Ideological Discursive Strategies in the Work of American Think Tanks: A Critical Discourse Analysis

Abstract

While relatively decent attention has been paid to the analysis of ideological discursive strategies deployed by the political policy-producing institutions of think tanks, this study uncovers the strategies in the discourse of American think tanks that attempt to ideologically (re)produce social realities and shape public opinion at the textual and semantic levels. To this end, an eclectic model of critical discourse analysis CDA is adopted to qualitatively and quantitatively deconstruct and interpret nine texts from three conservative think tanks focusing on three political issues namely (1) Islamic terrorism, (2) Russian role in the Middle East, and (3) the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The findings show the centrality of ideological discursive strategies in (a) polarizing a positive presentation of the US (in-group) against the negative presentation of THEM (out-group), and (b) advocating for a hegemony of current and/or desired socio-political realities.

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