emotional. The affective nature of speech is not a humanizing effect however; it simply suggests that the representative’s arguments are less rational and reasoned. This interpretation is further supported by the author’s characterization of Gutiérrez’s claim that Schumer must represent his constituents. The author writes the representative demanded something “apparently not realizing that illegal immigrants are not legally authorized to vote” (Zanotti, December 24, 2017). Such a construct of the action indicates problematic discursive practices in addition to linguistic choices. First, there is an apparent lack of journalistic rigor, which if practices, would require the author to provide some context about DACA and underscore that this status does not grant any legal way to become a citizen or act like one legally, including voting. The lack of this specification, is tied to the larger political context, where the candidate, later the President D. Trump, and his supporters circulated the idea that there were cases of illegal voting during the elections. While the educated audience would know that Gutiérrez was speaking about Democrat voters of Schumer, who are mostly supportive of immigration, the article misleads the audience, depicting the representative

124 as ignorant and untrustworthy. Questioning the representative’s cognitive incapacity to comprehend a complex legal issue is a way to further the idea that his pro-immigrant arguments are not legitimate since he is biased and subjective rather than rational. The Western idea of reasonable argument, which has been the standard of judging one’s cognitive capacity since the enlightenment era are put to worst use in this context. In addition to delegitimizing the Democrat representative, the article indirectly jeopardizes the idea of democracy, as the representative is elected into the office. One of the reasons why and perhaps the counter-argument as to how well he understands the immigration policy is that Gutiérrez is nationally known for championing issues impacting Latino and immigrant communities. He has been a part of legislative debates on immigration throughout many years of his career (Govtrack, 2019), which is a public record and could not be missed by a deep, ethical reporting. Lack of such reporting however, dismisses his legacy related to immigration, portraying him incompetent, which is not accurate, since the representative has mostly in communities with large Latino population, he has worked on legislation initiatives; he was the Chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Immigration Task Force and has a solid understanding the issue at hand. On the socio- cultural dimension, Gutiérrez has his family roots in Puerto Rico, the ‘Americanness’ of which seems to be an open question. The discourses over this dissonance have been apparent during the hurricane that hit the island and the US government’s failure to adequately respond and help Americans living in the damaged territories. The topic of national identity seems to be as contentious as immigration, especially in a society that is still reconciling race related issues and imperialistic intentions of the past (on the media). Other social actors who were represented through personalization include Democrats Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi. These two actors are presented with more agency, since they are positioned in opposition to Gutiérrez and represent the establishment Democratic Party. Another reason to grant Schumer agency (Machin & Mayr, 2012) is his eagerness to compromising immigration reform trading temporary DREAMer protection for border security budget line. As negotiators, Pelosi and Schumer appear in many other media texts that create intertextuality regarding the immigration and

125 government budget approval for 2017. These powerful actors legitimize the process of negotiations, confirming the perception that the Democrats caused a government shutdown, even though it was the and president who hold powers to do so. Individualization and functionalization are also present in the article (Machin & Mayr, 2012). For instance, an enforcement agent is introduced as “Assistant Chief Patrol Agent David S. Kim,” which foregrounds the function of the official rather than other personal characteristics. In this context that linguistic choice demonstrates credibility and legitimation of a law enforcement government agency. This means the issue is important and is related to the law, it is also representation of the powerful not the position of those who are impacted by the enforcement. Hence, the visibility of the official makes the invisibility of immigrants more apparent. Another way to reinforce the role of the government is through the use of metonymy (Machin & Mayr, 2012). The author refers uses “White House's lawyers” instead of the government lawyers to symbolize power and the level of urgency and importance of the issue at hand. As for the individualization, the article quotes a Washington Post journalist “Ed O'Keefe” to report the story he covered in the original source. While WP is known as more liberal, the author uses it to represent both sides in a balanced way, an accepted journalistic standard. Nevertheless, it fails to demonstrate the other side, since the debate is not about the Democratic Party and its members, rather it is about the 800 000 unauthorized immigrants and the government shut down. The article also demonstrates different social actions performed by various actors, including material, verbal, behavioral and relational (Machin & Mayr, 2012). In “The House Congressional Hispanic Caucus, including outgoing Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-IL), surprised Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) … storming his office and personally chastising him for failing to cause a government shutdown over the DREAM Act” (Zanotti, 2017, December 24), the author refers to material and behavioral action. The material action is going to Sen. Schumer’s office, which is represented through a nature metaphor “storming” indicating that something chaotic and distractive is coming. Since Schumer

126 was negotiating a deal with the president, a perceived sign of stability, this unrest moment jeopardized that sense of stability. Chaos is synonymous to panic and negative emotions such as fear and danger, which as reported before trigger negative attitudes towards immigrants (Esses, et al., 2013). Covering immigration with this tone could reinforce such feelings among DW readers. Moreover, it demonstrates uncertainty and division within the Democratic Party, which makes it look weaker. The relational action was between DHS and media, through introduction of the official statement. This was reported through a use of quote, which is typical of journalists to refer to when presenting and official statement. This also demonstrates the practice of “information subsidy” (Gandy, 1982). Overall, the media and the political elites are interdependent and the exchanges have to be transparent. If the media organization serves as a watchdog, it has to question the government’s position. Similarly, a socially responsible media would represent a position of those who are the most effected by the government policies, which are not the cases apparent in DW’s coverage. This article is mostly about the representation of officials than the undocumented immigrants or the policy. The author mainly grants agency to political officials through personalization, functionalization, material and verbal processes. The article grants the highest level of agency to the Republican officials and the state agency representatives, followed by the Democratic leaders. At the bottom of this discursive hierarchy is the pro- immigrant (Hispanic) Democratic representative who is discusses as incompetent. On the discursive dimension the article does not meet ethical journalistic standard. On the sociocultural dimension, it represents and escalates the social and political tensions. Article 3: Government Resumes Processing DACA Applications, even as Trump Tweets Program is 'Dead' Author: Zanotti, Published: Janurary 14, 201810

10 https://www.dailywire.com/news/25837/government-resumes-processing-daca-applications-emily- zanotti

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This article has two main social actors, who are introduced through two devices, personalization and collectivization (Machin & Mayr, 2012). Personalization is used to represent the president in the following way “Trump Tweeted a warning to Democrats looking to save DACA absent a compromise” (Zanotti, January 14, 2018). This is a way of reporting on the official position of the President on the process of negotiating re-start of DACA with Democrats, during the government shutdown. Showing the actor engaged in a material action, grants him agency (Machin & Mayr, 2012). The collectivization is observed in “Republicans and Democrats are struggling to come to an agreement that would let DACA live” (Zanotti, January 14, 2018). In addition to the use of collective nouns, the author presents people not as individuals but as generic partisan groups, which is genericisation (Machin & Mayr, 2012; Van Leeuwen, 2008). The author uses existential modality “struggling” to activate the social actors within the text and shows engagement of actors in the mental process. The article does not suggest that these groups have equal power. Zanotti writes, “Democrats could force a government shutdown” (January 14, 2018) placing the blame of the shutdown on Democrats. Once again, the author makes this claim without contextualization. The context would inform the reader that at the time Republicans held the majority in the House and the Senate, and it was the Republican President who rescinded DACA and asked for money for the border wall if Democrats wanted him to restart DACA. The only example when the president is presented in a passive role (Van Leeuwen, 2008) is in the following sentence “Negotiations about DACA were what, reportedly, spurred the president's "sh*t-hole" comments made last week” (Zanotti, January 14, 2018). In this behavioral action, the president is presented as a more passive actor who was forced to make a comment. This is an example of intertextuality, whereby the author makes a reference to the president’s earlier comment, when he called a number of African and Latin American countries “sh*hole” and stating that he would like to see more immigrants from places such as Norway (Watkins & Phillip, 2018). The article uses linguistic tactics to divert the responsibility of the arguably racist comments on “negotiations.” This is also a nominalization, meaning there is no actor no one to hold

128 accountable or responsible, the sense of agency and place are completely removed. Instead of condemning the harsh comments, the author uses linguistic abstraction to covertly justify the comments. The other important actor in the article is a judge who is linguistically activated (Van Leeuwen, 2008) by referencing his decision referred to as both a material and a verbal action (Machin & Mayr, 2012). The sentence “San Francisco judge ruled President Trump's decision to discontinue the program was "arbitrary" and "capricious"” uses functionalization, mentioning the judge in relation to his role and function in the society, rather than personalizing him, with the use of a personal pronoun. Similarly, the judge is somewhat objectified using specialization “San Francisco judge” instead of use of honorifics or a special noun. Furthermore, the judge’s decision is not fully presented; rather only two specific words are quoted “arbitrary” and “capricious,” to highlight the judge’s response to the president’s decision to end DACA. Highlighting the emotional appeal is a way of sensationalizing the issue by decontextualizing the quotes. This is a type of reporting that could gain attention on a digital news commentary website, which economically depends on the number of clicks. On a larger, social scale, Trump administration has been critical of the judges and his supporters have supported his disparaging narrative about the judiciary system. The editor-in-chief of Daily Wire, Shapiro, labeled the federal judge’s pro-immigrant decision ‘leftist,’ which is a part of the dismissive and discrediting narrative about the judicial system. The Department of Homeland Security as another active social actor in the story. The author makes them active by using a direct quote and indicating a relational and verbal activity (Machin & Mayr, 2012). The verbal activity is the announcement about starting the application processes for DACA program again, and the relational action was between the agency and media established through the official press release. This is a typical journalistic practice and a common use of government agency as the source of information. This article is mostly relies of collectivization to represent two Parties and uses personalization to grant agency to the President. The only instance he is passive as an

129 actor is to distance himself from a racist remark he made earlier. The government agencies are presented through functionalization, and the judge who ruled in the interest of immigrants is portrayed in a negative tone. On the discursive level the author uses intertextuality to connect to the other discourses on the issue. On the sociocultural dimension, the author shows support for the President justifying his remarks and policy. Article 4: McConnell May Offer Dems an Immigration Deal in Return for Ending Shutdown. Will Trump stand against it? Author: Shapiro, Published: January 22, 201811 This is one of the most metaphor-rich articles analyzed within this study. The author starts with a rhetoric question about the president’s presumably known “intestinal fortitude” (Shapiro, January 22, 2018). Using a metaphor, the author creates intertextuality, since he refers to the President’s previous comments about his “America first” policy harsh views on immigration. The metaphor used to refer to athletes and their toughness and perseverance in running marathons and holding through matches, translates here into holding the tough restrictive position and not giving up to Democrats’ demands during negotiations around DACA. Similar idea is embedded in the metaphor “If the pedal hits the metal, will Trump stand up for more border security” (Shapiro, January 22, 2018). President Trump is portrayed as someone who is looked at as a leader who has to meet expectations, even if that means a minority group might be negatively affected by such action. The other metaphor is in reference to “special advisor to Trump and immigration superhawk Stephen Miller” (Shapiro, January 22, 2018). Stephen Miller is personalized using a personal pronoun and his official position. He is not activated through his own action but through being a part of the circumstances (Van Leeuwen, 2008). A superhawk, is a strong and powerful bird who pries on vermin. The animal metaphor symbolizes Miller’s position as someone who has a view from the top (holds power) and can make a strategic decision regarding those at the bottom-immigrants. He is a public official who

11 https://www.dailywire.com/news/26166/mcconnell-may-offer-dems-immigration-deal-return-ben-shapiro 130 makes decisions that affect immigrants. Symbolically, what the article tells is that the superhawk (Miller) can eliminate the vermin (immigrants). Animal metaphors are dehumanizing to varying degrees. In nature, animals live in a certain hierarchic system based on their features and roles. For instance, a cat metaphor is not as demonizing as a snake metaphor. In this hierarchic power structure, a hawk is more dignified than vermin are. Hence, while Miller is referred to as a superhawk, indicating his extraordinary power, the immigrants are implied to be the vermin, at the lower end of the hierarchy. The immigrants than can be removed from the society by Miller, who will ‘keep the public safe’. This metaphoric representation is problematic in two ways; first, historically vermin metaphors have historically proven to dehumanize actors justifying the injustice and violence against the victim (Van Leeuwen, 2008). Second, in the current political system, Stephen Miller is known to be the mastermind behind the administration’s family separation policy enacted in 2018 (Boston Globe Editorial, 2018). Thus, cheering his decisions that target the vulnerable groups is showing complicity. Shapiro uses another bird metaphor to describe Republicans , , and Democrat Dick Durban. He calls them “immigration doves” (January 22, 2018). referring to their effort to reach a peaceful deal for the undocumented immigrants. The bipartisan effort offered a compromise between support for DREAMers and a $2 billion in border wall. While “dove” is a bird symbolizing peace and hope, it can also indicate a weakness, especially compared to a ‘superhawk.’ The author indirectly makes a statement about the power imbalance between different actors. One of the reasons it can be interpreted as an indicator of weakness is that the author portrays the possible outcome of the bill as a negative one. Mainly, he frames it as a “path to citizenship for so-called DREAMers” (Shapiro, January 22, 2018), which is a frame that has negative connotations used among conservatives to criticize the support of the Left for immigrants. It also makes a reference to another common conservative frame, which perpetuates the idea that it is a way for their parents to stay in the country and benefit

131 from the system. In this case, the metaphor is used to belittle the public officials who work in the benefit of immigrants even though they are Republicans. The article also relies on functionalization of actors (Machin & Mayr, 2012). The author writes “Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has now offered Democrats a deal: in exchange for allowing the government to be funded through February 8” (Shapiro, January 22, 2018). The personalized reference indicates to the high status and position of the social actor, which mostly aims to highlight the power and legitimacy that comes with those. This part also indicates a material and relational action between different social actors of the story. While Mitch McConnell is shown as the deal- maker, the article fails to indicate, due to already mentioned lack of journalistic rigor, that there would be no need for any deals and negotiations if the same Republican leadership did not allow revocation of DACA in the first place. By activating McConnell, the author makes the Democrats passive actors. Shapiro also uses metonymies in several instances such as “the White House opposes that deal” legitimacy and status of the government actors. The White House, particularly, is the symbolic representation of the executive power. The metonymy symbolizes the President and his executive power to implement or stop policies. This statement reflects the restrictive stance of the current administration on immigration. Interestingly, the use of metonymy removes the main agent (Machin & Mayr, 2012) in charge of the decision to oppose the deal. On the dimension of the text, the author mostly uses such rhetoric tropes as metaphors and metonymies to represent different actors. The Republican actors are represented through personalization and functionalization highlighting their importance and status. Meanwhile, the author uses animal metaphors that are problematic and have historically been used to dehumanize minority groups. In this sense, the article has a propagandistic function on the discursive practices dimension. On the sociocultural dimension, the article supports the restrictive immigration policies.

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Article 5: Full of it: Here's Why Democrats and Republicans Probably won't Reach a Deal on Illegal Immigration Author: Shapiro, Published: January 23, 201812 As Machin and Mayr (2012) suggest, representation of social actors within a media text is not a neutral choice. In this article, Ben Shapiro represents Chuck Schumer through a personalization, “Schumer says that he caved on the government shutdown” (January 23, 2018). Here, the author uses the metaphor “cave on” to depict Schumer’s (Democrats) weakness. Schumer is also shown to engage in mental, material, and verbal processes (Machin & Mayr, 2012). On the other hand, the Republican actor is represented with full official title “Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell” underscoring his importance and power position. Both actors are granted active roles, which in the case of the Democrat leader does not translate into a strong one. At the same time, McConnell, appears more powerful. However, there is a dynamic to this representation observed in the following sentence, “Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) announced that he had withdrawn his offer of $1.6 billion in funding for President Trump’s desired border wall in exchange for legalization of the so-called DREAMers” (Shapiro, January 23, 2018). Here, Schumer is represented using honorifics and an official title (Machin & Mayr, 2012) indicating his position and power. Schumer is one of the few visible Democrats in the articles of DW during the coverage of DACA. His representation is controversial. On the one hand, he is a Democrat mostly supportive of DACA, so his representation should not appear too strong not to jeopardize the restrictive views. On the other hand, he is an establishment Democrat who has been in the system for decades and who is ready to compromise more than the more progressive Democrats who are taking new seats in the Congress. Thus, he has to be presented as legitimate to preserve the status quo, especially if that position is benefiting the Republican policy. Shapiro also uses collectivization and association to represent the actors (Machin & Mayr, 2012; Van Leeuwen, 2008). As in previous articles, collectivization is typical of

12 https://www.dailywire.com/news/26243/full-it-heres-why-democrats-and-republicans-ben-shapiro

133 utterances referring to the political parties. For example, “Democrats have no interest in a deal, because they want to use the DREAMers as a political football” or “Republicans have no interest in a deal because they don’t want to cave on illegal immigration” (Shapiro, January 23, 2018). Such portrayal aggregates actors in value-laden groups at the opposing ends of the political spectrum. In addition, the nominalization that follows, removes the actors’ agency, accordingly the responsibility of any particular actor of the decisions that potentially hurt the target group. It enforces tribalism, which is a dangerous pattern, especially, since the polarization of the American society is so high (Pew Research Center, 2017). Some actors are presented through abstraction and functionalization. For example, “the White House has now forcefully rejected the so-called Graham-Durbin bill” (Shapiro, January 23, 2018). “The White House” is a metonymy referring to the executive government and the administrative staff making decisions about the implementation of the immigration policy. Since the public would most probably approve the bipartisan deal and the rejection of such a bill continues the government shutdown, and would be perceived as a politically poor move, Shapiro uses metonymy not to make a direct reference to the president and his decision to reject the bill. In a more positive tone, however, Shapiro states “Trump administration continues to state that they hope a deal will be forthcoming” (January 23, 2018). He uses a mental activity “hope” to highlight the positive attitude of the administration, meanwhile shadowing the same administration’s decision reject the bipartisan deal at hand. This shows the implicit bias in the reporting. Shapiro uses the metaphor “political football” to refer to unauthorized immigrants. Since DACA is the subject of negotiations between the two parties, the recipients of the policy are waiting in uncertainty as their benefit or loss moves from one side to the other. Such a linguistic objectification is dehumanizing. Human lives should not be minimized to a game or entertainment. Additionally, there is a double negative in this representation, since he uses objectification and the identifier “illegal immigrants,” which has been argued to also have a dehumanizing effect.

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The author ends the article with a hedging, “It now appears that Republicans and Democrats are at an impasse over illegal immigration” (Shapiro, January 23, 2018). He uses the “illegal immigrant” frame to portray the negative effect of the immigration on the position of the two parties. Instead of providing the possibility to start a conversation and a healthy public debate on existing and potential options to improve the immigration policy as a bipartisan solution, the article emphasis the division and reproduces power imbalance between the two political forces. This article stands out for its controversial representation of the Democratic representative who is on the one hand represented as an active participant engaged in relational and material processes, on the other hand, he is not as positively presented as the Republican leaders. Other attributes of the text dimension in the article are collectivization and abstraction when describing Dreamers. Also, rhetorical tropes, metaphors and hedging are used to dehumanize these social actors. On the discursive dimension, the article is written as an opinion piece and does not substantiate any claims. The author’s choices reinforce tribalism and polarization of the sociocultural context. Article 6: Is Trump Caving on Illegal Immigration? Not Really Author: Shapiro, Published: January 25, 201813 The author, Ben Shapiro, is known for his rhetoric. The article starts with a hypophora, where Shapiro asks a rhetorical question and immediately answers it. The pathos typical to his rhetoric, it makes him appear confident. This is a technic that he uses in his podcasts as well. This semantic choice is a way to draw the reader’s attention by creating an illusion of a dialogue, even though it is a one-way communication. On a discursive level, this device is often used in political speeches of people with authority. Even though the author is not a politician, he comments and analysis politics for the public, thus acts as a public sense-maker and an opinion leader. Similarly, he uses verbal verbiages as “The rumor of the day is…” or “It seems as though Trump is proposing the following deal” (Shapiro, January 25, 2018) all have verbal verbiages (Machin & Mayr

13 https://www.dailywire.com/news/26326/trump-caving-illegal-immigration-not-really-ben-shapiro

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2012), which indicate the author is making assumptions and rhetorically creates a distance between his own claim and the level of responsibility the claim burdens him with. The article is structured in two sections, one where the author gives a background related to the question he asks, and the second part of the article is addressing his response to the question. The first part is all about D. Trump, where the author uses personal pronouns and special nouns to personalize the protagonist (Machin & Mayr, 2012). In “Trump was never going to deport DREAMers or their parents” (January 25, 2018) the author uses presupposition. This is also an example of indirect intertextuality, since in podcast episodes; Shapiro has expressed a critical opinion regarding Trump’s policies. He argued that the immigration policies are not harsh enough and the administration has to deport some undocumented immigrants. Within the same article, he complains the “mass deportation” talks were only for the election campaigns and did not actualize as a policy. There is one case of genercisation and aggregation, in “members of Trump's own administration are already walking back this proposal” (Shapiro, January 25, 2018). It is unclear who these members are (Machin & Mayr, 2012), what is their status and legal capacity in policy making and implementation. On a sociocultural dimension, this grammatical choice reflects the asymmetry and at times contradictions between the president’s speeches and the correspondence of the rest of the White House overall. By removing the agency of the members of the administration, Trump gains a central position in the text. He is further activated as a participant in verbal and material processes. The author uses relational activity, by referencing another media organization, and its relation to the President. “Breitbart actually branded Trump “Amnesty Don” in response to Trump’s comments to reporters on Thursday about illegal immigration” (Shapiro, January 25, 2018). Breitbart, formerly run by the Presidents’ adviser Steve Bennon, is a conservative far right media outlet. It is a tabloid website with information on the on-going events and political developments. The sensational stories of Breitbart

136 can easily gain traction among a certain demographic of audience. The “amnesty don” metaphor is a reference to two things. One, amnesty is the conservative framework for the irregular immigration (Benson, 2014; Haynes, et al. 2016). Second “don” is the reference to the leader of the mafia. In this sense, they call the president the top man granting amnesty to undocumented immigrants. This is almost an oxymoron since a mafia leader is a criminal and cannot solve legal issues following the rule of law, which is what amnesty implies. This metaphor was further circulated in other media, including by MSNBC’s Morning Joe (Hains, 2016), where the anchor used it in a sarcastic way to indicate the lack of coherence in policy implementation in the White House. Modalities help to construct various representations of social agents including the author. In the sentence “Trump pledged to fight for border wall funding for “800 miles of wall,” which presumably would cost some $25 billion” (Shapiro, January 25, 2018), the author uses an epistemic modality to demonstrate his knowledge about the political events, specifically the president’s position on the issue of negotiating DACA. He further reflects his authority through deonic modality stating “they (illegal parents) should not be given the ability to vote on a blanket basis” and “Trump has to take the position that DACA will be struck down with full force” (Shapiro, January 25, 2018). Deonic modality implies use of strong imperative and assertive language. In this instance, modality grants agency to Shapiro. The tone within the Daily Wire articles ranges from positive and negative when portraying the social actors engaged in the discursive event (Fairclough, 1995). In addition to the actors, there is a presence of a mild or an assertive tone reflecting the author’s attitude. Thus, the assertiveness in Shapiro’s article matches the discursive practices of the media outlet overall. On the sociocultural dimension, Ben Shapiro has become a popular and a controversial political commentator. He is unapologetic when it comes to his conservative views and comments that are driven by his religious views and moral stances. Shapiro often appears in different, mostly conservative, media outlets to give interviews and to comment on the developments in the political sphere. His podcast has over 1.5 million subscribers and two million followers on Twitter. This makes him an

137 influential public opinion leader who stirs media attention generating more viewership and visits based on the sensational comments and stories. Driving more viewers extends his platform for sharing his personal ideas and perspective of the world, which he can do since he is the editor in chief of Daily Wire. In short, the article is constructed using rhetorical tropes such as hypophora, metaphors and different modalities. The author also uses collectivization, genercisation and aggregation to represent actors in abstract ways. He personalizes the President. On the discursive practice dimension these choices indicate an opinion-based writing. Some cases of intertextuality are used to confirm the frame already used in the article. The tone of the article is assertive and grants agency to the author, which connects to his role as a commentator on the social context. Article 7: DREAMers Threaten to Leave The Country if Congress Doesn't Reach a DACA Deal Author: Zanotti, Published: February 8, 201814 This is one of the rare articles which the author personalizes undocumented immigrant Velez sisters. As seen from the following sentence “Speaking to CNN, one of these DREAMers, Alex Velez, said, "I will leave,” the author adds further “they'll leave the country if a deal isn't reached . . . err . . . to keep them in the country” (Zanotti, February 8, 2018), personalization is achieved through such grammatical choices as using special nouns referring to the actors and direct quotes (Machin & Meyr, 2012). This piece has a sarcastic tone, which is materialized in the uttering “...err...” atypical for a traditional journalistic report. It demonstrates the negative attitude and irony of the author towards the undocumented immigrants discussed in the article. The author continues, “Velez and her sister claim they own businesses, pay tuition, and hold jobs, and that America has a duty to keep them here in order to maintain their contributions” (Zanotti, February 8, 2018). The author grants agency to the social actors participating in the

14 https://www.dailywire.com/news/26907/dreamers-threaten-leave-country-if-congress-doesnt-emily- zanotti

138 discursive event (Van Leeuwen, 2008); however, since these are immigrants, their portrayal is controversial. When talking about the professional aspects of the sisters’ life, the author relies on the fitness of the characters into the American success frame. She grants the sisters agency highlight their fitness to the American culture, which values hard work and professional success. At the same time, the undocumented immigrants are strategically granted agency so that these actors become the direct target of the author’s rhetorical attack that follows. She writes, “The problem is, for the Velez sisters, striking against the United States for refusing to accommodate them isn't a plan with a likely payoff” (Zanotti, February 8, 2018). Hedging and the verbal verbiage (Machin & Mayr, 2012), soften the author’s rhetoric, however the statement holds that an individual, especially immigrant is too weak to stand against a powerful country. This statement represents Velez sisters as less rational assuming they do not understand their limitations. This has a racist connotation, in the sense that media, specifically conservative media, have portrayed irregular immigrants stereotypically less cognitively sophisticated than the White Americans or even other immigrant groups. Zanotti uses hedging, to make another problematic statement, “The theory appears to be that, if DREAMers suddenly disappear, Americans will notice their absence” (Zanotti, February 8, 2018). While the social actors are grammatically and semantically present, rhetorically, the author signifies their invisibility within the society. On the socio-cultural dimension, the undocumented immigrants try to be less visible in the society, due to their high vulnerability for being a subject of deportation. That is one of the reasons why this social group commits less crimes and is less vocal about the social and cultural hardships they face. Hence, they may seem less significant to an elite journalist. This is an indirect dehumanization. She also presupposes that undocumented immigrants are invisible for all Americans. In the same article, the author impersonalizes and deagentizes the sisters as actors by referring to them as “The pair are undocumented immigrants brought over by their parents from Venezuela, and the situation in their home country is less than ideal”

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(Zanotti, February 8, 2018). Here, the author relies on quantification, which is typically a semantic dehumanization technique. This is problematic given the historical context of quantification as the main frame of coverage of the immigration policy. Statistics leaves out the human element of the issue and backgrounds lived experiences of immigrants. Another impersonalizing linguistic technique is specialization (Van Leeuwen, 2008), which means representing the sisters by their country of origin. Venezuela is represented through a hyperbole, “crumbling under a dictator” (Zanotti, February 8, 2018). This intertextual device is brought in to reference many other media reports that the political situation in Venezuela is dire. The author uses this information to contrast the power of the United States versus the “failed state” where the two sisters come from. The article also introduces more genercised actors. In “Congress says it is working on a solution and President Trump has been clear that DACA recipients who overstay will not be targeted for deportation” (Zanotti, February 8, 2018), the author uses functionalization and metonymy to refer to the judicial branch of the government and its role in the society. This device creates a level of abstraction, removing the responsibility from any particular person or politician and placing the burden of problem solving on an institution. The article is a controversial representation of the undocumented immigrants, mostly with negative connotations. The author represents the two sisters using personalization and individualization, using their names to show the American aspect of their lives and she deagentizes them immediately in the next section. Mainly, she implies the undocumented immigrants are invisible, which is a dehumanizing move. The discursive dimension lacks ethical considerations of the common journalistic practices. On the sociocultural dimensions, the article reinforces the negative attitude towards the Latina and Latino population.

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Article 8: BREAKING: Supreme Court refuses to let Trump kill DACA. That's actually a political win for Trump. Here's why. Author: Shapiro, Published: February 26, 201815 This article reports on the Supreme Court’s decision on a lower court regarding DACA’s fate. The first part of the article discusses the previous decisions of the Supreme Court to explain the current decision. To do so, the article uses functionalization referring to the Supreme Court as the legislative branch of the government. At a first glance, this reference is a common practice within media reporting. Educated in law, Shapiro exercises epistemic modality to explain that the Supreme Court typically does not intrude the decisions of the lower courts. Doing so, he highlights the power dynamics within the judicial hierarchy, where the Supreme Court is the highest decision-making body. The Supreme Court’s opinion “becomes a binding precedent, constraining the decision making of future Supreme Courts, lower court judges and executive branch agencies charged with adjudicating disputes related to the case” (Corley, Collins, & Calvin, 2011, p. 31). What is more important within the context of this analysis, the Supreme Court opinions lead the way how government agencies implementing policies related to the Court rulings will act. In the case of DACA, the Court’s ruling would impact how the Department of Justice and ICE would handle the cases, process applications and deal with deportation cases. Shapiro presents the Supreme Court’s decision as neutral position since he does not give an evaluation to the announcement. However, it is what he does not say that makes the representation ideological. The author does not mention for example, that the White House requested the Supreme Court to make a decision on the termination of DACA (Kuck, 2018). The omission of this detail allows him to rhetorically construct a victorious image for the administration, “the Supreme Court’s rejection is actually a win for the Trump administration politically, too” (Shapiro, February 26, 2018). If the White House was presented as an actor involved in the discursive event through a verbal activity

15 https://www.dailywire.com/news/27568/breaking-supreme-court-refuses-reinstate-daca-ben-shapiro 141 then the rejection of the Court would make the actor look weak. This would not help the construction of the stronger image of the administration. He continues, “the Trump administration will be able to claim to its supporters that it did everything in its power to stop DACA, but was thwarted by leftist courts” (Shapiro, February 26, 2018). He makes a grammatical choice to speak in the name of a third person labeling the court “leftist”. Conservative politicians and media activists have used the ‘leftist’ label with a negative connotation to delegitimize democratic institutions such as media (Meagher, 2012; Minnite, 2012). The label implies that the courts are biased and not trustworthy. Since the Supreme Court did not completely terminate Trump’s decision, he portrays it as more legitimate. At the same time, he delegitimizes the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeal, which as he wrote, was directed by the Supreme Court to make a final decision on DACA. The common wisdom that the Ninth Circuit is a liberal court (Broscheid, 2011), Shapiro questions the credibility of its decision before it even makes a ruling, which he presupposes would be pro-immigration. Examining the ideological differences of the Circuit Courts of Appeal, Broscheid (2011) argues, “different circuits "house" different judges with different political predispositions; circuits set their own precedent, only rarely overturned by the Supreme Court” (p. 172). Broscheid (2011) argues that the common wisdom of ideological leaning of the circuits is overstated. Particularly interesting is the case of the Ninth Circuit, at interest here. The author states, “while that circuit has more liberal panels than other distribution of panel ideologies, it is neither lopsided nor polarized considering the large number of judges on the circuit” (Broscheid, 2011, p. 189). This distinction is essential for the current analysis, since it indicates that even if perceived as more liberal, it is not possible to accurately predict or assume how that Circuit will rule. Thus, Shapiro’s presupposition is not based on evidence and is not supported by the data, which makes his opinion more ideologically driven rather than epistemic. Nevertheless, he masterfully uses discursive techniques to establish legitimacy for what he is saying as a lawyer and an opinion leader, and implicitly promotes his

142 conservative perspective, which in this case is misleading and advocates for a position that could lead to hurting undocumented immigrants facing deportation. In terms of the representation of the agency that carry out President’s decision, Shapiro backgrounds ICE and DOJ. He still grants the DOJ agency, representing its verbal act “The Justice Department has said it would take at least another year to get back to the Supreme Court for a decision on DACA's future” (Shapiro, February 26, 2018). The JOD reference is also an example of functionalization, however, in this case it has a legitimizing function in the sentence. It is noteworthy, that the unauthorized immigrants who are the most affected by all these processes are completely removed from the text as social actors. They are only indirectly mentioned using nominalization and abstraction (Machin & Mayr, 2012; Van Leeuwen, 2008), when Shapiro writes, “Renewals of approximately 700,000 deportation waivers for illegal immigrants brought to the United States as children would have ended on March 5” (February 26, 2018). The terms “renewals” and “deportations” are nominalizations removing any agent performing the activities mentioned, which also lifts the responsibility for the consequences of these acts and removes the agency of those affected. Similarly, the representation of immigrants using quantification (Van Leeuwen, 2008) fits into the trend of media’s use of dehumanizing framing by representing undocumented immigrants as statistical data points with no faces, no lives and no stories. A higher level of abstraction potentially distances the reader. Shapiro uses impersonalization (Machin & Mayr, 2012) to discuss immigration activists writing, “Immigration activists are cheering the decision as a temporary stay of execution” (Shapiro, February 26, 2018). There is no specification of who these activists are, no direct quotes from any of them (no actual verbal or mental activity), no contextualization of what specific immigration policy aspects the activists are fighting for. Again, abstraction is consistent with the reporting style of the Daily Wire. Through semantic devices such as hypophora and an epistemic modality, for instance, “So, what’s changed? Not much,” the author asserts power and authority, as a knowledge holder. Moreover, he establishes intertextuality through a relational activity

143 and reference to the media, writing, “The media will be able to claim that Trump lost in court” (Shapiro, February 26, 2018). To show the intertextuality, here is CNN’s headline on the same news “Supreme Court won’t hear Trump bid to end DACA program” (de Vogue & Kopan, 2018). On the sociocultural dimension, Shapiro has been outspoken about his support for D. Trump, while the latter has dismissed and labeled CNN and other credible media organizations as “fake news,” due to their criticism of his policies. To sum, Ben Shapiro uses a functionalization to refer to the court and personalization to represent D. Trump. He uses nominalizations to remove important social agents from the text, such as undocumented immigrants and backgrounds the immigration law enforcement agencies. He uses hypophora and other rhetorical tropes to exercise agency. On the discursive dimension, Shapiro uses intertextuality to make the text relevant in the larger sociocultural context. He confirms the previous arguments about the trustworthiness of the lower courts. On this dimension, he also shows the dynamic of the government’s structure and the power relations between the actors. Article 9: No deal Trump signals an end to DACA compromise, pushes GOP to pass strict immigration restrictions Author: Zanotti, Published: April 1, 201816 This article reports on Trump’s view of the outcome of DACA negotiations. The author of the article is Emily Zannotti, who is the second author at The Daily Wire writing about DACA. She makes different semantic choices and uses discursive strategies to cover the issue. Compared to Ben Shapiro, she uses less personalization and epistemic modality. One of the most striking moves in this article is the use of intertextuality. Fairclough (1955) defines intertextuality as the reference to other texts on the same issue. The author reinstates the Presidents position, “accusing Congressional Democrats of standing in the way of any potential deal to protect past and future DACA recipients” (Zannotti, April 1, 2018). She uses backgrounding (Van Leeuwen, 2008), and relational

16 https://www.dailywire.com/news/28934/no-deal-trump-signals-and-end-compromise-pushes-emily- zanotti 144 activity (Machin & Mayr, 2012) to establishes intertextuality quoting article. This is an interesting example of a discursive practice tied to the socio cultural dimension. On the latter, the Washington Post has been critical of the president and he has labeled it and CNN “fake news and crooked media” (The New York Times, 2017). WP is also perceived as a liberal or left-wing media outlet which is on the opposite spectrum from the Daily Wire (All sides, n.d.). In such case, quoting the opposition is an interesting choice. It could be argued that it is an accepted journalistic practice to rely on a major news outlet, which is the original source of the news, and WP was, since its reporters interviewed the president. However, what rises skepticism for this explanation of the author’s choice is her interpretation of it, whereby she agrees on blaming Democrats for the shutdown and no deal. Thus, it is not a simple journalistic practice, rather mentioning a credible legacy media outlet, is a discursive strategy to legitimize the statement of the D. Trump legitimizing it through association with WP. Such coverage is ethically problematic (Kovack & Rosenstein, 2014), since the author removes the context and tells half of the story. Zannotti describes the negotiations between different parties, using collectivization (Machin & Mayr, 2012), writing “DACA was due to expire on March 5, and in February, Republicans and Democrats agreed to discuss extending the measure permanently through legislation as part of more comprehensive talks on the omnibus spending bill” (April 1, 2018). What collectivization achieves in this section of the text is abstraction, which removes responsibility of any particular individual for failure to come to an agreement. Moreover, this is a way to frame the process positively, with the implication that agreeing on an “omnibus spending bill” would be a positive outcome. The author leaves out the context and explanation of what such bill means in relation to DACA. On a discursive dimension, the spending bill is a reference to other media texts, which if properly referenced, would explain that the Democrats would have to grant the president money for building a border wall, further restricting immigration. In short, the

145 bill would not be a favorable solution for the immigrants, nor it would grant DACA recipients a permanent protection. Another example of collectivization when describing the two parties and their agreement “to fund the government without taking on DACA, and now, DACA recipients are protected only by an injunction that prevents the Trump Administration from ending the program while a lawsuit challenging Trump's authority to end DACA moves through the court system” (Zannotti, April 1, 2018). This sentence demonstrates a positive and a negative aspect at the same time. The negative connotation is in how it portrays DACA as the problematic issue that divides and causes fractions. This implicit frame is a conservative way to portray immigration as a problem for the political system and the American society at large (Benson, 2014; Haynes, et al. 2016). The positive aspect is mentioning the possibility of the bipartisan deal. The author ends the article with a critique, “Congressional Republicans have, however, been slow to consider major anti-immigration legislation” (Zannotti, April 1, 2018) casting doubt at D. Trump’s suggestion to pass a restrictive bill would be implemented. The author uses a mental process to grant the president agency, simultaneously perpetuating the hegemonic view on restrictive policy, especially as it comes from the highest political office. She also activates the president as a verbal and mental actor. She quotes tweet demeaning Obama’s program, calling it a “nonsensical border patrol "catch-and-release" program” (April 1, 2018). Over a week after the publication of the article, D. Trump issued an order to dismantle this program that allowed undocumented immigrants identified by the border patrol to stay within the community and have a regular life until their immigration hearing with the court (Lind, 2018). The author does not mention that Republican lawmakers endorsed this program, when Obama implemented it. This supports the previous argument that it was not as much about bipartisanship as much as showing immigrants as the problem. Moreover, she uses the negative descriptive adjective “nonsensical” to show her personal position towards irregular immigration.

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This article is an example how the author shows the actors engaging in relational processes and establishes intertextuality. She uses collectivization to describe the two Parties. On the discursive dimension the article lacks context and substantiation of arguments. The undocumented immigrants are replaced with the noun or nominalization DACA. The choices in the two dimensions highlight the support of the author for more restrictive immigration policy. Article 10: Federal judge rules that Trump must reinstate DACA program Author: Shapiro, Published: April 25, 201817 Ben Shapiro’s article reports the federal judge’s decision to reinstate DACA (April 25, 2018). He uses the honorifics “U.S. District Judge John Bates ruled that President Trump could not legally end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program” to introduce the judge as one of the social actors within the text (Machin & Mayr, 2012; Van Leeuwen, 2008). He personalized the judge, by using a special noun, and mentioning his title, semantic tools that are used to grant agency and highlight the status of the social actor. At the same time, reference of a “federal judge” is a functionalization, since it indicates the role and function of the social actor within the judicial system. He also attributes material, behavioral and verbal activities and processes to the judge (Machin & Mayr, 2012; Van Leeuwen, 2008). In the introductory or descriptive section such discursive strategies are positive representations of the judge. However, this image is delegitimized in the subsequent sections of the article. Before moving to the second, evaluative section, Shapiro uses relational processes (Machin & Mayr, 2012) such as quoting the decision of the judge, as well as the response of the DOJ, to demonstrate tensions between the judicial and the executive branches of the government in regard to DACA. He uses the hyperbole “bewilderment of the Department of Justice” (Shapiro, April 25, 2018) to emotionally appeal to the reader while describing DOJ’s position. While media outlets rely on information subsidy (Gandy, 1982) and often use press releases of the official sources, it is not a common

17 https://www.dailywire.com/news/29862/federal-judge-rules-trump-must-reinstate-daca-ben-shapiro

147 practice to write about the institutions in terms of their engagement in mental processes, or having emotions. Highlighting the emotional aspect, Shapiro writes, “Today’s order doesn’t change the Department of Justice’s position on the facts” (April 25, 2018). He conforms to the fact that DOJ undermines the judicial decision, meanwhile elsewhere calling for the immigrants to respect the rule of law. Conforming to DOJ, due to personal agreement with restrictive policy, Shapiro covertly justifies disregards democratic principles. As in many of his articles, Shapiro relies on epistemic modality to underscore his own agency, ending the article with “Whether you oppose or support DACA is irrelevant here. What is far more relevant is whether the courts are performing their actual function — legitimate interpretation of the law — or whether they’re simply rubber-stamping policy with which they agree” (April 25, 2018). In addition, he once again delegitimizes the court’s decision, as in the case of his article published on February 26, 2018 regarding the earlier Supreme Court ruling. Using abstraction and the metaphor “rubber-stamping policy with which they agree,” Shapiro implies that the judges are biased, particularly that they are pro-immigration, so they rule not according to the law but based on preference. Such inaccurate representation is problematic not only from the perspective of the journalistic ethics on a discursive level, but also it delegitimizes one of the pillars of a healthy democratic system, the idea of independent and just judiciary system. The latter can have serious implication on the sociocultural level, especially in society where the level of trust towards democratic institutions is already decreasing. As an opinion leader talking to a niche conservative audience, such representation perpetuates distrust towards the system that in their perception benefits undocumented immigrants, meanwhile hurting Americans, which is source of anger towards immigrants. In short, Shapiro uses functionalization to discuss the court and the judicial decision. He also shows relational processes between different actors. On a discursive level, the author uses epistemic modality typical to his writing style, which makes the article more assertive in tone. On the discursive dimension, the article does not meet high

148 ethical standards of journalistic writing. On the sociocultural dimension, it delegitimizes one of the most important democratic institutions, which has the potential to weaken the legitimacy of these institutions among the readers. Crooked Media articles: Summary of results. The authors at Crooked Media use various semantic devices to achieve various linguistic and meaning making goals through their texts. Similar to Daily Wire, some devices are more common than others and some social actors are represented in more active roles than other actors. The patterns of representation demonstrate both similarities and differences how the author construct social reality. The common devices are personalization, collectivization, impersonalization, use of metaphors and modalities. The processes are mostly represented using relational, mental and verbal activities. In exceptional cases there are also existential processes. The actors that are commonly engaged in these processes, activated or omitted from the text include political officials, undocumented immigrants, institutions and the media. The following section provides a brief summary of the most common patterns of representation. Representation of social actors (undocumented immigrants). Undocumented immigrants are somehow mentioned in all ten articles. There is only one out of ten that is a human-interest story. This article is also the only one where undocumented immigrants are represented through personalization and individualization. Special nouns and the story of a couple going through separation because of termination of DACA is a humanizing way of representing the immigrants. The couple that is discussed in the article is not active however. The author uses relational and mental processes that these actors are only indirectly involved in. They are never granted agency to speak directly to the reader or tell their story in their own words. As pro-immigrant advocate, the author takes it upon herself to speak for them. In the rest of the articles, undocumented immigrants are represented though collectivization, genercisation and impersonalizations. The processes that they are involved in are rare, which means that the pattern is to portray them as passive observers. The difference from Daily Wire, which also mostly depicted the undocumented

149 immigrants as passive actors with no agency, is that Crooked’s authors advocate for the protection of the group and use humanizing elements (referring to them as undocumented Americans). Abstracting or removing their agency is as problematic as it is to misrepresent them through a negative stereotypical frame. Oppression takes different forms and invisibility and silencing is one of those. Representation of social actors (politicians). Unlike the undocumented immigrants, who are at the bottom of the power hierarchy, political officials are represented as active participants of the discursive events. They are mostly represented through personalization and individualization, which are not always positive. The analysis demonstrates that the Republican leaders are shown as active participants of verbal, mental and relational processes, which often have negative consequences for Dreamers. One of the main actors who is always represented through personalization is D. Trump. His engagement in verbal and mental processes is always direct. It appears that the authors use this device to directly address him. Semantically granting him agency allows to directly blaming him for the situation. Sometimes he is referred to as “president Trump,” which indicates the power he has for both instigating the problem and solving it. Other Republican leaders mentioned by name are House Speaker P. Ryan, (former) Attorney General , and (former) Secretary of Homeland Security, Kirstjen Nielsen. They are shown as active participants of the texts highlighting verbal, relational and mental processes. They are also represented through intertextuality, as in the case of Jeff Sessions. While personalization grants them agency, and shows their power position, the connotations of representation are negative as the authors directly accuse them of the shutdown and unwillingness to help Dreamers. The critical tone of the article with a combination of personal references is typical of an opinion piece. The individual Republican leaders are represented through their participation and relation to one another. This is reflective of the majoritarian consensus of Republicans on restricting irregular immigration, with exception of few representatives who cannot achieve much on legislative level anyway. The only Democrat leader mentioned through personalization is

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Minority Leader Chuck Schumer. He is one of the participants is active verbal exchanges with Republicans and is described less negatively emphasizing his function and role in the system. Republicans and Democrats who are not at the top leadership of the Parties are represented using collectivization and genercisiation. This is a pattern observed in The Daily Wire coverage as well. Both actors are shown as collectives and groups in opposition to each other but also engaged in negotiations. This means that their representation cannot be reduced to negative or positive, rather in relation to one another and to undocumented immigrants. Both are engaged in verbal and material processes, which is natural since they are negotiating a deal. While Crooked Media is a progressive media outlet, it is highly critical of the Democratic Party for their inability to protect Dreamers. The authors directly address Democrats to act on their promises to the Latino community. In cases when the authors attempt to show the responsibility of the shutdown, they remove Democrats, using nominalization, and highlight the role of Republicans as the more active participants. Sometimes the actors grant agency to both attributing emotions and mental processes such as worrying and feeling pressure. One of the peripheral actors that is worth noting and was represented twice, using personalization and individualization was Marielena Hincapie, who runs the organization the author quoting her is working with. She activated Hincapie, highlighting her functionality as the CEO and her relationship with the organization as a board member. The author established a higher degree of transparency in her writing. Another secondary group of actors represented through abstraction and genercisation are Trump supporters. There is no specification of the demographic or any other characteristics of the group. They are engaged in a secondary verbal activity of spreading messages about voting fraud, which is an interdiscursive reference. The inclusion of such a peripheral actor to the discussion is similar to Daily Wire’s representation of pro-immigrant activists, also using abstraction. Representation of social actors (courts, government agencies, media). In addition to individuals who are active or passive within the texts the authors depending

151 on their power positions, describe various institutions and agencies. As in Daily Wire, most institutions are represented through functionalization. One the major institutions is the Supreme Court. It is represented emphasizing its role in the judiciary system and function to establish order within the society. One article also discusses its relation to the lower Ninth Circuit Court of Appeal. The dynamics of their relation indicates the hierarchy within the judicial system. While the Supreme Court is depicted as more neutral, the Ninth Circuit is represented as more liberal, which is a presupposition. The other actor is the Congress, represented through the description of its function and inability to provide a permanent solution for Dreamers. The articles are more critical of the Congress, and this could arguably be due to the Republican leadership in charge at the time of the writing. Even though the authors also criticized Democrats in many instances. The main process that Congresses is engaged in is the relational one. Another category of actors includes media and individual reporters. In instances when reporters from other media organizations are referenced, they are personalized and are granted agency as verbal actors. The two main outlets that appeared in the articles are HuffPost and Buzzfeed. The personalization and referencing adds credibility to the reporting and establishes intertextuality, which shows the salience of the issue. Use of metaphors and modalities. The articles of Crooked Media are rich in metaphors. The metaphors are random and it is hard to establish a thematic pattern, however, the analysis reveals that one of the two main authors of the articles uses nature related and war metaphors. Some of the example of nature metaphors include, flood, storm, and creating a fog. These are typically used to describe activities of Republican leaders. The war metaphors include Catch 22, killing DACA with ammunition, and capitulation. As a powerful rhetoric device, war metaphors emphasize the hostility of the relationship between the actors and make the situation more sensational. This is a dangerous path, since there is a risk that it jeopardizes the imagination for bipartisan solutions to political problems such as DACA.

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As in Daily Wire, the main metonymies used are the White House and Pennsylvania Avenue to refer to the executive branch of the government and the president’s role. In addition to metaphors, the authors constructed their stories using nominalizations, specification, presuppositions and modalities. Most common modalities were epistemic and deonic, rarely dynamic. Epistemic and deonic modalities mainly granted agency to the authors and not social actors of the text. They exercised their agency using deonic modality to advocate for the benefit of undocumented immigrants mostly addressing Democrats and the audience. Discursive practices and the social context. Discursive practices, which is the practices used by Crooked Authors that are common within the journalistic field, is the dimension that the differences with The Daily Wire become stark. The authors write in advocacy style, highly critical of Republicans but also Democrats. The articles on Crooked have more instances of intertextuality, which is a way to show the salience of the topic but also it helps to contextualize the text. All Crooked articles were heavily contextualized, longer and had a more transparent style. What is more, the authors sued rhetoric devices to hold the powerful accountable and countering the lies, practicing a watchdog and alternative journalism. While all the articles were written as opinion and advocacy pieces, two of those directly called for participation and engagement to help protect Dreamers. The articles are embedded in the larger social context and reflect the developments in the political field. Due to contextualization, the connection to the sociocultural reality was even stronger in Crooked’s articles. It is a progressive media outlet, which confronts the discriminative narrative against immigrants and fosters inclusion. Nevertheless, it still oppresses the voice of the marginalized, to a lesser degree than Daily Wire. As a Left-leaning alternative outlet Crooked has the potential to be more inclusive and participatory.

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Article 1: Congress’ DACA Amnesia is Helping Trump Ruin Lives Author: Arce, Published: April 20, 201818 This article tells the story of an undocumented couple that faced deportation in the light of the revocation of DACA, which protected the legal status for one of them. The author relies on personalization and individualization techniques (Machin & Mayr, 2012) to grant agency to the protagonists of the story. She writes, “Marco Villada married the love of his life…. They had many reasons to celebrate, including the fact that Villada was finally eligible to apply to adjust his immigration status through marriage” (Arce, April 20, 2018). Personalization manifests in the use of a special noun and its function is to bring the story closer to the reader, make it more relatable. The author relies on this device a few times throughout the article interchangeably talking about Villada and his partner. For example, she writes, “Villada is currently stuck in Mexico, the country of his birth, which he left when he was six years old. For years the couple has tried to adjust Villada’s immigration status” (Arce, April 20, 2018). Semantically, personalization of immigrants is humanizing. However, the immigrant couple is the most passive social actor within the text (Van Leeuwen, 2008). First, they are not active, because they are not engaged in verbal processes (telling their story), and second, they are depicted at the receiving end of the decisions. Arce activates the protagonist couple of the story without attributing direct action to them, “as Villada and Serrato’s plight demonstrates, doing things “the right way,” means very little under Trump’s regime” (Arce, April 20, 2018). She does not use the active sentence structure [Villada and Serrato did all things right], which means she both individualizes and removes the agency of the immigrants. Moreover, she uses nominalization, “doing things the right way” to represent the couple’s actions, instead of using personal pronoun to make a direct reference. This could be explained by the previously discussed argument that even though the article reads as pro-immigrant, it does not foreground or grant them agency (Machin & Mayr, 2012; Van Leeuwen, 2008).

18 https://crooked.com/article/congress-daca-amnesia-ruining-lives/

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This implicit bias of silencing the immigrants while talking on their behalf is a problematic form of reporting, because it reproduces semantic oppression and colonization of the discourse regarding this marginalized group. The only example where the couple engages in a mental process is in the following sentence, “For years the couple has tried to adjust Villada’s immigration status. They thought they were close after the U.S. government issued Villada a waiver that should have allowed him to return to the U.S” (Arce, April 20, 2018). Following a common journalistic principle, the author contextualized the processes (Kovack & Rosenstein, 2014), demonstrating the dire situation. On a social level, the couple is represented as law-abiding, which is a way to appeal to American readers (Benson, 2014). The author also uses personalization and individualization to introduce the political officials who are the decision-makers on DACA. Arce writes “president Trump and attorney general Jeff Sessions are hard at work making the few 'right ways' available to immigrants disappear” (Arce, April 20, 2018). She further discusses the attorney general’s intention to renounce the process allowing asylum applications to women who experienced or faced domestic violence. While the social actors are mostly represented through personalization, as official actors they are represented in regards to their role in the society, in other words, functionalization. This underscores the power relations between the social actors within the given text. Functionalization is typically used to represent various institutions such as “the Supreme Court decision made it possible for him to marry as a gay man” (Arce, April 20, 2018). The author shows the function of the highest judicial institution within a society regulating social life. Another institution that is functionalized is the Congress in “all of this could have been avoided had Congress secured a solution for Dreamers” (Arce, April 20, 2018). Here the author refers to the role of the legislative branch of the government. It is also a law-making organization that wields tremendous power affecting people’s lives. In the article, the author shows how the Congress failed to perform its function of ensuring legal ways of protecting the undocumented immigrants by shielding them from

155 decisions of the potentially arbitrary executive branch of the government. This is a way to demonstrate the dynamics of relationship and power between different institutions of democracy, all affecting human life in various ways. The author uses collectivization when she refers to the unauthorized immigrants as Dreamers. Using collective nouns, she discursively portrays Dreamers not as individuals but as a collective. This is also a genercisation (Machin & Mayr, 2012), symbolically representing many other immigrant couples who go through similar struggles. While genercisation is a form of abstraction, the lived experiences and struggles are not completely erased form the text, which is why it is not dehumanizing. “Dreamers” is a metaphor derived from the phrase “American Dream,” which symbolizes the idea that every person (including an immigrant) has the opportunity to live a free, successful and a fulfilling life if they work hard enough. On a grammatical level, DREAM-ers is an abbreviation that stands for Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors Act, but its use has to be considered within the sociocultural dimension too. The political Left, pundits and politicians are using “Dreamers” with a positive connotation to refer to undocumented immigrants who were brought to the United States as children and are eligible for the DREAM Act or DACA. During the State of the Union Address in 2018, President Donald Trump changed the symbolic meaning of the phrase saying, “Americans are dreamers too” (Graef, 2018), which equalizes the struggles of the undocumented immigrants with the challenges of average American citizens. It also dismisses the vulnerability of this particular group. While some interpreted this phrase as unifying through the concept of hope and dream, it is arguably a divisive term. He re- cotextualized the term (Van Leeuwen, 2008) to align it with the “Make America Great again” campaign rhetoric, which was mostly discriminative and emphasized the conservative economic frame that immigrants take the American jobs, creating fear and anger against the unauthorized immigrants (Benson, 2014; Haynes, et al. 2016; cite more).

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Both parties are represented through collectivization. The author writes, “Democrats and Republicans have been seemingly indifferent-two powerful groups who restrain from using their power for the 'other'” (Arce, April 20, 2018). On a discursive level, this technique creates abstraction. Since it removes the agency from any individual, it also lifts the responsibility of the consequences of political decisions. However, through backgrounding and intertextuality the author critiques both Republicans and Democrats (sometimes more) for the lack of solutions. This demonstrates that the author prioritizes the policy positions of the actors more than their political affiliation. Arce contextualizes the article, explaining, “Current DACA recipients can still submit renewal applications. But DACA continues to be a temporary solution, and is no help to Villada and Serrato, or to the other 800,000 dreamers who do not qualify to adjust their immigration status” (Arce, April 20, 2018). While quantification of the immigrants is typically used to discursively dehumanize or minimize the human experience, here, the author simultaneously uses personalization and individualization to show how the individual case can apply to many people. What makes it different from the conservatives’ use of quantification is that this article emphasizes the temporariness and lack of protection for the immigrants. In other words, it has an advocacy and social responsibility element in it speaking up for the protection of the vulnerable group. In addition to the participants of the text, there are also processes that activate or passivize the actors, demonstrating the power dynamic between them. The author writes, for instance, “while Congress idles, the Trump administration has continued to implement its anti-immigrant agenda” (Arce, April 20, 2018). Consistently, the author contrasts the two major social actors who both make decisions regarding DACA. She uses an active verb “idles” which signifies the passivity of Congress. Meanwhile, using functionalization and the active verb “implement”, she demonstrates how the president and his cabinet are making decisions negatively impacting the unauthorized immigrants. On a socio-cultural level, this aligns with Congress’s inaction regarding the harsh restrictive immigration policies of the past two administrations.

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The participants of the discourse are often represented through verbal processes (Machin & Mayr, 2012). The author uses indirect references and verbal verbiage to introduce different actors. For instance, “Donald Trump’s supporters tell immigrants to do it the “right way” and “they say “go to the back of the line” when there is no line” (Arce, April 20, 2018). She portrays abstract speakers using genericisation referring to unknown group of people, rather than specific people with an assumption that the reader knows who these people are and what ideology they support. The participants, however, are not activated with the same level of burden and responsibility as in other cases, since their verbal utterances are not as consequential as their act would be. Nevertheless, the idea seems to be that these are people against immigration and who want to see the immigrants gone or out of the country. This is a discursive strategy to argue against a restrictive immigration argument, which has not been semantically captured but is implied. On a discursive dimension, as a journalistic practice, this strategy is an effort towards exercising fairness or balanced coverage (Kovack & Rosenstein, 2014). She first introduces the opposite side and their argument and responds to it through another discursive device, intertextuality (Fairclough, 1995). She writes, “I’ve explained in detail why “the line” doesn’t exist” (Arce, April 20, 2018). In this quote, which includes a hyperlink to her previous article, directs the reader to a related text. She both addresses the counter argument and creates a narrative that is more contextualized. On a socio-cultural dimension, this section refers to the process of immigration and different ways the US immigration law allows people coming to the country to enter through a defined official process. Specifically, there is often a confusion how immigrants, asylum seekers and refugees are granted different legal ways to enter a country other than their own (USA.gov, 2019). For the undocumented immigrants there is no line, since most of them have been brought to the country when they were children and lived most of their lives in the United States, speaking English and assimilated in the American culture. Arce points out that the generalization of the rule erodes the diversity

158 of circumstances and that often helps to perpetuate the criminal framing of DACA coverage. In addition to verbal and material processes, the author also shows the relational processes (Machin & Mayr, 2012). She writes, “Without the spouse visa, the waiver does not allow him to travel back to the U.S. Back in , Serrato has been forced to sell their possessions and move out of their home” (Arce, April 20, 2018). This section represents the struggles of the immigrant couple with an emphasis on the relational processes between the two. Moreover, the representation also includes the relations between the two countries, US and Mexico. When she writes “All of this could have been avoided had Congress secured a solution for Dreamers” (Arce, April 20, 2018), she uses presupposition to cast blame on Congress. Such a strategy is common for an opinion piece; however, it has an additional function to indicate the inaction of the two powerful branches of the government. It is only an assumption that any action by these two branches would have presumably positive impact and the couple could be together. It fails to acknowledge that a solution could be even worse, since the issue is political and the Congress and the president at the moment of the writing pushed restrictive policies, such as building a wall. The author also uses metaphors and hyperbole. For instance, she writes, “Congress’s DACA amnesia” (Arce, April 20, 2018). This reference indicates lack of cognitive sophistication and a mental process, typically attributed to a human being. Typically institutions are not covered through their participation in a mental process. However, the strategy highlights the failure of previous policies and the neglect of the history. The hyperbole that is used in relation to the immigrants is “Marco Villada married the love of his life, Serrato” (Arce, April 20, 2018). It shows the existential importance of the policy for these individuals. Drawing on epistemic modality Acre writes, “They thought they were close after the U.S. government issued Villada a waiver that should have allowed him to return to the U.S after traveling to Mexico for his consular interview” (Arce, April 20, 2018). She uses personalization and epistemic modality to show that the immigrants know there is a

159 legal process to follow. She also evokes an emotional element in the speech, indirectly portraying the hope of the couple. The article also relies on hedging and presuppositions. It is a mix of traditional reporting and an advocacy reporting, which means that it both adopts and repeals some of the journalistic practices within these genres. On the one hand, it tells the story chronologically describing actions of the immigrants and how the system has failed them. On the other hand, it does not give an active voice to the undocumented immigrants. Overall, the article represents the story of the undocumented immigrant through personalization and individualization, however the author keeps the main actors passive. The active personalized actor is the President who is blamed for the situation. The Parties are referred to using collectivization, Dreamers are represented on an abstract level. On a discursive dimension, the author uses epistemic modality to emphasize the advocacy nature of the article. She also uses intertextuality that helps her to contextualize the story. On the sociocultural dimension the article locates the story in the larger context, showing the dire situation undocumented immigrants face due to structural and subjective factors. Article 2: Trump isn’t ignorant about DACA and Migrants-He’s Lying Author: Arce, Published: April 3, 201819 This article the author uses personalization as a discursive strategy to hold the main actors accountable for the restrictive policy. The protagonist is the President, and the secondary characters are the former Secretary of (the time of the publication acting) Department of Homeland Security and a reporter. After the construction of a vivid image of immigrants from Central America crossing the Mexico-US border, who the author describes as a group of people fleeing violence and poverty, she writes, “Trump took notice–when else?–after the story was covered on Fox News…. unleashed a flood of lies conflating two of the most vulnerable immigrant populations” (Arce, April 3, 2018). Using the special noun is a way of personalization, in this case of the President as the main actors of the text (Machin &

19 https://crooked.com/article/trump-isnt-ignorant-daca-hes-lying-immigrants/ 160

Mayr, 2012). She also uses individualization (Van Leeuwen, 2008), which is how she directly blames the president for the dire situation in which asylum seekers and DACA recipients have found themselves and she discursively places the responsibility on him. Hence, she grants agency to the social actor not for empowering him, but to construct a negative representation. On the discursive dimension, this paragraph shows that this is an advocacy piece, since it advocates for the “most vulnerable” marginalized groups-asylum seekers and undocumented immigrants. This strategy counters a traditional journalistic practice, which would have to be objective rather than using a platform to advocate for a marginalized population. This is what Forde (2011) characterizes as “alternative journalism,” which is “to some extent a product of its immediate social and political environment” (p. 44). This is natural, since the environment shapes the sociocultural dimension of the discursive event. This advocacy article is an immediate reaction to the harsh rhetoric and policies of the current administration. This way, the author not only reports on the developments of the implementation of policy but also calls out on the overall negative attitude towards a vulnerable group. When she writes, “The President of the United States is not as dumb as he sometimes sounds” and “the President of the United States is no less stupid than he is dangerous” (April 3, 2018), Arce represents the president through a mental process (Machin & Mayr, 2012). She further writes, “As an unethical man, he is unconstrained by the need to be factually accurate in his pursuit of political power, and finds spewing nonsense about DACA and asylum-seekers to be convenient in that regard” (Acre, April 23, 2018). She underscores the amount of the presidential power, and uses a descriptive adjective “unethical” to highlight that the actor who is in charge of the country, has executive power concentrated in his hands, has disproportional potential to do harm as much as good. As Keane (1998) suggests, democracy is about distribution of power within a society and the article points at the uneven distribution, which is what the media and the civil society are supposed to do. Another participant within the text that is personalized with negative connotations is the former Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen. Acre writes, “Kirstjen

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Nielsen shares Trump’s sentiment” (April 23, 2018) and quote her Tweet about immigrants and asylum seekers exploiting the “loopholes” in the immigration law. She continues “Immigrants who present themselves at the border to seek asylum are not exploiting a loophole as Nielsen calls it, they are simply responding to United States law” (Acre, April 23, 2018). On a grammatical level, she uses individualization and specification (Machin & Mayr, 2012; Van Leeuwen, 2008) naming the actor and making the negative connotations direct and stronger. The author also uses relational and verbal representation tools to demonstrate Nielsen’s role. In addition to the grammatical tools, she uses common discursive practices such as quoting the actor, identifying the position and functions. She also relied on intertextuality (Fairclough, 1995), referencing Buzzfeed to corroborate the story. What is more, the author counters the statement by the public official, holding her accountable. The author’s tone of writing about Nielsen can be better understood only if the text is put within the larger political context. As the Secretary, Kirstjen Nielsen (Barbaro, 2019) was among the highest-ranking officials the signing implementation of harsh immigration policy decisions. At the time of the publication of the article her positions were expressed mostly in a form of an agreement and endorsement of the restrictive immigration rhetoric, a year after she established a legacy as the implementer of the President’s Zero Tolerance policy also known as the Family Separation policy (Domonoske, 2018). Representing the two officials through mental and verbal processes they engage in to talk about their immigration policy, the author practices watchdog journalism (Kovack & Rosenstein, 2014; Schudson 2008; Curran, 2011). The other social actor represented in the article through personalization is a reporter. Acre introduces him as “Adolfo Flores, the Buzzfeed reporter traveling with the caravan, asked some of the migrants about Trump’s latest DACA tweets, they laughed and said they thought they didn’t qualify” (April 23, 2018). Unlike the previous cases of personalization, that had negative connotations in terms of representation, this one is a positive representation. The reporter is granted agency as a verbal sayer who asks questions and participates in the text indirectly. A reference to another media

162 representative is also a relational representation (Machin & Mayr, 2012). Recognizing the reporting from the border, grants more credibility to the story and establishes intertextuality. At the same time, on a socio-cultural level, the individualization of the reporter is a way to highlight the importance of the journalistic work countering the President’s dismissal of media as fake. The article utilizes metonymies and metaphors, which are often used to make the text more appealing. Arce writes “At 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, the image of a ‘caravan’ of Latinos traveling to the United States from Central America has sent Trump into conniptions” (April 23, 2018). The reference to the address of the presidential residency is a metonymy indicating the functions the president has as the executor of the policies that impact the immigrants and the rest of the population. Metaphors do differ on the level of specification and generalization, however. Media uses the ‘caravan’ metaphor to cover the group of immigrants from Central American countries escaping poverty and violence20. According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary21 (n. d.), the word caravan is used to refer to the movement of group of people, such as the migrants. Linguistically, this metaphor collectivizes the migrants achieving higher degree of abstraction (Machin & Mayr, 2012). Abstraction often serves as a way of dehumanization since it minimizes the human factor and individual experiences. However, it has also become a common journalistic practice to cover migrant groups coming from Central America in collectivist terms and a part of it is because that's the nature of this particular form of migration. The reason why the metaphor and the piece do not strike as a dehumanizing is because it is linguistically combined with the existential process such as “Most of them are fleeing poverty and violence in their home countries” (Arce, April 23, 2018). Here the author humanized the experiences of many in the group highlighting the conditions and dangers that are causing migration.

20 https://www.wired.com/story/calling-the-caravans-migrants-diseased-is-a-classic-xenophobic-move/ 21 https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/the-history-of-caravan-words-for-people-in- movement-invasion-migration 163

Another metaphor the author uses is in the sentence “in certain corners of America there are few images that instill more panic or controversy than a large gathering of brown people” (Arce 23, 2018). America does not have corners in a literal meaning; however, the metaphor refers to the different states and their historic and present attitudes regarding race and immigration. The diversity of the perceptions and attitudes towards race vary across the states and what the author is presupposing (Machin & Mayrs, 2012) is that in some states is still well and alive. She also uses the nominalizations “gathering of brown people” to make the rhetoric more affective. Nominalizations remove the agency of the actor and create abstraction. Here, Arce is contrasting the image that resonates for many in association of immigrants “invading the country en masse.” This is also an indirect intertextuality. The undocumented immigrants are often covered as a problem for the host society (Benson, 2014; Haynes, et al. 2016). The author does not use intertextuality to support what other media say, rather she is indicating how such coverage creates an image appealing to people who are more susceptible to media frames of fear and threat. Finally, Arce uses nature-related metaphors such as “flood and storm” to describe D. Trump’s tweets and speeches. It is known that the president uses his personal Twitter account, where he has more than 50 million followers, and he does not utilize the official White House or POTUS accounts designated for the official political communication. He uses Twitter as his direct way of communication with people. This has arguably changed how the politicians interact with their constituents in the era of social media (Murray & Scime, 2017). Since the handle @realDonaldTrump is not officially managed but is personal, his Tweets are frequent; they come unexpectedly (early in the morning) and create chaos. Creating chaos and the element of spontaneity are typical of the natural disasters such as storms and floods, hence the metaphors. On the sociocultural dimension, the text is an immediate response to the political discourse and policies related to immigration. The president has endorsed the rhetoric of “invasion” which is also metaphoric, since the migrants fleeing violence and poverty are not armed and consist of women and children, who are not a physical threat to the

164 national security. In one of his tweets, D. Trump posted “We cannot let all these people to invade our country” (Griffiths, 2018), he went on to suggest that there should be no judicial process for these people, and they should immediately be sent back where they come from. Donald Trump does not only use the rhetoric, he also signs into action decision that are militaristic, such as sending hundreds of troops to the Southern Border (Keneally, 2018). Such rhetoric and action have proven harmful for the undocumented immigrants; however, they also have another effect, which is perpetuating fear among the Americans who believe their country and race are under attack. In this article, the author mainly uses personalization and individualization to represent three main social actors all in positions of power. She activates them showing how they participate in mental processes and verbal processes. The President is represented using negative descriptions. On the discursive dimension the author contextualizes the article using intertextuality. On the sociocultural dimension, she locates the text within the larger discourses about immigration. She highlights the negative narratives and frames coming from the administration. Article 3: The Supreme Court and GOP Leave Dreamers in Limbo Author: Arce, Published: February 27, 201822 This article covers the decision of the Supreme Court regarding the administration’s request to rule on ending DACA. One of the main characters represented through personalization (Machin & Mayr, 2012) is the U.S. Attorney General, Jeff Sessions. He appears in the text with a direct reference using his name and position, which is also a functionalization given that it indicates his role. Arce writes, “Attorney General Jeff Sessions could barely contain his smile, and argued tendentiously that the program was an “unconstitutional exercise of authority by the executive branch”” (February 27, 2018). The personalization in this case is not to grant Sessions agency, rather it depicts his personal negative attitude and feelings towards DACA. The author quotes him to show his view on the policy, but also describes his engagement in a mental

22 https://crooked.com/article/supreme-court-gop-leave-dreamers-limbo/ 165 and behavioral process (Machin & Mayr, 2012) of “containing his smile.” On a discursive level, journalists often quote the social actors and may even describe their body language. However, they do not typically add a personal interpretation, especially in traditional news reporting. As mentioned earlier, Arce’s articles appear as more opinion and advocacy pieces and less as news reports. Although there is no official mention or declaimer that this is an opinion piece. On the socio-cultural level, her opinion is supported with the legacy of Jeff Sessions and his tough positioning regarding immigration. Whether characterized as ‘unprecedented’ harsh policies (Frankel, 2018) or as “accomplishments” (von Spakovsky, 2018), his policies of family separation at the border crossing, the travel ban for a number of Muslim countries, revocation of the legal protection for undocumented immigrants, and eliminating the process of seeking asylum by indigenous women fleeing domestic violence and abuse (Wofsy & Eiland, 2018) have had a significant negative impact on the lives of immigrants and asylum seekers. Arce uses personalization to represent Marielena Hincapié, whose quote the author uses to describe the resistance to the administration’s harsh policies. She writes “Marielena Hincapié, executive director of the National Immigration Law Center, where I serve as a member of the board, said it best, “There is immense urgency for Congress to do the right thing on the Dream Act”” (Arce, February 27, 2018). This segment includes individualization of the social actor using the special noun (Van Leeuwen, 2008). The author emphasizes Hincapié’s position as the CEO of the organization placing her within the larger social context. The National Immigration Law Center “is one of the leading organizations in the U.S. exclusively dedicated to defending and advancing the rights of immigrants with low income” (NILC, n.d.). The organization is among many who do policy analysis and advocacy; they engage in strategic communication to positively shape the messaging on immigration policy and are aiming to impact litigation helping low- income defendants. The author linguistically achieves a participant status within the text through engaging in a relational process with the organization (Machin & Mayr, 2012). Her function as a board member within a pro-immigrant advocacy organization supports the previous argument that on a discursive dimension, her writing is advocacy-oriented.

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Showing the relational process is a way to increase the transparency and accountability of the journalistic process (Kovack & Rosenstein, 2014). This is an ethical principle within the journalistic practice, since she is reporting about and the conflict of interest or potential bias. The article contains instances of collectivization, genercisation and functionalizations (Machin & Mayr, 2012) when referring to institutions such as the courts, and the Congress. It also makes use of these linguistic tools to represent the immigrants. For example, Arce writes, “It’s unlikely the Ninth Circuit court of appeals will rule in favor of the administration” (February 27, 2018). In this discussion, the author demonstrates agency as a narrator using hedging and epistemic modality “it is unlikely,” which indicates her knowledge of the system and the social context. This sentence does not only use functionalization to depict an institution as a social actor in the text, but also it utilizes presupposition to represent it as liberal. Broscheid (2011) states that it is a common wisdom that this Circuit is liberal, however, because of the diversity in its judicial panel, its decisions are not biased towards one or the other political spectrum. The other social actor that is discussed through collectivization is Congress, mainly the Republican representatives. Arce writes, “Republicans in Congress have been unwilling to act, even as the fate of 800,000 young people rested solely in their hands” (February 27, 2018). She using the collective noun “Republicans” which has a singular meaning is used to show that there is a consensual behavior among the representatives on the given policy. The linguistic choice combined with the representation of a mental process (unwillingness of Congress) (Machin & Mayr, 2012) is how the author highlights the power position of the social actor within the larger political and social system and the lack of their political will to help the dreamers through proposing and passing proper legislation. The author once again exercises asserting that the vulnerable group, undocumented young people, “deserve Congress to act now” (Arce, February 27, 2018). The adverb “now” is way to give the text a sense of temporality. IN this case, it indicates the urgency of the matter. Semantically, these grammatical choices

167 establish a degree of specification, which on a discursive level equates to contextual reporting. The specification of actors and time allows for an interpretation of the text that makes DACA a salient and relevant issue. Another linguistic choice that makes the article an advocacy piece is when she writes, “It is the obligation of everyone who claims to fight for Dreamers to not let their plight fade from the public imagination just because it is receding from the political limelight” (Arce, February 27, 2018). The use of deonic modality, “it is the obligation of everyone” sets a normative boundary for action. Combining genericization and collectivization, the author represents the Dreamers. She describes, “Dreamers are thrust into crisis just as the public has moved on from the idea that the country was ready for a course correction” and adds, “Congress has had several opportunities to provide Dreamers peace of mind, but not even $25 billion in funding for a border wall was sufficient to persuade enough Republican Senators to give Dreamers legal status” (Arce, February 27, 2018). It has to be noted that the actors are represented through relational, behavioral and material processes with different degrees of activation and passivity (Machin & Mayr, 2012; Van Leeuwen). For instance, the dreamers are mostly represented as passive participants, at the receiving end of the policy. Meanwhile, the Congress and the Republicans are more active. Another active participant within the text is the Supreme Court, which is shown to engage in a material process. She writes, “the Supreme Court dismissed the Trump administration’s request to expedite a case that will determine whether it has the right to end DACA” (Arce, February 27, 2018). The metonymy Supreme Court is a reference to the function of the highest jurisdictional institution in the United States. This behavioral and relational process reveals the relationship between the different branches of the government. Metaphors are an essential part of the media texts. Arce writes, “Dreamers are caught in a Catch-22” it refers to the attempt to escape a situation but the effort itself makes the escape impossible. Typically used in relation to the US Army, in this text, this phrase demonstrates the inextricable situation the dreamers have been put on by various institutions deciding and acting on immigration policy. On a sociocultural dimension, this

168 shows the polarization and political interest diversions among different actors within a system. Another metaphor that is worth noting is closely related to the previous one is in the following sentence, “the announcement put 800,000 Dreamers on a seemingly endless roller coaster, twisting and turning and jerking around” (Arce, February 27, 2018). Here, the author highlights the way DACA policy has been handled by various actors and how each decision at different points of times has affected the feelings and experiences of the dreamers. As a roller coaster, when the institutions and actors made pro-immigrant decisions, the Dreamers could have had positive feelings of excitement and hope, while the restrictive policies could have caused mostly fear for deportation, uncertainty and experiences of racial discrimination. Overall, this article is an example how the author uses personalization granting agency to the Republican officials. This move is intentional, since it is immediately followed by a direct blame and accusation. The author uses genercization to describe Dreamers, removing their agency. One of the choices on the dimension of the text directly links to the discursive practices. When she individualizes the actor show quotes and shows her relationship, she increases transparency, which is an ethical decision. On the sociocultural dimension, the articles shows the dynamic relations between different social actors involved in the policy and different power relations they hold. Article 4: Republicans Want to Deport Dreamers Author: Beutler, Published: February 15, 201823 The article discusses the responsibility and unwillingness of Republicans leaders to pass protective legislation for the Dreamers. The author, Brian Beutler, uses a number of linguistic tools to represent the social actors and processes involved in the discursive event. One of the linguistic strategies to represent the actors is collectivization. Most of the cases of collectivization (Machin & Mayr, 2012) are related to the two parties, with a

23 https://crooked.com/article/republicans-deport-dreamers/ 169 particular emphasis on the Republican Party, and the Dreamers. Beutler writes, “The Republican Party wants to deport Dreamers. That’s the reason Congress has never passed legislation to protect Dreamers; why a Republican president, Donald Trump, terminated an administrative policy, DACA” (February 15, 2018). The author uses the collective nouns “Republicans” and “Dreamers” and discusses them from a benefactor and beneficiary perspective. The collectivization of Republicans is a way to show their consensus on restrictive irregular immigration policy. The author writes, “At the same time, Republican leaders don’t want people to know that they think Dreamers should be deported” (Beutler, February 15, 2018). One of the indicators that this is not an effort to have a higher degree of abstraction is the activation of Republicans showing their engagement in such a mental process (Machin & Mayr, 2012) as willingness to deport the undocumented immigrants. On the social dimension, arguably, a majority of the Republican leaders support restrictive irregular immigration policy; however, the author also mentions the effort of Republican representatives who proposed a bipartisan deal. Although there is no direct link or quotation to another media text, this section is an example of interextuality (Fairclough, 1995), since this political effort has been discussed elsewhere in the media (Cowan, 2018). Beutler also contextualizes the article explaining that the bipartisan deal would still be restrictive since it would cut family migration and would provide financial means for the border wall. While this type of coverage is not uncommon, linguistically there is an interesting phenomenon taking place. The author represents a social, process proposing a bipartisan deal, without discussing both social actors involved in it. The Democrats, one of the parties drafting the bill, agreed to partially finance the border wall. However, the author removes Democrats as agents in this piece. This is an intentional move to take the blame away from them and highlight the fault of Republicans. As a contributor to a progressive platform, the author does not criticize Democrats, which is a form of hegemony, where the establishment is not held accountable. Notably, the author uses personalization discussing the leadership of the Republican Party. In the collectivization cases the author relies on backgrounding (van

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Leeuwen, 2008) by mentioning the leaders later in the text and not in the immediate reference to the Republicans. Beutler writes, “[Paul] Ryan’s position is that the House of Representatives will only vote on legislation that Trump supports” (February 15, 2018). This is an example of representing an actor through both personalization and individualization, using a special noun. The author demonstrates that the House Speaker is complicit with the president’s restrictive policy by linguistically showing his involvement in relational processes and material processes (Machin & Mayr, 2012). The author writes, “Ryan’s position is that the House of Representatives will only vote on legislation that Trump supports, and Trump only supports legislation that would be so damaging to immigrant communities” (Beutler, February 15, 2018). On the linguistic dimension, personalization is often used in the articles of Crooked Media for direct confrontation of the political leaders they critique. The author uses deonic modality (Machin & Mayr, 2012) rising skepticism about Ryan’s claims, when he writes “The truth is, you should doubt his (P. Ryan) intention to “solve this problem,” because he is not committed to getting it done” (Beutler, February 15, 2018). This is a way to hold them accountable, however, some of the semantic and rhetorical choices are more personal and opinion based. One of the linguistic tools the author uses to distance himself from the strong claims and conclusions regarding Republicans’ unwillingness to protect DACA is presupposition. He writes, “It is possible that some Republican leaders don’t think deporting Dreamers is a great idea” and continues, “but that it is nevertheless a better idea than making nativists and white nationalists, including Trump, upset” (Beutler, February 15, 2018). “It is possible” signifies that the speaker does not want to take full responsibility for the claim, however creates a sense that the outcome is supposedly known with some room for doubt. In the second clause of the sentence, the author moves to a broader claim that shows the relationship between his argument and the social context. The reference to “nativists” and “white nationalists” indicates the rise of the white nationalist rhetoric and violence on the sociocultural dimension. Moreover, the author uses the word “including” which carries the meaning of belonging and

171 inclusion in a social group, to signify the President’s relationship to the nationalist groups. In 2017, August, the white nationalist supremacist groups organized what they called “Unite the Right” Rally in Charlottesville, VA (Heim, 2017). They had a torchlight parade, hateful and racist chants including “Blood and soil!” “You will not replace us!” “Jews will not replace us!” Some students and citizens organized a counter protest. The events escalated to some chaotic provocations and injuries on both sides culminating in the death of civil rights activist Heather Heyer. One of the white supremacists ran her over with his car (Kennedy, 2017). President Trump responded to these violence and events in Charlottesville with a controversial statement saying there were “good people on both sides” (Shear & Haberman, 2017). This equalization is misleading, since the anti- nationalist protesters did not take an innocent live. Trump’s effort to rhetorically establish a moral equivalence between the two sides became a subject of criticism and the basis for Beutler’s positioning of the actor with the nationalist group. Beutler’s rhetorical question “the only mystery is whether Republicans will be successful in misleading the public about their values, their policies, and who’s responsible for the consequences,” (February 15, 2018), is interdiscursivity (Fairclough, 1995). More specifically, he asks the question, which is not even in interrogative form, about the failure to pass DACA protection, however, when he says “misleading the public about values” and “who is responsible for the consequences” is a reference to the Republican’s reactions to Charlottesville events. The author uses metaphors to make his arguments more compelling. He writes, “Republicans are trying to create a case of whodunnit around the death of the DREAM Act,” (Beutler, February 15, 2018) where the metaphor is “the death of the DREAM Act.” This figurative speech indicates that end of the policy. The metaphor adds a dramatic tone to the writing, appealing to the emotional senses of the reader. Given the affective aspects of politics (Mouffe, 2013), the discursive practice of covering policy through an emotional frame could be an effective way to reach out to the audiences. The other metaphor also related to ending the DACA is “As their proposal took shape, Trump’s administration set out to kill it” (Beutler, February 15, 2018). Here too, the

172 author highlights the ending of the program, however in the latter metaphor, he strategically uses active voice and personalization. A verb (to kill) is an active form of speech and a noun (death) is passive. This, on the one hand, grants agency to the participants of the speech; on the other hand, it places the responsibility for a negative action on the same agent. The killing metaphor is commonly used in the discussions of ending government programs or bills. Other metaphors include “Republicans are hiding the ball” or “They will use Senate rules, in other words, to create as much fog as possible around who’s to blame for the Dreamers’ fate” (Beutler, February 15, 2018). To once again underscore his argument that Republicans are not transparent, the author uses the metaphor “create fog,” which refers to the natural phenomenon of making things hardly visible. In this article the main tools that the author is using on the level of the text are collectivization when talking about the two Parties, personalization, in the case of Republican leaders (negative), and metaphors to make the text more affective. On the discursive level, the author established intertexuality, and interdiscursivity to connect the text to the wider related discourses and to contextualize the article. These moves also locate the article in the larger sociocultural discourse confronting discrimination. Article 5: Democrats’ Dreamer Debacle Author: Arce, Published: January 25, 201824 From the self-explanatory title it is clear that the article is about the relationship between Democrats and Dreamers. It is a critical view of the ways Democrats have handled the situation following revocation of DACA and negotiations with Republicans to provide some protection for Dreamers and keep the government open. This article has a number of social actors who are represented through collectivization, to a lesser degree personalization (Machin & Mayr, 2012). The three cases of personalization include the Senate Minority Leader, Chuck Schumer, President Donald Trump and the HuffPost reporter, Matt Fuller. All these actors are rhetorically activated and passivized (van Leeuwen, 2008) to various degrees.

24 https://crooked.com/article/democrats-dreamer-debacle/ 173

The article opens with a personalization of two key actors, Chuck Schumer and Donald Trump. Arce writes, “When the three-day government shutdown began on Friday at midnight, the blame game ensued immediately. President Trump vs. the Senate Minority Leader, Chuck Schumer. Trump called it the #SchumerShutdown, and Schumer called it the #TrumpShutdown” (January 25, 2018). The author grants agency to both of the actors showing their verbal activity and using functionality (Machin & Mayr, 2012). She mentions their roles and shows relational processes, which is how the two relate within the text and in a larger context and a verbal process, where the actors’ hashtags and virtual utterances are quoted within the text. The quote of the hashtags is also an instance of intertextuality (Fairclough, 1995), which links the current text to other texts. On the one hand, Schumer and Trump are from the opposite political parties and have divergent views on the issue. On the other hand, the blame of the other side for the government shutdown is a verbal process that the two are actively participating in. The author grants agency to Schumer, quoting his statements, activating him as a participant of a relational and behavioral process including giving interview to another media organization. Despite the power relations between a Senate Minority Leader (legislative) and the President (executive), on a discursive level, the author draws equivalence between the two actors based on their utterances and blaming the shutdown on the other side. Nevertheless, Arce (2018) uses intertextuality referring to Trump’s ad about the fault of Democrats for the shutdown and contextualizes this discussion referring to the sociocultural context and public support for a pro-Dreamer policy. She uses nomination saying, “Americans across the country responded by marching by the hundreds of thousands—against Trump, but also in salute of Democrats, and the GOP senators who voted against another short-term extension to fund the government” (Arce, January 25, 2018). The nomination creates a degree of abstraction (Machin & Mayr, 2012), since there is no mention of numbers, or names or stories. The generalized category or group of Americans are activated rhetorically and granted agency due to their actions on a social level.

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Another social actor who is personalized is Matt Fuller. Arce represents Fuller as an active participant of the speech engaged in a relational process, which is a reporter for another media organization (Machin & Mayr 2012). She references Fuller’s article, titled “The Democratic Cave,” (Arce, January 25, 2018). This is another example of intertextuality, which is the reference point for Arce’s main argument that Democrats could have a more significant role in fostering protection for Dreamers in a long run. Arce first describes Fuller’s argument, which is a linguistic choice to grant Fuller agency as an active social actor who is engaged in verbal processes. Then, Arce herself exercises agency by performing a verbal and a mental act expressed in the following sentence, “I disagree with his [Fuller’s] thinking” (Arce, January 25, 2018). She argues that Fuller does not recognize that the frustration of the supporters with Democrats comes from different sources. She goes on to say “Dreamer frustration and anger with Democrats didn’t begin on Monday. It comes from 17 years of waiting” (Arce, January 25, 2018). In this linguistic specification (Machin & Mayr, 2012) particularly of time and actors, Arce practices traditional journalism, where the argument is contextualized with history, sense of time and chain of events (Kovack & Rosenstein, 2014). Such a discussion demonstrates the roots and causes of the problem, instead of sensationalizing it. The other two examples of personalization, that are worth noting, since they depict two key Republican leaders and establish intertextuality with other articles, include the description of Paul Ryan’s policy position, “The only kind of immigration bill Ryan will put on the floor is one Trump signs on to” (Arce, January 25, 2018). It indicates that Ryan is complicit with the president. The second is the depiction of the Attorney General’s behavior as a signifier of his attitude towards the policy, whereby Arce writes, “The smirk on Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ face as he made the announcement that ended DACA told us just how happy he was to make the call” (Arce, January 25, 2018). The textual, discursive and social dimensions related to Ryan’s and Session’s representations have been discussed in the analysis of the previous articles. There are many examples of collectivization and genericization in this article (van Leeuwen, 2008). Arce writes, for instance, “Dreamers understand better than anyone that

175 the GOP has been the more hostile of the two parties. But that doesn’t mean Democrats have been unflinching allies” (, 2018). The actors portrayed through collectivization include Dreamers, the GOP and Democrats. Dreamers are represented as active participants of a mental process (van Leeuwen, 2008). Writing about the history of the votes on DREAM Act, the author demonstrates that both parties have failed the immigrants. It demonstrates how the issue is a subject of bifurcation and division not only between the two Parties but also within the Parties. Arce writes, “Much of the progressive left erupted in anger at what they saw as Democrats caving without securing what so many of their supporters wanted them to fight for—a permanent solution for Dreamers” (January 15, 2018). Through the behavioral process, the author signifies the differences of views and fragmentation of Democrats. Arce’s use of verbal verbiage (Machin & Mayr, 2012), “It’s ridiculous to assume that Democrats surrendered because they worried about public perception of Dreamers” (January 15, 2018), is one way the author exercises agency within the text. She also relies on epistemic modality, writing, “Democrats caved and they did so because they miscalculated” (Arce, January 15, 2018). This article is particularly rich and articulate of the author’s agency and positionality. Another example where she uses deonic modality is in the following statement, “they [Democrats] need to use that leverage to pass the cleanest possible version of a bill to help Dreamers” (Arce, January 15, 2018). Finally, the author ends the article with an interesting linguistic choice, where she starts to use first person plural pronoun “we” rhetorically including herself in the group of Democratic voters and pro-dreamers. Specifically, she writes, “we’ve given them our support, our stories, and the votes of our families and allies who can vote. It is their turn to trust us that we will keep them safely in their seats, if they keep dreamers safely in their homes” (Arce, January 15, 2018). The linguistic choices in these segments are consistent with the discursive practices the same author applied in other articles, which make her writing closer to advocacy reporting. As an opinion and analytical piece, this article is also consistent with the style of the respective journalistic genres. On the socio-cultural

176 dimension, it demonstrates the complexity of the issue and the relationships between different actors. Arce uses a number of war-related metaphors. She writes, “Democrats, again, supplied Republicans the ammunition they needed to kill Dreamer dreams” (January 15, 2018). The “ammunitions,” “kill Dreamer dreams” are metaphors related to a combat zone and military conflict. As discussed earlier, the function of metaphors as figurative speech is to dramatize the text and add affective elements to it. However, these are all negative metaphors indicating the hostile attitudes between the two Parties and the end of DACA. Killing the dream signifies hopelessness and also has negative connotations. The text has other examples where “killing the bill” and “death” of the policy describe the situation. While the metaphors are effective rhetoric devices for capturing attention of audiences, these particular examples, and the context where they are used could backfire creating more apathy than support. The author also uses metaphors related to nature, such as “the progressive left erupted in anger” (Arce, January 15, 2018). Here, the emotional state of progressives is described as a natural phenomenon that has two aspects. First, the eruption of anger assumes certain period of highly intense emotional experiences, and second, the control and eventual outburst of those emotions in a form a frustration and anger which cannot be contained. This metaphor signifies a wave of the hot fluid, which is symbolic of the wave of protests that followed the political decision to end DACA. Another metaphor related to emotions is “Democrats caved," which represents Democrats as weak actors in contrast to Republicans. Acre doubles this argument with another metaphor, writing “they showed they do not have the stomach to use leverage to make sure Dreamers aren’t further harmed” (Arce, January 15, 2018). The anatomical and biological reference signifies the courage and strength that Democrats lack to stand by the Dreamers. Similar to metaphors, the author also uses several hyperboles, to make the representation more vivid and at times sensational. The linguistic choices to represent actors in the text include relational, mental and verbal processes. The actors are mostly from the elite groups, such as political leaders

177 and journalists. Dreamers are represented in more generic terms and are not granted agency. The article is highly contextualized using intertextuality and connecting to the larger discourses. The use of war metaphors is potentially dangerous since it exaggerates social tensions between the actors. On the discursive dimension, this is an opinion piece with context and background about the situation to help the reader make sense of it. On the sociocultural dimension, it questions the common wisdom about the Democratic support for Dreamers. Article 6: Democrats are Allowing Republicans to Have It Both Ways on Dreamers Author: Beutler, Published: January 22, 201825 This article addresses the positionality of Democrats in regards to Republican decision to end DACA, which led to the government shutdown. Beutler starts the article by activating Democrats and Republicans as key participants of the text, “It is beyond dispute that Republicans can not keep their own government open without buy-in from Senate Democrats. What remains open for debate is the question of how much input Senate Democrats should therefore have over the functioning and priorities of the government” (January 22, 2018). In this segment, the author represents two groups of social actors using collectivization (Machin & Mayr, 2012). Using the hedging “it is beyond dispute,” the author emphasis the common wisdom about the way the political system works. Both Democrats and Republicans are activated through a relational process (Machin & Mayr, 2012). The author’s choice of possessive pronoun “their own government,” signifies the power relations within the larger political system, where at the moment of the publication of the article, the Republicans were holding much of the power. Nevertheless, the relational processes also indicate that Democrats also have a role to play within the government, which is the kind of distribution of power, which Keane (1998) argues is at the heart of democracy. In addition to collectivization, the article contains personalization and individualization of key political figures. “Less than three full days later, they [Democrats] redrew the line at a less-than-ironclad promise from Senate Majority Leader

25 https://crooked.com/article/democrats-allowing-republicans-ways-dreamers/ 178

Mitch McConnell to consider legislation in the Senate that would presumably protect at least some of the Dreamer population” (Beutler, January 22, 2018). The special noun and the mention of the role within the political system, represent McConnell through personalization and individualization (Machin & Mayr, 2012). He is indirectly shown to engage in a verbal process of “promising,” which would also be a way to activate him as a participant of the text (van Leeuwen, 2008). On a discursive dimension, Beutler contextualizes his argument providing specifics of the time and events. On a social dimension, he demonstrates the situation where McConnell wields tremendous power to foster the Senate’s protection of Dreamers, for which he does not have the political will. McConnell is a supporter of restrictive immigration policies and supported D. Trump’s decision to end DACA and enforce tighter border security (Thomsen, 2017). Continuing on the role of McConnell, Beutler also uses personalization mentioning the House Speaker, Paul Ryan by name. He writes, “If McConnell and House Speaker Paul Ryan were seeking a solution for Dreamers in good faith, and determined to reach one before DACA fully phases out in March” (Beutler, January 22, 2018). He grants the actors agency to directly blame them for inaction and unwillingness to pass a bill despite having the power to do so. Using epistemic modality, the author continues “there is almost no doubt they could put the issue to bed well before then” (Beutler, January 22, 2018). The representation of Ryan is not simplistic. On the one hand, he is granted agency by individualization, on the other hand, that agency is normatively problematic. The author uses negative adjectives to characterize Ryan, writing he is “a moral coward … allowing a hardline minority of Republican House members—a group of restrictionists that includes outright racists—to set the GOP’s immigration position for him” (January 22, 2018). In this piece, the author removes the agency from Ryan, rhetorically showing how others make decisions for him. In other words the author is deagentizing P. Ryan (van Leeuwen, 2008) rhetorically removing him from a mental process other more abstract actors engage in (Machin & Mayr, 2012). Another example of personalization also includes a Republican actor, more specifically President Trump. Beutler writes, “one person in America right now who

179 could determine the fate of the Dreamers with the snap of his Twitter fingers, it’s Donald Trump” (Beutler, January 22, 2018). On a textual level, he uses the special noun, using only the name of the president. The reference to Twitter is an instance of interdiscursivity (Fairclough, 1995), since the president uses this social media platform as his main communication means. On the social dimension, direct tweeting has changed the face of traditional presidential communication (Keith, 2016). Also, the author refers to numerous examples when D. Trump has utilized his executive power signing orders that could potentially at least stop the shutdown. However, Beutler calls on president’s “weakness” and “incompetence” alongside with the Republican leadership’s reluctance to reach a deal with Democrats to protect Dreamers. Some of the metaphors that are noteworthy include “they [Republicans] could put the issue to bed” (Beutler, January 22, 2018), meaning that they could finish dealing with the issue and could end the uncertainty. Another example is “Here is the best possible argument in favor of capitulating now, without forcing Republicans to commit one way or another to the protection or expulsion of Dreamers” (Beutler, January 22, 2018). “Capitulation” is a military term used in rhetoric of war and conflict, and it signifies surrender referring to Democrats’ soft position and possible agreement to a temporary solution for the Dreamers. War metaphors highlight the weak and strong positions and rhetorically grant more or less agency to different actors. In this case, the Republicans are presented as having the upper hand. Other rhetoric devices present in the article include hyperbole, such as “Twitter fingers,” and “the Jell-O-like infirmity of his positions,” (Beutler, January 22, 2018). Beutler also uses synechdoches referencing body parts instead of the whole (Machin & Mayr, 2012). Another example of this tool is “the Republican leaders of the House and Senate could take matters into their own hands,” and “force McConnell’s hand” (Beutler, January 22, 2018). Despite variety of actors and devices, the main actor, Democrats, are missing from the article. Most of the social actors within the article are represented through collectivization, especially those with Party affiliation, while other actors are discussed through personalization and individualization. Personalization is typically used to grant

180 agency to Republican leaders and present them in a negative light. Most of the actors in the text, engage in a number of relational, mental and material processes. The author also uses modalities and metaphors as affective rhetorical tropes. On the discursive dimension these choices are typical of opinion pieces. On the social dimensions, the article calls out Republicans for the harsh restrictive policies showing its support for Dreamers. Article 7: The Shithead Shutdown Author: Beutler, Published: January 20, 201826 This article is an opinion piece on the government shutdown. The author Brian Beutler, discusses different roles of social actors involved in the shutdown using a number of semantic, rhetorical devices, and discursive practices. Unlike the other articles written by the same author, this one does not have many processes or activity-based representations of actors. The article starts with a nominalization “No modern federal government shutdown has ever lasted more than a few weeks” (Beutler, January 20, 2018). He continuous to describe the situation with same nominalization, writing, “that battle rages tediously this weekend, amid the most recent shutdown” (Beutler, January 20, 2018). Nominalization is a linguistic technique to remove the agent from the text, which in this case is not to reduce the actors’ role, rather to emphasize the context and the political phenomenon. The main actor behind the shutdown is not missing from the text; however, he is represented through backgrounding, meaning he is mentioned somewhere else in the text (van Leeuwen, 2018). Using epistemic modality and relational processes the author further describes the situation and actors, “two things are true. First, Republicans can’t fund the government on their own…Second, this funding bill would have passed but for the filibuster” (Beutler, January 20, 2018). On a discursive level, providing context is a common journalistic practice that helps the audience to better make sense of the text as a part of the social reality they live in. On the social dimension, shutdown is not a common phenomenon, however it has

26 https://crooked.com/article/trump-government-shutdown/ 181 occurred since 1976. When the author mentions the timeline of the previous shutdowns, he uses temporality to show the stark contrast with the previous cases, since the one in December 2018 was the longest in the history (Frazee & Desjardins, 2018) at the time of writing the article. This shutdown is significant because it objectified a vulnerable group reducing their experiences to a bargaining object between the two Parties. Beutler activates Donald Trump as one of the social actors in the text through individualization and personalization (Machin & Mayr, 2012; van Leeuwen, 2008). He refers to the president directly using his name and represents him as engaged in mental, behavioral, verbal and relational processes (Machin & Mayr, 2012). He writes, “After Trump terminated DACA, he promised to revisit the issue if Congress did not reach a solution for Dreamers” (Beutler, January 20, 2018). The author grants him agency, discursively engaging him in all the mentioned processes. This also indicates the centrality of his role to the issue. His relation is mostly to another power actor-Congress, which generalized as an institution within the text. In the following instance, “Trump has claimed to harbor real empathy for Dreamers” (Beutler, January 20, 2018), the author establishes Trump’s relation to Dreamers through mental and verbal processes. While he is granted him agency on the grammatical level, the connotations of his coverage are negative throughout the article. This is obvious in the instances where D. Trump’s personalization occurs through the use of negative descriptive adjectives, “Trump is at best too big a dupe to make decisions” or through the indirect epistemic modality “He is not meaningfully in charge of his own administration” (Beutler, January 20, 2018). These utterances signify incompetence. The question of D. Trump’s competence and fitness for office is an example of intertextuality, since it is widely discussed in the public sphere (Barclay & Resnick, 2018; Bernstein, 2018). Partisan social actors are represented through collectivization (Machin & Mayr, 2012). “House Republicans—with the full support of the Senate Republican leadership— blocked a bipartisan 2013 bill” (Beutler, January 20, 2018). Collectivization is achieved using collective nouns, and possessive pronouns. On a discursive level, this article resembles all the other articles included in this analysis, which show that Crooked’s

18 2 authors use collectivization and genericisation to refer to partisan political actors while contextualizing the text and describing the overall political situation. This tool can however be problematic when specific actors are removed from the text. As an opinion piece, the article is rich in presuppositions, hedging and modalities. Beutler writes, “More likely, he [Trump] wants immigration authorities to deport Dreamers and is too chickenshit to say so publicly” (January 20, 2018). This is a presupposition achieved on the level of the phrase “most likely,” which shows some level of hesitation and assumption at the same time. Another example of presupposition also related to D. Trump is “He is not meaningfully in charge of his own administration. If he were, the shutdown could have been avoided in one of two ways” (Beutler, January 20, 2018). Once again, the author is predicting a possible outcome based on an assumptive evaluation of the situation. He adds to the presupposition another semantic element, epistemic modality, saying “I think it remains likely that the public will default to holding Republicans responsible” (Beutler, January 20, 2018). The author’s assumption is confirmed by the polls conducted earlier in December 2018 (Kahn & , 2018; Shepard, 2018). It is important to incorporate the public opinion into a discussion. However, the situation is not only about what general public might think about a certain political group, such positioning is problematic. It only considers the opinions of the dominant population and oppresses the views of irregular immigrants who do not vote but have lived in the country for decades and are directly affected by the policy. Other rhetorical tropes reoccurring in the article are metaphors, hyperboles and idioms. The title of the article is the most vivid example “shithole shutdown” is used to indicate the nonsensical shutdown, with no good intention, no political gain. Beutler also writes, “Trump has claimed to harbor real empathy for Dreamers” and continues to describe his state as “Trump in particular is out at sea” (January 20, 2018). The first sentence is an exaggerated representation of his positive attitude towards Dreamers. This hyperbole communicates a sarcastic tone since every action D. Trump has taken indicates the opposite of his empathy towards immigrants. “Out at sea” idiom describes his

183 confused state about the particular issue and the overall presidency. Interdiscurisvely, this connects to the discussions about his unfitness for office. Some metaphors worth discussing include “That battle rages tediously this weekend” and “cable television and social media—the only two places in the physical universe where more heat makes darkness deeper” (Beutler, January 20, 2018). Social media are known for allowing more anonymous presence in the public sphere and related to that, also more hostility towards people on the opposite end of the political spectrum. This is a controversial phrase, since more heat implies more fire and light, which is a reference to more information available on social media to feed the conversations; however, social media also foster hostile conversations making matters darker (inciting violence). An example of hyperbole is seen when the author discusses D. Trump’s decision to reject a bipartisan deal. Beutler writes, “When a bipartisan group of senators presented him with a blueprint that did just that, a white nationalist cadre on the right of the Republican Party convinced him that the deal would allow too many black people from what he called “shithole countries”” (Beutler, January 20, 2018). The ‘white nationalist’ is a reference to an unnamed social actor. The reader has no way of knowing or verifying if the actor identifies or is affiliated with the extremist group. The “shithole countries” is an example of intertextuality, discussed earlier as a comment that sparked controversy not only in the US but also globally (Kranz, 2018). This article resembles most of the other articles written by the author. He uses personalization to negatively portray the President. Also, collectivization and nominalizations are used to remove agency and created abstraction when discussing Republicans and Democrats. Some of the war metaphors exacerbate the tensions between actors. One of the discursive practices the author uses is intertextuality, which contextualizes the text. On the third dimension, the article demonstrates the magnitude of the executive power and the subjective and political decision that can hurt certain groups.

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Article 8: Democrats, It's Now or Never for Dreamers Author: Beutler, Published: January 18, 201827 The article is written as an address to Democrats with detailed context of the situation with the shutdown and the leverage Democrats have to negotiate for the protection of Dreamers. This article does not have many social actors and only few of those are personalized. A personalization occurs presenting (Machin & Mayr, 2012) the president. The author uses his name and position to discuss his decision to end DACA, “It’s been months since President Trump voluntarily terminated President Obama’s 2012 deferred action program for childhood arrivals” (Beutler, January 18, 2018). The personalization of an actor grants him agency in the text and rhetorically allows the author to direct the responsibility of consequences of the decision on the person who made it. On a discursive dimension, this technique is used in many articles published by Crooked on the topic of eliminating DACA. On a social dimension, it references the overall restrictionist policy stances of the President and his Party. Another example of personalization combined with inidividualization is when the author introduces previous efforts to pass a bipartisan bill. He writes “Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Dick Durbin (D-IL) were heading to the White House last Thursday” pro-immigration opposition leaders “Sen. (R-AR) and Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-VA)” were called in by White House aids, “to beat the bipartisan reformers to the punch” (Beutler, January 18, 2018). The personalization is expressed not only in using special nouns and names of the representatives, but also it is achieved showing the relational processes in which these actors are participating. On the one hand, the individualization is a way to emphasize the power positions of the social actors within the social context; on the other hand, it shows the complexity of the political process and fixed views on the topic of irregular immigration. These actors are represented by removing Trump’s character out of the discussion “the story

27 https://crooked.com/article/democrats-now-never-dreamers/

185 isn’t much better if you abstract Trump from the picture” (Beutler, January 18, 2018), which is a linguistic move that creates a contrast between the various actors. Personalization in this case is also a technique of contextualizing the text, which is a discursive practice heavily present throughout the article. In addition to individuals, Republicans, Democrats, and Dreamers are represented through collectivization. For instance, Beutler writes, “Republicans need Democratic votes to keep their government open, protecting Dreamers should be the price” (January 18, 2018). Here, Beutler refers to the Republican Party in general. The collective noun is used to generalize the abstract actors. The author uses deonic modality, which also abstracts the activity or social processes that the actors are involved in. Since the action is not specific, and signifies the political system and how decisions are made a more abstract representation of actors and institutions is not problematic. Another example of collectivization is “In-cycle Democrats worry they will be blamed for a shutdown, I think that’s very unlikely” (Beutler, January 18, 2018). This is also a genercisation, which does not provide any specific characterization of who Democrats are. It is more a representation of the Democratic Party as an institution housing the individual representatives. Democrats are activated through a mental process such as “worrying” (Machin & Mayr, 2012). This verb indicates a mental state, which would typically be attributed to an actual person and not an abstract group. Considering the process of re- election, it is also an existential process, since the Democrats are concerned if they make the wrong move, they might not be reelected in the next cycle. The author ends this section with an epistemic modality “I think,” exercising agency and indicating it is an opinion piece. The author uses other instances of epistemic modality to highlight the nature of the article. He writes, “But the truth is, Republican congressional leaders have been outsourcing immigration policy to the Cottons and Good lattes of their party since long before Trump took it over” (Beutler, January 18, 2018). In most of the cases, epistemic modality incudes the word “truth,” which showcases the knowledge of the author on the matter. This rhetoric device also grants the author agency. As discussed earlier, authors in

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Crooked, commonly rely on this tool. Beutler contextualizes his arguments, however does not provide any specific facts, assuming that the audience knows he is right and is telling the truth. This could be problematic, in a context when audience perception of news is that media are highly based (Jones & Ritter, 2018), when media are dismissed as fake, hence distrustful. If the epistemic modality indicates that the article is an opinion piece, the use deonic modality reveals its advocacy nature. Beutler uses deonic modality to describe the potential of Democrats while negotiating for Dreamers, “They can trade their votes for substantive demands, and thus confront Republicans” (Beutler, January 18, 2018). This linguistic device carries a normative aspect, placing a moral burden on Democrats to act on behalf of a vulnerable group. It unveils the power that they have in relation to Republicans. In other words, there is also a relational process in which actors are engaged and it is highlighted even more in “At a baseline level, they [Republicans] can’t fund the government on their own, and are asking Democrats to bail them out” (Beutler, January 18, 2018). In this sentence, Buetler uses dynamic modality to achieve a rhetoric goal of establishing power relations of the actors making decision regarding DACA and the shutdown. Despite being an advocacy piece, the article represents Dreamers through impersonalization and abstraction. The author writes, “Every day, more and more DACA recipients are becoming subject to deportation” as well as “Dreamers deserve to know whether the country, and by extension the Congress, will forsake them under duress” (Beutler, January 18, 2018). The author does not use any names or personal pronouns, rather uses generic references to represent the undocumented immigrants. Even as a piece that is advocating for the protection of the immigrants, it does not grant them any agency. They are represented as passive beneficiaries. Deagentization of the undocumented immigrants is a hegemonic way of covering them as silent and invisible observers of the processes. This is in line with the overall coverage of irregular immigration (Benson, 2014) where the balance of agency and representation is not in favor of immigrants.

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Beutler uses metaphors, hyperbole and hedging throughout the article. One of the metaphors is found in “Republicans in Congress are under the gun to avert a government shutdown” (Beutler, January 18, 2018). This metaphor is a reference to a mental process where the actors, in this case, Republicans, are worried because they need to make a decision in a given period of time. It signifies pressure and an urge of decision-making. Since it has an affective element, the metaphor grants agency to the institution of Republican Party. The sentence, “Most progressives, including senators eyeing 2020 White House bids are refusing to support continued funding for the federal government unless Congress first or simultaneously creates protected status for Dreamers” (Beutler, January 18, 2018) is a way to represent secondary social actors who have a peripheral role to play in the matter. “Progressives eyeing 2020” underscores the division within the Democratic Party between more liberals and moderates. The moderates or interdiscursively discussed as establishment democrats, include the leadership of the Democratic Party (Ch. Schumer and N. Pelosi). This group is more likely to go for a compromise. The progressives on the other hand, are less keen to compromise to restrictionist policies. In “These kinds of divisions aren’t uncommon in party politics, and it’s usually hard to say with much certainty which faction has the better argument” (January 18, 2018), Beutler normalizes the political power dynamics. After contextualizing the issue, demonstrating the different positions and powers of the actors and their potential to solve the issue, Beutler openly calls the readers for action, “Help us make sure that Senate Democrats will not vote for a full spending bill unless it includes protection for Dreamers and children who need health insurance” (Beutler, January 18, 2018). This is a clear indication that this article is participatory and advocacy-oriented. The transparency gives the readers a choice to exercise agency, which is something common in Crooked’s content (podcasts, website). The author uses personalization and individualization to activate those actors that have more power. In the case of the Republican actors these activations also mean negative representation. The author shows the actors engaging in relational and verbal processes. Dreamers are represented using abstraction. The article connects to the larger

188 discourses through intertextuality. The author calls the Democratic leaders to take action, which makes it an advocacy piece. Overall, it shows that compared to Republicans, Democrats are seen as more likely to support undocumented immigrants. Article 9: Democrats, Don’t Leave The Dreamers Stranded-Again Author: Arce, Published: December 20, 201728 This article directly addresses Democrats to protect Dreamers. They are represented using collectivization and genercisation, while other actors are presented through both collectivization and personalization. Arce starts the article as follows “Every election cycle Democrats court the Latino vote with promises of immigration reform” (Arce, December 20, 2017). Elsewhere in the text, Arce writes, “Democrats have made big promises to protect DREAMers” (December 20, 2017). Using a collective noun is a way to show the representatives in the Party jointly. It is also a genericisation, which is close to abstraction (Machin & Mayr, 2012). Despite collectivization, the group is activated as it engages in a verbal process such as “promising.” In another instance, Arce demonstrates how Democrats also engage in a mental process “Democrats from conservative states and districts that Trump won are worried about losing their seats if they hold the line” (Arce, December 20, 2017). Both verbal and mental processes are typical of humans and not institutions, which is why the author uses collectivization instead of the institution of the Democratic Party. She is rhetorically granting Democrats agency to explain the reasoning and affective appeal behind their decisions. The mental process provides the text a personal tone, especially in combination with other linguistic choices. Another major social actor of the text is the group of Dreamers. Acre writes, “President Donald Trump upended the lives of over 800,000 DREAMers when he terminated the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program on September 5 of this year” (Arce, December 20, 2017). This sentence combines a personalization and collectivization. Personalization is used to represent D. Trump and his decision to

28 https://crooked.com/article/democrats-dont-leave-dreamers-stranded/ 189 terminate DACA. This linguistic choice is combined with specification, providing the time of the social action. Similarly, Acre explains “Each day since Trump pulled the plug, over 100 more people become subject to deportation” (Arce, December 20, 2017). The statistics and the timeline function as specifications, which make the policy and the issue of immigration more salient. Individualization also helps to directly confront the decision-making actor, instead of leaving the audience in confusion about the responsibility of the decision. Dreamers are represented as a collective of people affected by the decision. Acre continues, “DREAMers have been told that Democrats would do whatever it takes to get the DREAM Act done” and “If Democrats are serious about protecting DREAMers, there is only one way to show it: demand a vote on a clean DREAM Act before December 22nd” (December 20, 2017). In the first sentence, Dreamers are represented using a passive voice “DREAMers have been told,” which immediately makes them passive actors. However, what mitigates the deagentization is that they are shown to be a part of a verbal process. The power dynamics between the two is clearly expressed in the grammar, whereby Democrats have more power and agency than Dreamers. An example of the authors’ use of functionalization include “The Obama administration implemented DACA in 2012” and “the Republican-led Congress has until December 22 to pass a bill to fund the government” (Arce, December 20, 2017). In the first sentence, the noun “administration” serves as a signifier of the Presidential office carrying out policy and making executive decisions. Instead of activating the actor, through individualizing President Obama, the author activates the process making it central to the argument. This linguistic choice is also a way to contrast the previous administration with the current one, which is presented in a more personalized manner. Similarly, the author uses a metonymy “It’s possible that the White House will operate in good faith for once” (Arce, December 20, 2017). Here, in addition to functionalization, through “White House”, Acre also uses hedging, to emphasize the functionality of the office and the executive branch. Functionalization is way of representing actors through the roles they have within a system. The roles are not neutral and deconstructing the

190 instances of functionalization means revealing the power positions within the political system. Both presidents Trump and Obama held power granted to them as the heads of the executive branch of the government. Acre has granted this article an advocacy tone using different modalities. After expressing hope that the White House might act in good faith, she writes, “but Democrats shouldn’t trust this White House to keep its word, or a nativist like John Kelly to make demands that Democrats can accept” (Arce, December 20, 2017). The deonic modality “Should not trust” is a way of exercising agency and inserting oneself into the text. While linguistically this is the most obvious manifestation of the modality, Acre establishes support for her position throughout the article. She also uses dynamic modality, “If Republicans can’t present Democrats a bill that Democrats can vote for, then they will shut down their own government, meaning Democrats have all the leverage they need to demand a legislative solution for DREAMers” (Arce, December 20, 2017). Here, the actors are engaged in a relationship that shows interdependence and a power struggle between the two major Parties. These modalities are also a way to contextualize the situation. In a more traditional form of reporting the contextualization would be more fact based and less constructed through modalities. In an opinion and advocacy piece, such as this article, the author relies on the linguistic and rhetorical devices more. Similar to modalities, metaphors change the tone of the article. Acre does not use many metaphors in this particular text. She uses the following metaphor to criticize Democrats from conservative states, “But if they lose their seats, it will be because they showed no spine, instead of standing to do the right thing” (Arce, December 20, 2017). She utilizes this anatomical metaphor to indicate the weakness of Democrats who fear losing reelection and are potentially ready to sacrifice a deal protecting Dreamers. Combined with hedging, she also establishes a normative frame, stating “right side of the history” highlighting the importance of the moral decision-making, which will benefit the vulnerable group of undocumented immigrants. Acre also recalls various examples when Democrats made promises to Latino voters regarding undocumented immigrants and broke their promises after getting to the

191 office. These examples are not isolated, rather contextualized representation of events with chronological details and descriptions of actors. The author establishes a few instances of intertextuality citing articles from Washington Post and Politico. The references to media organizations are relational processes that add credibility to the arguments and demonstrate the salience of the issue. To end the article, she uses a personal pronoun, and possessive form revealing her identity and belonging to the Latino community, on behalf of which she is advocating and is expressing her demand and hope for Democratic leadership to protect Dreamers. The author relies on collectivization, genercization, functionalization, metaphors, hyperboles, and metonymies to represent the actors. Collectivization is sued to talk about Democrats, while genercization is used to refer to Dreamers. The author uses makes references to related discourses and contextualizes the article for the reader. In this advocacy piece, the author shows how Dreamers and Latino/Latina population are in need for political support and protection. Article 10: A Fight Democrats Can Win Author: Arce, Published: November, 6, 201729 This is article was written before the government shutdown happened. It is an opinion piece that is written with many assumptions about the possible effect of the shutdown. Only few social actors are personalized and individualized in the text. First, the author mentions the President, “Trump created this mess when he ended DACA” and in “Trump promised to clean up the mess he created, and then reneged on his own promise” (Arce, November, 6, 2017). In both cases, the President is granted agency and represented as an active participant engaged in mental and verbal processes (Machin & Mayr, 2012). This personalization allows direct address and confrontation on a rhetorical level, which is often practiced by Crooked’s authors. The next social actor (van Leeuwen, 2008) is Sen. , who is represented also an active participant engaged in a

29 https://crooked.com/article/fight-democrats-can-win/

192 verbal process of “promising” to vote in a way to positively impact Dreamers. Harris is not a primary actor, however her verbal activity is quoted with a direct link to her interview to the media, which is a linguistic way of establishing credibility, transparency and relations with other media through intertextuality (Fairclough, 1995). All of these techniques are accepted journalistic practices. Personalization signifies the political power the actors hold within the text and in the political system. Both Harris and Trump wield powers, and the article shows the dynamics between the two and relations between the offices they represent. There are instances where the actors are represented through impersonalization and collectivization. Discussing Republicans, Acre writes, “Republicans in both the House and Senate are too divided over governing priorities” (November 6, 2017). She does not use any specific names and does not discuss the details of division. Even if some were pro-Dreamers, it is unclear from the representation based on collectivization (Machin & Mayr, 2012), which mostly symbolizes the agreement on the issue. Another group that is represented through collectivization and genercisation is Dreamers. As an effort to contextualize the article, Acre explains, “DACA recipients, whose permits expired between September 5th, 2017 and March 5, 2018, were able to re- apply for a new two-year permit” (Arce, November, 6, 2017). The genercisation of this group is a passive representation, however it is not dehumanizing because she describes how major aspects of their lives are affected and she also refers to them as “undocumented Americans.” Thus, the author is not “othering” the Dreamers, rather creates inclusiveness and belonging to the American society, as she also refers to them as “undocumented Americans.” Functionalizations are used to represent government institutions and their actions. Acre writes, “The Department of Homeland Security did not send out notices to DACA beneficiaries informing them the program was ending” (Arce, November, 6, 2017). She shows the dysfunctional way of implementing the executive order that she explains came from another institution “The Trump administration” which “would like to see funding for a border wall” (Arce, November, 6, 2017). Both institutions are activated through

193 their participation in material and mental processes. The power dynamic within the three actors indicates that Dreamers are at the lowest level of the power hierarchy. Acre uses a number of metaphors and hyperboles in the article. She writes for instance, “This would be a dangerous hand to play—government shutdowns are very unpopular” (November 6, 2017), which resembles the negotiations and dynamics between Republicans and Democrats to a game. Such gameification, however, might be problematic for the interpretations, since it removes the seriousness of real life consequences for the undocumented immigrants (who are not even at the game table). She also uses a war metaphor; “they [Republicans] held government funding hostage in a last-ditch attempt to destroy the ” (Arce, November 6, 2017). Holding hostage is a war metaphor whereby one powerful actor uses leverage over the other seeking some gain and interest. War metaphors are problematic, since the hostility is highly exaggerated and leaves no political imagination for the readers to hope for common ground solutions. A nature-related metaphor is found in “They realize that without the DREAM Act, the country will topple off one cliff or another” (Arce, November 6, 2018), which refers to the divisions of the views and how lack of cooperation will diminish the interdependence and weaken the institutions and their functions within the society. Modalities are common in Acre’s articles. In this article she uses epistemic, deonic and dynamic modalities (Machin & Mayr, 2012). An example that combines all three to some degree is the following sentence “If Democrats relent to pass clean, short- term CRs, they can and must revisit the DREAM Act every time the next CR expires until Republicans relent, whether for the good of the DREAMers or to fund the government on a lengthier, more considered basis” (Arce, November 6, 2018). Deonic and epistemic modalities are a way for the author to exercise agency and make her voice more vocal. Dynamic modalities demonstrate the power relations between the different social actors, observed in the following sample, “It is exceedingly unlikely that Republicans will be able to agree on a funding bill that would pass absent Democratic opposition” (Arce, November 6, 2018). The use of modalities is balanced with

194 contextualization and argumentation based on references to polls, and other media, or direct quotes, which all add credibility to the piece. Nevertheless, modalities might be strong indicators of bias, for those readers who do not have high level of critical media literacy skills. Overall, the article consists of such semantic choices as personalization, and individualization. The usual actors are represented in more generalized ways, Dreamers, as well as having more active roles, political Parties. There are more presuppositions in this article because it was written before the government shutdown, which means that it is speculative. On the sociocultural level it shows the high level of contestation of the issue. The following chapter presents the summary of the findings from both focus groups and critical discourse analysis. It explains how they are related, what they mean, and how they inform our understanding about alternative media and political participation.

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Chapter 5: Discussion In a democracy, media are expected to be independent and impartial, so they can inform the public about wrongdoings of the power holders. However, public trust towards mainstream media has been declining (Jones, 2018), due to some systematic issues. First, mainstream media have been constrained to sufficiently fulfill democratic functions due to some aspects of neoliberal policies. Specifically, deregulation and waves in the communication sphere have created favorable conditions for the growing conglomeration and the concentration of media ownership. The recent examples include the entertainment giant, Disney’s acquisition of the 21 Century Fox (Shwartz, 2019) and the procurement of Time Warner Inc. (including CNN and HBO) by the telecommunication giant AT&T (AT&T, 2018). The dangers that media concentration presents for a democracy have been captured by critical scholars discussed in the second chapter (McChesney, 2000; Herman & Chomsky, 2002; Curran, 2011). The second issue that could have lead to public distrust towards mainstream media is that they are indirectly influencing the very politics they report on through campaign financing. According to the political campaign financing legislation of the United States, corporations can establish political action committees (PAC) to donate money to a political campaign of their choice under the supervision of Federal Election Commission (FEC) (Federal Election Commission, n.d.). Media corporations have not been passive in this regard. All the major media corporations have created PACs to donate money to both Republican and Democratic political campaigns. Time Warner Inc. Federal PAC contributed $643,515 in fiscal year alone (FEC, n.d.; Warner Media 2018). Time Warner assures that it does not solicit money from journalists affiliated with its media units; however, it makes no such claims regarding the editors or the executives (Warner Media 2018). The largest media , Comcast, which houses Comcast Corporation and NBC Universal PAC, spent five million dollars in 2016 (Open Secrets, n.d.). Finally, FOX PAC, owned by Twenty-First Century Fox, spent $639,023, giving $180,000 to the Republicans and $140,000 to the Democrats in 2016 (FEC, n.d.). Their campaign policy clarifies that the PAC “is funded by voluntary contributions from

204 eligible employees of the company” (21CF, n.d.). It is important to note that donations are for the fiscal year of 2016, which was the Presidential Election year. In this context, it is important to understand how alternative media fill the void left by mainstream media. The existing research on alternative media shows how such outlets could contribute to important democratic outcomes (Atkinson, 2017); however, many of the studies focus on older forms of alternative media. This study examines digital alternative media outlets. I also employ a comparative approach, which is rarely applied in the alternative media studies. This study aimed to first, expand the knowledge on the heterogeneity of alternative media outlets. For this objective, I provided a brief overview of the history of right-wing alternative media, highlighting the role of such media in the society. As a second goal, I attempted to understand how alternative media could foster political participation among young people. To accomplish this goal, I adopted a two-pronged methodological approach. One focused on audience reception, whereby I conducted six focus groups with 24 young people. The other one focused on the media content with the application of critical discourse analysis. In this chapter, I synthesize the findings of both critical discourse analysis and the focus groups to answer the main research questions. Then, I highlight the unexpected findings and explain their implications. Finally, I elaborate how the results relate to the democratic models discussed in the first chapter. Role and Functions of Alternative Media The field of alternative media studies has been growing for the past few decades (Atkinson, 2017), underscoring the importance of such media in the society. Definitions of alternative media are wide-ranging, mostly emphasizing the democratic and participatory potential these platforms encompass. However, most of the definitions in the literature have been formulated before of at the dawn of the Internet age. We are not fully aware of the democratization of access to media production of the new platforms. Alternative media have been characterized as non-professional media before (Forde, 2011), however with the social media non-professional production and dissemination of

205 content has become somewhat mainstream and less alternative. This is especially the case for young people who are avid users of digital media. This is why it was important to understand their perception of alternative media. As a result of the focus groups, I found that the participants understand alternative media differently than the literature suggests and based on those perceptions they have different ideas about the roles such media might have in a society. First, a group of participants defined alternative media as outlets or platforms that are not the mainstream- cable TV. They prioritized the medium, particularly emphasizing the affordances of digital and social media as the alternative. These respondents belong to the millennial generation who grew up with the Internet and experienced the of social media. As the early users of Web 2.0 (interactivity) and Web 3.0 (networks), the participants thought of interactivity as a given affordance; rather than a privilege. These are young people who are a click away from live streaming to tens and hundreds of followers, have a different understanding about access to production. Unlike the previous alternative media audience research findings (Rauch, 2015; Rojas & Puig-i-Abril, 2009; Sotirovic & McLeod, 2001), the participants of the focus groups prioritized the medium over the content of alternative media. This could be related to the demographic characteristics of the participants as well as the amount of exposure to such media and alternative content. One of the unexpected findings of the study was the association of alternative media with alternative facts and fake news. Even though not every participant defined alternative media in these terms, the theme was consistent in all six focus groups. This association reflects the recent rhetoric employed by the White House, dismissing credible media organizations as biased and untrustworthy. Political discourse saturates the media and eventually infiltrates into the daily discourses of the citizens, influencing their views of social reality. Public discourses are the products of the media consumption. The other factor that could explain this association is that the participants spend significant part of their time on social media, which are perfect hubs for fake news (Vargo, Guo & Amazeen, 2017). Considering that they define alternative, as anything that is digital and the digital is where they find fake information, it is logical that they

206 also think that alternative media are fake and they need to avoid them. The mediated environment exposes them to fake news every day, because social media has democratized the availability of unfiltered and unedited information. Misinformation, as much as lack of information, could lead to less deliberation, to poor political decisions and eventually and exodus from politics. Lack of political participation further distances people from the political process of decision-making and the alienation manifests in weaker democracy. Another unexpected revelation of the focus groups was that many students did not know about alternative media at all. The overwhelming majority of the participants were from communication majors and the fact that even those who directly studied media were unaware of this category was striking. There were only four participants among 24 who defined alternative media in ways that align with the scholarly definitions. There is a need for revisiting older definitions and reconceptualization of alternative media. Lack of understanding what such media mean for people also limits the evaluation of their democratic potential. That is why more research should be done in this area to develop a relevant language able to capture the heterogeneity of alternative media and describe their relation to the citizens’ daily life. The lack of the knowledge among participants demonstrates the gap in the media studies curriculum. Studying alternative media will not only enrich the students’ knowledge about production, content and audiences of this media category but will also demonstrate the interdisciplinary nature of the subject. The students will have the opportunity to learn about the media in relation to civil society and democratic participation. If young people are not equipped with proper knowledge and skills to recognize and appreciate media, the latter will not be able to fulfill any democratic function. The next section is a discussion about the roles of mainstream and alternative media in a democracy. Roles of Mainstream Media and Alternative Media: Literature-Based Democracy relies on social institutions such as civil society and media to ensure dynamic processes of power distribution. Some vital functions attributed to mainstream

207 media in a society include informing the public, serving as a public forum, fostering social empathy, mobilization, and serving as an intermediary between people and the government (Schudson, 2008). Alternative media also perform some of the same functions as the mainstream media (Kenix, 2011). For instance, they can foster a public sphere and generate deliberation (Raeijmaekers & Maeseele, 2015). Nevertheless, there are structural and normative differences between the two media. Mainstream media have historically been larger and more resourceful, outreaching mass audiences; meanwhile alternative media have typically been small scale (Atton, 2004; Forde, 2011). Alternative media are also associated with activism (Lievrouw, 2011), which has placed higher normative burden on them to facilitate mobilization for social action (Atton, 2002; Downing 2002; Lee 2015). Moreover, Dahlgren & Alvares (2013) argued that alternative media should foster civic culture, which prepares ground for participation. On the content level, they are expected to create news and narratives that challenge the mainstream frames by producing content based on alternative values (Atton, 2002). Alternative media are expected to create counter public sphere and create more democratic spaces of communication (Atkinson, 2010; Atton, 2004; Coyer, Dowmunt & Fountain, 2007; Fenton, 2007; Forde, 2011). These functions have been assigned to alternative media outlets with the assumption that they are left-wing, and oriented towards social change. These functions derive from the activist history of the left-wing alternative media; however there are limitations to this. First, there is an assumption that performing all these functions would inevitably lead to positive outcomes because the intentions are good. Second, right-wing alternative media outlets could perform all the above-mentioned functions too. Both arguments are discussed more extensively in the following sections, answering the question about the differences of roles of alternative right-wing and left- wing outlets within the alternative media landscape. Role of Alternative Media: Audience Perspectives Due to the phenomenological nature of the study, I was interested in the experience of young people and their perceptions of the functions of alternative media.

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One of the findings was the participants did not differentiate between left-wing and right- wing media when talking about media functions. While the political leaning did not matter, their own perceptions of alternative were central to defining the functions. Two categories of responses emerged in this regard. First, alternative media (both left and right) were believed to contribute to and diversify the pool of ideas and inform the public about the political developments. The language of describing diversification of information is interesting. The phrase “marketplace of ideas” reflects the neoliberal economic and libertarian language dominant in the public discourse. While a majority talked about ideas and information in such economic terms, only one student described this function of media using the term “democratization of news and information.” This democratizing function was mainly attributed to the digital media or the medium. This does not, however, mean that they trust digital media more or less than the mainstream media. This finding brings us back to the earlier argument that definition and conceptualization of alternative media have to be revisited. The reason is that people will see the role of such media based on their understanding of it and trust towards it and we, as scholars, need to capture that understanding. The language of focus group discussions reveals that our discourses on media are more market-oriented and less democracy-oriented. Students of media and communication majors should have more frames of reference to talk about how media relates to democracy. An important aspect of the education in this field is the ability to develop a vocabulary that allows discussing the relationship between media and democracy in meaningful ways. The participants mentioned that the second function of alternative media could be “conspiracy incubators.” The association with alternative facts and conspiracy is implicit. One of the students connected alternative media with Alex Jone’s Infowars, which is renown for spreading conspiracy theories. In other instances, there were no distinctions whether the conspiracies were from the Right or the Left, instead, the students highlighted some of the reasons why digital media were better suited for fake news. This finding emphasizes the importance of intentions of alternative media outlets in relation to

209 their functions. As will be discussed below, there is a need for a normative frame of conceptualizing and evaluating the intentionality that precedes the functions of alternative media. Discourses of Right-Wing Alternative Media: The Daily Wire It has been argued that one of the main functions of alternative media platforms is to counter the hegemonic narratives of mainstream media (Atkinson, 2010; Kenix, 2011). Since critical discourse analysis is a tool to identify how ideologies and hegemony materialize in discourses (Fairclough, 1992), I utilized this method to analyze selected content of two alternative media. I analyzed the meanings, presupposition, metaphors and other linguistic devices, as well as their connection to discursive practices in the field of journalism and sociocultural context to identify the ideologies naturalized in the articles published on Crooked Media and The Daily Wire. I found that both alternative media outlets naturalize hegemonic narratives; however, they do so to varying degrees. The Daily Wire mostly reproduced the conservative frames of ‘criminality, amnesty, illegality,’ as well as ethnocentric frames such as ‘immigrants are a threat’ to cover irregular immigration (Benson, 2014; Haynes, et al., 2016). The discourses of this Right-wing outlet dehumanized undocumented immigrants portraying them as invisible to the American society. What is more, the irregular immigrants were granted no agency in any of the ten articles and were mostly personalized when they were discussed in relation to a criminal activity. In their discussion of DACA and the government shutdown, the social actors who were granted agency in the discursive events (Van Leeuwen, 2008) were the Republican leaders. The other group included the leadership of the Democratic Party. The latter were granted agency to a lesser degree. Representing them as active participants of the discourses was due to Democrats’ readiness to compromise and provide some funding for building a wall on the US-Mexico border. On a discursive practice level, the articles used a few instances of intertextuality, however the coverage of the issues mostly lacked proper contextualization. On the sociocultural dimension, The Daily Wire explicitly and implicitly endorsed harsh restrictive

210 immigration policies of D. Trump’s administration. The Daily Wire authors appeared to counter pro-immigration hegemonic discourses. This is not an unexpected finding, since The Daily Wire editor, Ban Shapiro, openly talks about his support for D. Trump’s restrictive immigration policies. The ideological afflation is not a negative phenomenon, especially when the media outlet is transparent about it. And Shapiro takes pride in running ‘the largest and fastest growing conservative network in the country’ (The Daily Wire, n.d.). Nonetheless, it means that the functions the outlet has to perform have politicized agendas. Even though an alternative media outlet can be subjective, especially if it advocates for a social cause (Forde30, 2011), this could also be problematic. Given that the audiences of such platforms recognize the ideological or political leaning of the outlet and have an invested interest in following them, partly because of those ideologies, the normalized hegemonic discourses of such outlets would most likely be interpreted through dominant frames (Hall, 1978). As the CDA results show, in the case of TheDaily Wire, the dominant narrative is potentially harmful for the undocumented immigrants because they perpetuate negative stereotypical images of undocumented immigrants. This could incite anger and violence instead of highlighting the potential for a consensual solution, which is closer to how people see the answer to the DACA debacle. A Gallup poll found that “Strong majorities of Republicans and Republican- leaning independents (75%) as well as Democrats and Democratic leaners (92%) favor allowing immigrants brought into the country illegally as children to have a chance to become U.S. citizens” (Newport, 2018). Even the participants of the focus groups suggested the issue of DACA is bipartisan. They felt frustrated at both media outlets for covering it as a partisan problem, accusing and blaming Republicans and Democrats depending on the leaning of the media outlet. The participants mentioned they would prefer a more balanced coverage that could show a possibility of a common ground solution that would benefit Dreamers. By eliminating the fact of bipartisan public support

30 Forde’s (2011) argument was about the left-wing alternative media. 211 for a protection of DACA recipients is not only harmful for the vulnerable group of undocumented immigrants, but also it undermines the potential for a dialogue. The weakening of public sphere is dangerous for democracy as it minimizes the role of deliberation, which would bring people together to discuss a controversial public policy in a peaceful way and not increase the potential of violence. These findings suggest two considerations. First, definitions and functions of alternative media should include the microcosm of right-wing media. Alternative right- wing media have been crucial for the mobilization and activism of the conservative segments of the population. They have migrated on digital platforms, which means they have similar potential as the Left to reach to young people. Moreover, the representatives of the new generation of right-wing media commentators have new practices and value system that require a better understanding. The use of the term “alternative” with “Right” is sometimes misleading since it is interpreted as the extreme alt-Right. The extreme white supremacist Right, is a category that represents a unique media system, which is out of the scope of this project. My argument is that equalizing the moderate conservative Right with alt-Right extremist media is a mistake. Such misconception already took place with the generalization of JBS and the conservative movement, leading to the isolation of conservative voices including reasoned ones, which could enhance the debate rather than radicalizing discourses. We should be aware of the past to make better judgments in the present. Political ideology is a spectrum encompassing conservative, progressive, moderate, radical and extreme viewpoints. The association of extremist alt-right with Right-wing alternative media, at a minimum, alienates and dismisses audiences who might be interested in dialogue and learning about more perspectives. The second consideration based on the findings is that functions attributed to alternative media should not be based on the assumption of good intention or progressive change in society. Pragmatic functions attributed to alternative media should be informed by a normative frame. An ethical and normative stance can help to assign new functions and evaluate the performance of the existing functions of alternative media both on the

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Left and on the Right. The fact that it is a complex task and requires a consideration of such important questions as “who will define the norms? What would those be?” do not eliminate the need. I suggest that the process has to start with academics; it should also include journalists, practitioners, and the public. The need for a renewed normative stance is even more prevalent in the current social and political context. Discourses of Left-wing Alternative Media: Crooked Media Crooked Media articles differed from The Daily Wire in the style and the tone; however, they did not sufficiently counter the mainstream narratives about irregular immigration. I found that the articles of Crooked Media were more humanizing and advocated on behalf of the undocumented immigrants. For example, one of the authors described DACA recipients as “undocumented Americans.” This language is a stark contrast to The Daily Wire’s use of “illegal immigrants.” Similar to Daily Wire, Crooked discursively provided agency to Democratic and Republican leaderships. For the representation of Republicans, it was a strategic way to directly confront them for the situation and accuse them in wrongdoing. Crooked authors also criticized the Democratic Party for its inability to protect Dreamers. Their criticism of Democrats, however, was within the boundaries of the existing political system and hegemonic power structures. The explanation for this could be that the founders of Crooked Media are former staff members of Obama administration who worked with the establishment Democratic Party for years. Obama’s administration had one of the most restrictive immigration policies, which means that if they are ‘overly’ critical of Democrats and the system, issues of legitimacy could be raised. The representation of undocumented immigrants in the articles of Crooked Media was more positive but still hegemonic because the authors did not directly give agency to the affected group. No undocumented immigrant was quoted in any of the articles and the group was mostly portrayed as a passive observer of the discursive events. The silencing is hegemonic because it normalizes the invisibility and oppression of the vulnerable on a discursive level. Discourses, in which Dreamers are not active participants, normalize the stereotypical image of Dreamers as beneficiaries of the state program who bring an

213 economic cost to the American taxpayer. As a progressive media outlet, the opposite framing would be to present the economic and non-material contributions Dreamers have in the society, such as embracing diversity. Additionally, the analysis indicates that Crooked’s articles often mention that Dreamers were brought to the United States as children. First, it reproduces the frame commonly used by liberal media. Research shows that a simple mention of the word “children” leads to empathy and less restrictive attitudes among audiences, especially among Republicans (Chuang & Roemer, 2015). Second, despite the positive connotation of the frame, children are passive and do not have agency to make a decision. They depend on others and are not self-sufficient members of society. Thus, this frame achieves secondary or implicit passivation while representing undocumented immigrants who are at this stage adults with lived experiences. As Stuart Hall (1978) demonstrated, negative representations of minorities, implicit or explicit, contribute to the negative attitudes of the majority, white population, moreover, media images and narratives influence the ways minority groups form their racial and social identities based on such negative representations. Schudson (2008) argues that one of the functions of mainstream media is to create social empathy. I suggest that it is a function for alternative media as well and that left-leaning Crooked Media is better at this than the conservative, The Daily Wire. Deactivation of immigrants is a common discursive practice in journalism, hence Crooked Media is not countering the hegemony, rather naturalizes the problematic representation. The texts had many war related metaphors, which makes discourse more hostile and has a potential to deepen polarization. The participants of the focus groups noticed this as well. They pointed out the dividing aspect of such discourses, and felt it was discouraging, since such rhetoric did not offer any avenue of reconciliation or bipartisan solution. We see that even alternative left-wing outlet can weaken the public sphere. In addition to the critical aspects, the positive practices of Crooked Media are noteworthy too. I found that Crooked uses more intertextuality and is more transparent in reporting than The Daily Wire. This is essential for alternative media to be able to

214 generate public trust through credibility. Their contextualization of the texts is at a higher level. The authors used modalities to advocate for Dreamers. Advocacy journalism is more typical to Left-leaning alternative outlets (Forde, 2011). On a sociocultural dimension the outlet is a progressive outlet aligned with the establishment Democratic Party and the more progressive branch of Democrats as of late 2018- early 2019. I propose an additional function of alternative media outlets should be to generate social trust through civil discourse, regardless their political leaning. This can be achieved on a discursive level by connecting varying political narratives and offering new frames for dialogue. This proposition is based on the findings of the two types of analysis conducted in this study. First, on the content level, both alternative media outlets reproduced polarizing discourses and used blame tactics. Second, on the audience reception level, the participants of the focus groups who read the articles and listened to the podcasts of both outlets felt discouraged and disappointed by reproduction of polarization. These findings show the need for a constructive role of alternative media relevant to the lifeworld of their audiences in the historic moment they live. Alternative Media’s Emotional Appeal as a Catalyst of Political Participation Political participation is the pillar of all models of democracy and manifests in different forms. Political participation is voluntary and is oriented towards challenging the existing power relations (Brady, 1997; Ekman & Amna, 2012). Media are the intermediary entity between public and the political system (Habermas, 1996). They can facilitate participation or stifle it explicitly or in covert ways. Left-leaning alternative media have been characterized as more participatory than the mainstream media (Kenix, 2011). Thus, the second goal of this study was to understand whether The Daily Wire and Crooked Media could foster political participation. I conducted critical discourse analysis to highlight the ways in which these alternative outlets foster political participation on the level of content. The Daily Wire articles have a traditional style of one-way communication. They are written as opinion and information pieces. Crooked Media articles on the other hand, are written as advocacy pieces and have a more empathetic tone, since they use personalization to a

215 higher degree. These articles were longer, more contextualized and directly addressed Democrats calling them to act on DACA and ensure a permanent protection for the undocumented immigrants. One article, particularly, ends with a call to audiences to get engaged and help to protect Dreamers. This is consistent with Crooked Media’s philosophy. Their website has a “take action” tab which connects the audiences with actions that they are involved in, with other progressive activist organizations and causes, and even with political campaigns. The audience members can volunteer, donate and join the groups directly and indirectly. Crooked Media facilitates civic engagement and consistently calls for political participation, including campaign volunteering through various platforms. In addition to the articles and the website, they also call for participation and mobilization in their podcasts and live events around the country. Their most famous podcast, Pod Save America has 1.5 million subscribers, which is a large outreach for an alternative media outlet. The participatory characteristic is also typical to the right-wing media. The history of the Right-wing alternative media outlets indicates that these platforms facilitated participation in various stages of the development of conservative movement. For instance, in the 1950s, when the right-wing media outlets were starting to build up, their focus was ideological and the goal was to effectively mobilize young people around conservative ideas and values (Hemmer, 2016). This allowed shifting the focus later, so that during the second wave of the the goal was to build a movement and gain political power. From the results of the critical discourse analysis, one can observe that Ben Shapiro is also an ideological commentator, rather than a pragmatic activist. Under his editorial supervision, the articles of The Daily Wire are producing ideological discourses without calling for actual participation on the ground. It is important to recall Van Dijk and Hacker’s (2018) proposition that not all participation is positive and more participation does not imply more democracy. Considering the endorsement of harsh restrictive immigration policies and Shapiro’s criticism of the President’s softness for not

216 deporting undocumented immigrants, it is possible that The Daily Wire would rally pro- deportation protests, which would not aim at a positive social change. Critical Discourse Analysis would not be sufficient as the sole method of analysis of such a complex phenomenon. For this reason, I asked the focus group participants to elaborate about their experiences of political participation. Affective Politics and Communicative Forms of Political Participation Analyzing the results of the discussions with the focus group participants, I found that most of their perceptions about participation aligned with the literature. They all thought about political participation as voting, volunteering for a campaign, canvassing, going to a rally, etc. However, the most interesting finding in these conversations was the consistent theme of “being informed about political events” as a form of political participation. The participants explained that a person is politically active if she/he follows the news. Moreover, by politically active, the participants meant picking a side on an issue someone deeply cares about and speaking up, exercise agency and if possible, acting on it. Ekman and Amna (2012) described such political behavior as identity-based action, whereby young people intentionally decide which issue to support and what kind of action to participate in without having to commit to an institutional movement. It is noteworthy, that such participation is mostly individual, and is closely tied to digital technologies, since the information access and expression of views are mostly happening online for this age group (Van Dijk & Hacker, 2018). This finding signals the shift within the society, which Bennett et al. (2011) characterized as “actualizing citizenship” (p. 839), which allows freer engagement within a network of peers. This finding underscores that in addition to representative institutionalized ways of democratic channels of participation, the students valued communicative activities of participation. Political participation is measured by the amount of effort people make, including regularly following the news, clicking, liking, and physically voting. It is also measured by the effectiveness of the activity to reach an outcome, which according to Van Dijk & Hacker (2018), “depends on the view of democracy” (pp. 55-56). It is widely established that public sphere is the core of deliberative democracy (Harper, 2011). Digital media

217 platforms offer multiple public spheres, which make online participation more effective for opinion making (Van Dijk & Hacker, 2018). In other words, online platforms could strengthen elements of deliberative democracy. On he other hand, offline participation (voting, protests, etc.) is more effective for decision-making purposes within a representative model (Van Dijk & Hacker, 2018). Both online and offline participation forms are mediated, since young people use media to access information and to act on it sometimes using special apps of social media. In short, we have moved from an associational model of citizenship that required institutionalized engagement to an identity-based and participatory civics (Zuckerman, 2014). However, this does not imply that the paradigms are mutually exclusive. Contrary, political participation represents a spectrum of civic lifestyle. What did the students think about the relationship of alternative media and political participation? I addressed this question, first by investigating whether the political leaning of the outlet plays any role. One of the unexpected findings of the study was the participants did not prioritize nor did they differentiate the political leaning of the alternative media outlet as the main criterion encouraging or stifling participation. They did not see political-leaning as a factor that swayed their decision to be politically engaged. The factor that made a difference was the degree of the affective politics they found in the content and style of the content delivery. The respondents seemed to value facts and information, however, it is the emotional appeal and the connection that made them more willing to be politically active. They explained that media stories that showed how somebody’s life was directly affected by a political decision would motivate them to help that person. Indeed, after reading the article by Crooked Media, more participants expressed the view that it was emotionally more appealing and was more personal. They felt empathetic and ready to do something to help Dreamers. The article was an advocacy piece where the author identified as a Latina voter calling for support for her community. This was not a human-interest story, yet, reading it felt personal for the participants. The critical discourse analysis of this article helps to answer why they felt so. The answer is

218 that the author strategically used discursive devices to construct a reality where her community is shown as vulnerable and in need for support. She used a first person plural pronoun “we” and a concrete noun “as a Latina voter” to personalize her as the narrator and show her belonging to this particular social groups (even though she is not an undocumented immigrant). This creates the impression that she is talking directly to the reader, while she is addressing the politicians. Also, she exercised agency by highlighting her identity. On the discursive level, she practiced alternative journalism (Forde, 2011). On the sociocultural level, she indicates the loyalty of Latino voters to the Democratic Party and the broken promises they made to this group. She also countered the hegemonic idea that Democrats are pro-immigrant. They are more so than Republicans, however, the last Democratic president deported more immigrants than the previous Republican presidents combined. These semantic features of the article, identified through CDA, show how the article is strategically constructed to seem affective. In this sense, the article created social empathy (Schudson, 2008), which triggered motivation to do something to help a more vulnerable group, reflected in participants’ responses. In contrast, the article from The Daily Wire did not have a strong emotional impact on the readers. This could be related to the informative style of reporting of the outlet where the degree of abstraction of the discourses was higher. These differences became visible as a result of the CDA. I found that the discourses on the Left were more positive in tone and triggered empathy, while the Right utilized more assertive tone associated with negative emotions, such as anger. Both outlets published articles with very few human-interest stories. As mentioned earlier, there has also been a social shift towards less institutionalized and more interest-oriented participation especially among the youth. The affective element is important because issue-based activism is value-laden and acknowledging those values could motivate the young people. And both right-wing and left-wing media outlets online provide channels of issue-based activities. They both create favorable conditions for online activities since they reside on digital platform. Due

219 to the subjective nature, alternative media on both sides can appeal to the emotions of the participants. Another finding of the study is that the medium of content consumption impacts the audiences’ reactions. The audio from the podcast episodes energized the responses more than the written articles. It was interesting to observe how some participants neutral after reading the articles, became animated after listening to the pods. Some participants felt angry at Ben Shapiro’s comments and expressed more motivation to be politically engaged to counter his power. These students were already active and politically engaged. Other participants felt motivated to act after listening to Shapiro because they felt they could trust him, since he sounded convincing. Finally, there was the small number of people who were not interested in politics. Indeed, the results support the argument that politics is affective and it always involves emotions (Mouffe, 2013). Alternative media outlets are in a better position to capitalize the affective aspect of politics because their audiences are emotionally invested. They also are more likely to develop a sense of loyalty, as some focus group participants explained, people who regularly consume content from Crooked Media and The Daily Wire are more politically engaged. Alternative media outlets on the Left and on the Right appear to repeat the historic patterns. The Left uses innovative technologies for more political mobilization and fosters social empathy. On the Right, the media platforms are used for ideological publicity and less manifest forms of political mobilization. Their influences on the audiences need to be studied more systematically. Alternative Media and Different Democracy Models The political system in the United States relies on representative model more than the other models of democracy. The process of political decision-making happens through institutionalized politics and elections, based on the majoritarian rule. However, the complexity of the political system and the variety of institutions and mechanisms of organizing public life require and combine some elements from different democratic models. For example, the courts, juries, commonly exercise deliberative practices to

220 make a ruling. Politicians and candidates organize talk-centric democratic events such as town halls and debates during their campaigns. One constant in these democratic practices is the central role of media. They provide the information base of political knowledge necessary for participation and decision-making. Ideally, media offer avenues of non-institutional participation, for instance through the public sphere. In the following section I discuss the implications of the findings for a democratic system. I will mainly focus on the functions of alternative media identified during the focus groups and will elaborate on their fitness for each of the models of democracy. One of the functions of alternative media in a democracy is to diversify the viewpoints and the pool of information people use for developing political knowledge. According to the responses of the participants, being informed is also a way of political participation. This means that by adequately informing people, alternative media would potentially foster political participation. In support of this argument, one has to pay attention to the correlation (non statistical) between the engagement level of participants and their consumption of alternative media content. Those participants who regularly consumed alternative media content were politically more engaged and active. The diversity of ideas allows people to be informed, vote, and engage in discussions, which are representative and deliberative elements of participation. It is the decision of citizens how to use the information, however. When it comes to the choice of the audience, more studies are needed to understand whether the audiences find these outlets because they are already active and interested (confirmation bias cite) or they are accidentally exposed to the platforms (Van Dijk & Hacker, 2018), which makes them more interested in politics due to the specific content they produce. If the latter is the case, then alternative media outlets have more potential to motivate political participation. Alternative media outlets discussed in this study provide very specific political commentary from opposing perspectives. This is what the students described as diversifying the ideas. In a representative democracy this means more opportunities for informed decision-making. It has to be noted, these are digital platforms and some

221 members of the society will not have the same access as others due to the digital divide. Nevertheless, those who consume alternative content could be more privileged because of higher income or higher education levels. These audiences have more information for making an informed choice. The representative model focused on elections, privileges the mainstream media outlets because they still reach the mass audiences. In this sense, alternative media are more peripheral in this model, even though they can be more central in deliberative democracy. The results of the critical discourse analysis and focus groups indicate the need for alternative media to counter the mainstream narratives and provide a unique political commentary without demonizing the opposite side. The audiences know the political leaning of these outlets and think of these as a healthy element of democracy; however, what they disapprove is the hostility towards the other side. Moreover, when it came to the issue of DACA, respondents felt disappointed that both outlets presented it as a partisan problem and did not offer any hope for a constructive political solution. This was confirmed with the analysis of the discourses, whereby both media outlets problematized the issue, eliminating the political imagination for a bipartisan solution (granting permanent protection for Dreamers). For some participants, the absence of the political imagination for a bipartisan or common-ground solution was a source of apathy. Over politicization of the issue is problematic if considered only within a solo representative model, where citizens see elections as the only way of influencing politics. The sense of alienation and distancing from the political process grows, especially considering the frequency of the elections. This is exacerbated by the recent cases when the presidential candidate who won the election did so through the Electoral College while losing the popular vote. For some participants the dissonance between their action and the political outcome intensified a higher degree of distancing from the political process. This is why the representative, institutionalized participation has to be complimented with communication-based participation. In this regard, alternative media might have a potential to play a positive role in a society. As discussed earlier, left-wing and right-wing outlets are built on opposing

222 ideologies, which make the distinction between “us/them” explicit. This feature makes these media outlets political (Schmitt, 1929). The ‘us’ versus ‘them;’ however, should not be based on animosity, rather, following Mouffe’s (2013) conceptualization they should aim for constructing a ‘conflictual consensus’ (p. 8) providing citizens with more exposure and opportunity to interpret diverse ethno-political values. The results of the critical discourse analysis demonstrate that the hegemonic discourses counter the opposite side, but not the hegemony within the Left and Right. The current hegemonic discourses, which are produced by political elites and reproduced by the media, are unable to properly, express public demands, which has caused frustration (expressed in focus groups). Political alternative media should adopt opposing narratives, connecting the conservative and progressive discourses. This has to be achieved through development and production of civil discourses, which will represent an agonistic struggle, pluralizing hegemony. The Left and the Right alternative media might serve as sites of agonistic engagement (Mouffe, 2013) within a representative democracy. This new function of connecting opposing discourses through civility lens, would acknowledge the political in politics, which has been undermined as unrelated to the daily life of the citizens. This could be both the result and the cause of the alienation. Recognizing that political events and policy decisions highlight the relevance to the lived experiences. This means that revitalizing the political within civil discourses, the alternative media might potentially connect the lifeworld to the political system. The need for such a function was expressed in the responses, when participants mentioned they would be more eager to be active politically if they saw the relevance of the issue to their daily life. Moreover, this agonistic approach has the normative advantage, since it allows adversarial civil discourse normalizing the conflict, which culturally is currently seen as negative. Since the 2016 presidential election, people talk about avoiding political conversations with family and friends because they do not want to have conflicts with the loved ones over political preferences and issues. Perrin (2014) explains “ that squelch conflict are likely to end up illegitimate, with their publics feeling unrepresented and without a voice” (p. 91). This means that in addition to systemic constrains (Electoral

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College, gerrymandering, voter repressions, etc.), veiling social conflict further alienates people from engagement. This model allows capitalizing the passion and the affective aspects of politics and conflict in political, rather than being the cause of alienation from politics. Public spaces that provide an opportunity for civil discourse around issues of contested nature might allow agonistic deliberative moments. Previous research on deliberative democracy in divided societies has already shown the effectiveness of authentic, inclusive and well- facilitated conversation between various members of society (Dryzek, 2005). While Dryzek (2005) demonstrated how “deliberative democracy can process the toughest issues concerning mutually contradictory assertions of identity” (p. 219), he did so indicating the dichotomy between deliberative and agonistic models. Wolfe (2018) meanwhile, argues for a complimentary agonistic deliberative opportunity. She suggests dialogic and deliberative moments provide an opportunity for various participants to “turn towards each other as mutual partners” (p. 9), an experience that transcends the differences. Moreover, since the identity is a social construct with negotiated boundaries, the communicative moments informed by civil discourses could potentially help to soften the rigid in-group and out-group identities even further. Thus, the agonistic model of democracy at this moment of politics is of significant relevance because it recognizes the roles conflict and passion play in politics instead of annihilating them. This is an aspect that focus group participants were specifically missing in their experiences, as they felt apathetic towards forms of political participation that did not recognize these aspects. Second, the complimentary deliberative and agonistic models that reshape the processes of identity construction (both of the self and the “other”) might potentially decrease polarization. Alternative media have the structure and obligation to create new counter-hegemonic and civil discourses that would enable people to deliberate and re-gain a sense of direct involvement in political decision- making through a communicative process. The migration of the new discourses across multiple public spheres might on one hand diversify the conversations about politics thus better informing the public. The implication would be informed decision making in case

224 of voting, which strengthens representative democracy. On the other hand, such discourses circulated within deliberative infrastructures could revitalize the motivation and energy for political participation. These forms and functions are complimentary to representative democracy and institutional participation forms in politics. Representative democracy relies on elections to ensure the consent of the majority (Christians et al., 2009; Urbinati, 2006); however, it is unrealistic to assume that citizens can consent (for which they need sufficient information) without communication processes. Legitimacy of democracy stems from collaboration and collective action as much as from individual votes. Production of civic discourses would lay a stronger foundation for public deliberation and dialogue (Benhabib, 1996; Habermas, 1996). Deliberative democracy rests on these communicative processes, which generate opinion- based political outcomes. Previous research has shown that online platforms are better suited for such political outcomes (Van Dijk & Hacker, 2018). In the modern American society, online and offline public spaces form a “networked public sphere” (Van Dijk & Hacker, 2018, p. 87), where people can communicate and form opinions based on the plurality of values and ideas. In a mass society, alternative media occupied a peripheral role. Digital alternative media are part of the digital media landscape where the networked structure minimizes the center and periphery binary. The networks decentralize public spheres, which means these platforms offer an alternative communicative power. The alternative communicative power could work in the following way. First, alternative media should produce counter hegemonic civil discourses. Alternative media outlets are more flexible to integrate narratives and public discourse of people into their social constructs due to their horizontal content production. These discourses would circulate in online and offline public spheres where the audiences talk about politics without the fear of conflict. The bottom-up nature of discourses differentiates alternative from mainstream media. Integrating the user-generated content and inviting contributions, alternative media could further connect the offline and online public spheres. On a discursive level, this can be achieved using intertextuality and

225 conversationalization (Fairclough 1995), which democratize media discourses and bring them closer to the daily language of people. Conversationalization, which is the most democratic among the three devices, however was not used by either of the alternative media outlets analyzed in the study. In short, alternative media have the potential to fulfill democratic functions within various models of democracy. In the current moment, they might be best positioned to foster the agonistic and deliberative elements within the representative democracy. This is not to simply increase participation but to achieve broader pragmatic and normative political outcomes. First, introduce new avenues of participation in through communicative practices to increase trust in the political processes, and second, to increase the voter turnout among younger demographics. The second function that was defined during focus groups was alternative media’s potential to incubate conspiracy theories and fake news. The participants who attributed this function to alternative media associated them with alternative facts and conspiracy outlets. Actual fake alternative media outlets can do harm to democracy by misinforming people who will then make poor decisions. Such platforms can also incite physical violence as it has been discussed earlier. Moreover, these platforms could be vulnerable to foreign influences and non-democratic outcomes. Conspiracy theories and false information are a part of the democratic information landscape, which are both a disadvantage and an advantage of the porousness of democracy (Keane, 1998). Fake news has become the mainstay of the media and public discourse. Fake news is defined as information with a low level of facticity or fabricated information to intentionally mislead the audience (Allcott & Gentzkow, 2017; Bakir & McStay, 2017; Silverman, 2017; Tandoc, Lim & Ling, 2017). The danger fake news presents to democracy cannot be exaggerated. Bakir and McStay (2017) summarize the problematic aspects of fake news for democracy in the following words, “its production of wrongly informed citizens, that (2) are likely to stay wrongly informed in echo chambers and (3) be emotionally antagonized or outraged given the affective and provocative nature of much fake news” (p. 159). It is obvious that the misinformed

226 citizens will most likely make poor decisions, which is devastating for representative democracy. The echo chambers that perpetuate fake narratives are harmful for deliberation preventing it. Finally, even if deliberation happens, it will not stem from an agonistic platform, rather antagonism will take over exacerbating strong oppositional feelings and undermining deliberation. Alternative media should be a part of a general effort to equip citizens with new media literacy skills. The National Association of Media Literacy Education defines media literacy as “the ability to access, analyze, evaluate, create and act using all forms of communication” (2007). Since media literacy is an evolving process due to the rapid development and changes in technology and the industry, new media literacy (NML) skills are more relevant in the context of new media. It is also relevant for the younger audiences who access alternative media on digital platforms. New media literacy includes critical media consumption, ability to analyze, evaluate, critique and synthesize content, and critical presumption, ability to create and participate in media content creation (Chen, Wu & Wang, 2011). This model of media literacy is relevant because I proposed that alternative media should be more participatory allowing user generated discourses, which means to contribute to the diversification of ideas and discourses effectively, the users should be highly media literate. This does not imply high level of sophistication and should not contribute to elitism; however, as content creators, the audiences should be provided with guidance not to produce fake information. The critical consumption, on the other hand, it will educate alternative media audiences to distinguish between fake and factual information. Overall, today’s complex societies require elements of more than one democratic model. Democracy thrives on diversity and participation mediated by different media. Contemporary alternative media are well equipped to foster elements of different democratic models to complement and strengthen the state of democratic governance overall. They also have the potential to weaken the public sphere, which is why the normative standards should be revisited to match current media and social environment.

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The following, final chapter, concludes the study highlighting how it contributes to the larger field, and discusses the limitations of the study. Finally, I conclude with some suggestions for future research.

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Chapter 6: Conclusion Plurality of the media landscape is a prerequisite for a vibrant democracy. Media’s ultimate function is to inform and prepare people for political participation in decisions that affect their lives. Mainstream media and alternative media coexist on a spectrum and play complementary roles within a democratic system (Kenix, 2011). Digital age has proliferated the diversity of alternative media outlets and they compete for fragmented audience attention. With the technological developments and sociocultural changes alternative media have become less peripheral. This study attempted to find out how the changes shape the roles of alternative media, particularly in regards to their ability to spur political participation. The first objective of the study was to demonstrate the heterogeneity of alternative media. I relied on the literature to show the right-wing media history to establish a background about the role of right-wing alternative media outlets in the American society. It first focused on their relation to politics as an ideological megaphone and a mobilizing platform. Particularly, I attempted to underscore the important role right-wing alternative media had in the establishment of conservative movement in the American society. However, research on alternative right-wing media remains scarce. Lack of systematic research about alternative right-wing media has led to poor understanding of the role such media and its content have on large segments of society who seek for a conservative lens to make sense of the reality. The right-wing alternative media outlets are a part of the media landscape as much as the left leaning outlets are and they too play a crucial roles. The debate whether unconventional right-wing media should be categorized as alternative, because the alternative has acquired a positive connotation of advocacy media and social change oriented, has to be revived. Alternative left-wing media outlets are considered diverse, oriented towards activism, they are ideological, effective in mobilizing and countering the mainstream hegemony. The richness of literature on the left is a stark contrast to the scarcity of studies on alternative right-wing media. This is one of the reasons I embarked this comparative analysis of left-wing and right-wing alternative media outlets to understand how they differ and resemble in their

229 functions. This also animates the debate about inclusion of some right-wing platforms into the alternative media ecosystem. I recognize that there has to be a distinction between the extreme right conspiratorial outlets and moderate conservative media outlets and suggest that one of the ways this boundary could be drawn is through application of new research methods and establishing a new normative frame. Previous research on the role of media in democracy has shown that media, both mainstream and alternative share the universal function of informing citizens about the social reality they life in. One of the main differences in relation to this function, between mainstream and alternative, so far has been the scale of outreach to audiences. Mainstream media have appealed to mass audiences, while both right-wing and left-wing alternative media could and at times wanted to reach out to only niche audiences due to scarcity of resources. However, the outreach ability has substantially grown due to the Internet and advanced technologies. To avoid making a deterministic argument, it has to be noted that the expansion of the outreach was not only related to the technology, but also social and cultural shifts in the society. According to the literature, another major function of media outlets within a democracy is to serve as a public forum or create public spheres where various ideas can be discussed to form a public opinion. The participants of this study characterized this function as diversification of views and ideas. I found that this is one of the most valued roles any media can play in a democracy from the perspective of the audience (participants of this study). The ideology or type of the media outlet did not matter as much as the principle of enriching what the participants described as the “marketplace of ideas”. The literature suggests that when it comes to carrying out this function, the difference between alternative and mainstream media is that alternative outlets should counter the hegemonic public spheres created by mainstream media through production of counter-hegemonic discourses. Critical discourse analysis helped to understand to what extend the alternative media on both political poles accomplish this task. I found that both alternative media outlets used a variety of semantic devices to carefully construct discourses about irregular

230 immigration and undocumented immigrants. The results of the analysis of the articles indicate that the right-wing alternative media outlet produced discourses that embed conservative ideological stances. For example, their discourses reinforced restrictive conservative attitude and used negative frames of criminality, and amnesty used to cover irregular immigration. These discourses countered the mainstream narratives of the progressive alternative media and mainstream media such as the Washington Post, or MSNBC. However, they did not counter Fox News narratives, known as the conservative voice on the mainstream media. On the other hand, the left-wing alternative media outlet used similar semantic devices with different intentions. They mainly constructed discourses more emotional in tone to trigger empathy. The articles on the left mainly countered the right-wing hegemonic narratives (both mainstream and alternative since they are similar), however they were not critical of the mainstream media. Both left-wing and right-wing alternative media discursively oppressed the undocumented immigrants by silencing them and making them passive actors observing the political process. Even though the Left made an attempt to be inclusive, referring to the immigrants as “undocumented Americans,” the discourses on both sides treated them as passive observers and outsiders. The Right did so in a more dehumanizing manner. As a result of the focus group discussions, I found that one of the functions of the alternative media could be spreading conspiracy theories and fake news from their perspective. Typically, such a negative function is not mentioned in the literature. They do not incorporate current threats thriving in the digital space. Moreover, they are mostly focused on the positive functions of the left-wing activist media. However, the participants of this study suggested that a negative function is possible if the alternative media outlets produce fake news, regardless whether they are right-wing or left-wing because they lack editorial filtering and professional gatekeeping. This consideration cannot be ignored and requires normative and pragmatic solutions. The second objective of the study was to find out how right-wing and left-wing alternative media outlets could promote political participation. The results of the focus groups indicated that the interviewed young people had mostly been engaged in the forms

231 of political activities described in the literature. These included manifest participation through traditional political institutions such as voting, volunteering for campaigns, and protesting. The most interesting form of participation; however was the latent one, whereby the respondents prioritized communicative process over the political. The students thought that political activities include following news, being informed, and talking to other people about politics. What is more, they mentioned active people pick a side and voice their opinion about the issues the care about. This aligns with their prioritization of diverse viewpoints because it is the basis for the communicative political participation they prefer. The implication of this for the alternative media is that digital alternative media outlets technically have unprecedented potential to engage young viewers in politics because of the affordances of the multimedia digital platforms. It seems that on the Left, Crooked Media actualizes this potential more than the Right. Crooked Media has engagement tools built in to its website. The Daily Wire on the other hand, does not provide such channels of participation. Discursively, the two outlets also differ in encouraging participation. According to the critical discourse analysis results, Crooked Media practices an advocacy journalism and calls for participation directly addressing the reader, at the end of one of their articles. The Daily Wire practices an informative style of journalism and does not use any semantic devices explicitly inciting political action. In addition to the analysis of the discourses, I also wanted to know how the audiences become motivated to participate in a political activity after consuming alternative media content. As a result of the focus group discussions, I found that participants who regularly consumed news from alternative media outlets or listened to their podcasts were already engaged and politically active. This was a small group, however. Overall, I found that the alternative media outlet’s ability to spur political participation depends on its tone and affective appeal. It is noteworthy, that both negative emotions, such as anger, and positive emotions, such as empathy triggered a willingness to act. The activities that the participants mentioned they would engage in were both institutional and communicative. For instance, some mentioned contacting their

232 representatives, while others mentioned posting something on social media to raise awareness about the issue they care about. Another group of students remained indifferent. Some of them explained that they felt too distanced and powerless to do anything. Consistent with the literature on the relationship between (mainstream) media and political participation, I found that in the case of alternative media (too), the ability and motivation to spur political participation and mobilization depends not only on the medium and content, but also on the political knowledge, interest and sense of political efficiency of the audiences. These aspects are typically subject of political science research and were outside the scope of this study. Also, with these findings, I do not propose or assume that all participation is positive. Participation that leads to positive political outcomes for a democratic system or aiming at the public good, is what I consider positive participation. Contributions to Mass Communication Scholarship The field of alternative media studies has been growing, and one of the indicators of that is the establishment of the academic journal31. The research examining various aspects of this media category is evolving. This study contributes to the field in a number of ways. It focuses on the content and audience perceptions of alternative media to deepen the understanding about the plurality of such media and the functions they carry out in a democratic society. It builds on the previous research on alternative media to define the features of such media. In terms of definitions, the results of this research indicate that audience perceptions of alternative media are closely related to the sociocultural environment, political discourses, and the medium they use in their daily lives. All of which are rapidly changing and this study address the relevant issues regarding these aspects. As mentioned earlier, alternative media literature lacks

31 Journal of Alternative and Community Media. Retrieved from https://joacm.org/index.php/joacm

233 understanding about right-wing media outlets and this study contributes to this area as well. This study acknowledges the presence and importance of right-wing alternative media outlets. The Daily Wire is only one of the digital outlets that has many subscribers and readers and by dismissing it, or equalizing it to the extreme right does not improve our understanding of the potential of this conservative outlet has. In a polarized society, it is our responsibility as scholars to find the normative frames through which we can make sense of ideological alternatives. Thousands of people follow this outlet and consume their content and misunderstanding what they offer means hearing only half of the story. This study is a step forward in the direction to focus on alternative right-wing media. As discussed in the earlier chapters, previous research concentrating on left-wing alternative media demonstrates only positive functions and implications of such media. However, the findings of this study showed that if such media are perceived as fake or conspiratorial, their functions in a democratic society could be seen as negative. While this work does not address this issue, it highlights a new direction that could be considered in future. Moreover, it starts the discussion about critical media literacy in relation not only to mass media but also to alternative media. Research on political participation and media is interdisciplinary and vast. It bridges political science, social psychology, political communication, and mass communication, recently focusing on social media use for participation. The existing literature helped to build the conceptual framework of the study and formulate the research questions. However, there is a lack of studies examining the relationship between alternative media and political participation. Previously scholars have examined how alternative media have been used in regards to building social movements and activism, yet, those studies have not focused on the role of alternative media in fostering political participation in institutional or mainstream politics. This study fills this gap showing that the emotional and subjective nature of alternative media, as well as the new platforms they function on appeal to young people in more promising ways.

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This study also contributes to the methodological approaches used in alternative media research. To my knowledge, there have been only few studies comparing right- wing and left-wing digital alternative media. Moreover, I am not aware of many studies using mixed methods in studying ideological alternative media. I have yet to read a study that analyzed the content of alternative media using critical discourse analysis. Alternative outlets are either explicitly identifying as ideological or implicitly perpetuate certain ideas and values that are ideological. Critical discourse analysis is a crucial methodological instrument for analyzing the content of the ideologically driven media. It is also a way to directly connect the media discourses to the larger context adding transparency and identifying hidden ideologies that maintain the status quo. If we believe that alternative media are sites of hegemonic struggle, then we should apply this method more often to show how the ideological discourses serve as the foundation of those struggles. Alternative right-wing and left-wing media are a part of our reality and media ecosystem and better understanding of their functions and roles will help us to utilize them in more meaningful ways for the well-being of the society and stronger democracy. Limitations of the Study Every study has limitations, and this one is not an exception to the rule, especially since I employed a new mixed approach not used in the alternative media studies before, so challenges were guaranteed. The first limitation of the study is that I initially planned to conduct a three-dimensional study. Based on the suggestions of the previous research on alternative media (Atkinson, 2017), I wanted to understand how production of such media intends to foster political participation. This would include interviews with producers of the Crooked Media and The Daily Wire. However, I was unable to reach the producers, even though I attempted using different communication channels such as emails and social media. As a result, I had to change the research design and continue without analyzing the production aspect. The fact that I could not establish a contact with the producers raises questions about the level of interactivity both outlets practice with their audiences.

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The second dimension of the study focused on the content. I employed critical discourse analysis to understand the ideological discourses produced by alternative platforms, to identify their differences and similarities and understand how they promote participation discursively. CDA focuses on what the writer/author is saying, for this reason, I did not analyze the tweets or quotes of secondary actors within the articles. The analysis has three dimensions: the grammar and text, the practices within the field and the social context (Fairclough, 1995). One of the limitations of the analysis is that I am not a native English speaker. This means that I might not have fully exposed the details of grammatical choices and use of some semantic devices. What mitigates this factor is that I studied and grammar as a part of my undergraduate degree, so I have some level of professional training. As for the second dimension, I do not have a journalistic training to deeply analyze journalistic practices. However, Fairclough (1995) does not suggest that anyone who studies, for instance, a text including a doctor should have medical training to analyze the discourse. Nevertheless, for the discursive practices, I mostly analyzed the ethical principles and journalistic standards accepted in the field. I am more familiar with this is one area of journalism. Finally, on the sociocultural dimension, I analyzed the political and social environment surrounding the text. This dimension of the analysis requires extensive interdisciplinary knowledge and cultural awareness. As an international, I might lack some knowledge on the American history or cultural that could have taken out the nuance from my analysis. However, I made an effort to mitigate this possibility by having conversations with fellow Americans and reading multiple sources on the issues that came up during the research. The third dimension of the study was the audience research. I was interested to find out how audiences perceive alternative media, and how they see a potential to influence political participation. Initially, I planned to speak with people who consume information from alternative media outlets, however, that would not allow me to establish a clear link between the content and their decision about political behavior. For that reason, my participant recruitment was broad and based on voluntary participation. This was one of the most challenging parts of this work, since initially I could not recruit

236 enough participants for small group discussions. As a result, I asked faculty and course instructors at the School of Media Arts & Studies to assist in this process. The faculty and instructors generously offered extra credits for participation in the study. This means that a majority of the participants came not because of the interest in the topic of the discussion but because of the incentive. Despite the initial lack of interest, all discussions were engaging and dynamic. First, the challenge of recruitment speaks for lack of overall interest in politics. Second, the incentivized participation could have limited the level of participation during the discussions. While qualitative focus group studies do have fewer participants, because they do not aim at generalizing findings, I did not reach 30 participants, as I initially planned. On the other hand, in all six groups, the patterns of answers were repetitive (there was a moderate level of saturation). Another limitation related to focus groups was the time. A discussion that includes audio and visual materials requires more than one hour of discussion. Even though the time was short, the small number of participants in each group and the facilitation using semi-structured interview guide, helped to provide each student an opportunity to share their views and experiences. Suggestions for Future Research The results of this study highlighted that both alternative media and the society are constantly evolving and their relationship to ensure democratic order has to be conceptualized in new ways. Many functions that alternative media have been carrying within a democratic system have been amplified. They have become less peripheral and the audience preferences of digital media consumption have opened new avenues for these outlets to reach out to young audiences. However, there are some caveats. I found that some participants associated alternative media with fake news, which means that trust towards such outlets among certain audience segments is low. This also means that their ability to motivate young people who are not already engaged might be limited. In order to addresses this issue, two steps should be considered. First, considering the connection between the sociocultural context and alternative media, research on fake news within the field of alternative media is necessary. This field

237 could also benefit from more audience research, similar to what Jennifer Rauch (2007; 2015) has been doing for years. New studies should reflect the socio-political environment and its influence on the audience perspectives about alternative media. Parallel to research, schools offering media studies programs should consider educating students about alternative media and media literacy. Formal education about the heterogeneity of alternative media, their typology and functions will help to prepare well-rounded media professionals. Alternative media (at least left leaning outlets) have been sites of civic engagement, social activism and mobilization. These type of social- issue and advocacy oriented media outlets with limited resources need talent and creative minds as much as the corporate media does. It is harder for alternative outlets to find talent and young professionals because all the professionalized training in the higher education institutions heavily focuses on the production skills necessary for jobs in the corporate world and media industries. The second step is to strengthen media literacy education component in general education. Specialized education is essential, however this study highlights that there is a lack of critical media literacy education for students across communication majors. As both consumers and producers of media, young people should be able to critically analyze and produce content that can become a part of public discourse in a constructive way. This can be achieved if the institutions of higher education offer media literacy courses as pre-requisite to the core curriculum. In addition, they could collaborate with National Association of Media Literacy and Education and the network of organizations to participate and organize events that would complement the core curriculum. The lack of research about alternative right-wing media cannot be overestimated. The scarce research that has been conducted in this area mostly focused on older media. However, right-wing media outlets have proliferated in the digital age. In the discussion section, I suggested, as a growing field, alternative media studies, needs a new conceptualization of the right-wing alternative media. We cannot ignore the existence of right-wing platforms, however we also cannot equalize them with left-wing advocacy platforms that fight for social change. Future research studies could address the following

238 questions: How the new alternative right-wing media function? What are their financial and business models? What is their philosophy and mission? How do they distinguish from extreme right? Similarly, as the left-wing alternative media outlets are occupying digital platforms, the following questions could be considered: How does our understanding of new left-wing alternative media change? Are the left-wing outlets advocacy-oriented? Have the new shifts led to a change of how alternative media intersect with mainstream media? Finally, it is important to diversify research methods and instruments in the field of alternative media studies. Comparative analysis and discourse analysis will only enrich the perspectives on our understanding of the phenomenon of alternative media. In the discussion chapter, I proposed that one of the functions of alternative media on the Right and on the Left should be connect ideological discourses and create new hegemonies through civil discourse. Future research in this area could investigate how alternative media could fulfill this function? Related to this, we need to know more about the potential of alternatives media to contribute to agonistic model of democracy, especially in the given socio-political context.

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Appendix A. Recruitment Email Subject: Focus group participants needed for “Alternative media and political participation” research project

Dear OU student,

My name is Nune Grigoryan and I am a PhD candidate in the School of Media Arts & Studies. As a part of my dissertation, I am conducting a research to better understand how alternative right wing and left wing media promote political participation among young people.

You are being invited to participate in a focus group discussion on the topic of “alternative media and political participation.” The focus group will provide an opportunity to explore how students use and perceive alternative media. The focus group is estimated to take 30-60 minutes of your time.

As savvy media users, your response is extremely important to the outcomes of this study. Your responses to the questions in the focus group will be anonymous and no one besides the research team will have access to the data and information you share. To participate in the study

• You must be at least 18 years old • Currently enrolled Ohio University courses

The focus groups will take place in Schoonover Center, COMS research lab. Further information will be provided upon your willingness to participate.

There will be free pizza and an interesting discussion.

If you are interested in participating in the focus groups, please send a confirmation email to [email protected]. I will contact you with details regarding location and time.

Thank you for your consideration!

Sincerely, Nune Grigoryan 266

Appendix B. Focus Group Interview Protocol Tell us where do you generally get your news, which outlets?

Why do you prefer these outlet/s? How important is the political bias in your choice of a media outlet?

Alternative media is generally understood as opposing the mainstream media. What is alternative media to you, how would you define alternative media?

Do you use alternative media for your news consumption and if yes, could you share what outlets?

What comes to mind when you hear the expression ‘political participation’?

Have you ever engaged in any political action, if yes, could you share what kind of activities?

How does consumption of news motivate participation? How does it discourage political engagement?

What are your first reactions to the articles or segments you just read and listened to?

What would you say is different and similar in these articles/pod segments?

Which of the articles/pod segment you think is more inspiring to take action?

What kind of action would that be?

In general, what you think is the role of alternative media in a democratic society?

Is there anything that you think speaks to the relationship between alternative media content and political participation that was not asked about but should be considered and discussed?

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Appendix C. Codes Generated from Two Cycles

1st Cycle Coding Code examples method InVivo Outside of the mainstream umbrella, Anything that is not scripted, Fake news if you want to say that, YouTubers, Smaller stories, Not professional, Being informed, Politically speaking, Volunteering, voting, Get involved, speaking quickly, self-congratulatory tone, blame the other side, easy to manipulate, Social media, Exposing yourself to politics, Harsh criticizing Democrats, Random guy’s YouTube channel, Not mainstream, Theatrics, Podcasts, Medium is the alternative, Having personal opinion, Mascot-y article, Politicking Structural Perception of alternative media; Components/characteristics of alternative media; Alternative facts/fake news, Political activities, Media use and participation, Role of alternative media in democracy; Credibility of media Process Scrutinizing CNN and Fox; Wanting reliable news; Not believing mainstream media; Following twitter; Prioritizing credibility and trust; Expressing a voice; Being informed; Voting; Blaming each other; Sensationalizing; Connecting to personal stories; Being autonomous; Democratizing politics; Scrolling; Listening to podcasts; Exposing oneself to news; Recognizing bias; Doing research; Blaming democrats; Spreading the word; Being motivated; Diversifying voices; Having a dialogue; Polarizing Versus Fox vs CNN; Alternative vs transnational corporate media; Fake vs facts; Unscripted commentary vs teleprompter; Professional journalist vs YouTube personality; apathy vs care; Opinion piece vs facts; Accusations vs dialogue; Soft news vs hard news; Left vs Right/ Dems vs Reps; Supporting Dreamers vs deporting them; Twitter moments vs mainstream headlines; Autonomy vs influence and public pressure; Assumption vs facts; PSA vs Shapiro; Internet vs TV; A spectrum vs a dichotomy; Dems vs social democrats; Emotion vs facts Emotions, Distrust towards mainstream media; empathy; truth; inclusion values and and diversity; knowledge; inherently biased media; frustration; attitudes Disappointment; feeling motivated; Feeling anxious and sad; left leaning; defending Trump; indifferent; Confused /uncertain/not sure; overwhelmed; amazed with Shapiro; bored with PSA; confident; hopeful; impassionate; cynical; hate; cautionary 2nd cycle Coding Category Examples 268 method Pattern Production: Professionally produced and delivered content (expert) vs YouTube-er; Big TV names; People’s media Medium: social media; internet; podcasts; online vs mainstream Content: Genres; small stories; Niche Content vs Breaking news; Strong viewpoints on TV vs social media neutral; Contextualized news; sensation Fake news: Fake news; opinions; bias; alternative facts; Inflated facts Dangers of alt media: Unedited content; Filter bubbles/bias Democratic (normative) marketplace of ideas: Diversifying news Democratizing politics; Giving voice Financial structures: Not corporate; Independent; Not-profit driven Political Participation: Being informed and up do date about the news; Acting institutionally; Discursive participation Media use and participation: Informed and in/active Values: Political leanings, Ethical reporting, Alternatives, Diversity and Dialogue, Knowledge and information, Activism, Autonomy Emotions: Frustrated and disappointment; Apathy/ Low political efficiency; Uncertain/confused; Motivated; Scared/ concerned; Confident Coding Themes method Focused Credibility of Media; Associative perception of alternative media as fake news; Medium is the alternative; Democratic media (diversifying marketplace of ideas/freedom of speech); Alternative media as incubator of conspiracy; Mediated political participation; Affective politics

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