The Great Recession and Free Market Capitalist Hegemony: A Critical Discourse Analysis of U.S. Newspaper Coverage of the Economy, 2008–2010

Abstract

This study examines the role of discourse in re-establishing the hegemony of free market capitalism during and immediately after the global financial crisis in the United States, colloquially referred to as the Great Recession. Theoretically, we employ post-Marxism and particularly the work of Ernesto Laclau, but also draw insights from poststructural feminism and critical theory. Methodologically, we use a corpus linguistics approach to critical discourse analysis. This methodology allows us to examine, both quantitatively and qualitatively, the discursive strategies used during 2008–2010 in a random sample of daily newspapers throughout the United States. Our findings include identifying the discursive chains of equivalence used to obscure counter-hegemonic discourses of alternative forms of economic relations that are locally based. Contributions of this study include furthering our understanding of the role discourse plays in current economic relations and demonstrating how a corpus linguistics approach to critical discourse analysis can be used empirically to examine post-Marxist theoretical assertions both quantitatively and qualitatively.

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