The Polyphony of Voices as a Means of Manipulation in a Polarized Political Discourse

Abstract

This article deals with the problem of manipulation in a polarized political discourse. A hypothesis is made here that the polyphony of voices, which was frst described by M.M. Bakhtin in his concept of the polyphonic novel, can be used as a means of manipulation within two main manipulative strategies: positive self-presentation and negative other-presentation. In this paper, the voice is a key discursive category, which is widely used by the media in order to construct an alternative reality that is benefcial for certain political forces and often has nothing in common with the real state of things. The material includes articles describing the relations of two political opponents – Russia and the USA – within the context of Venezuela crisis (100 texts published from May to December 2019). Using the methodology of discourse analysis, some elements of intertextual analysis as well as corpus-based technologies (Sketch Engine corpus manager) the author found that the polyphony of voices of different orders is a manipulation tool in a polarized political media discourse. The voice in a text is represented by a cited politician whose opinion is perceived as authoritative by the victim of manipulation. Moreover, the paper distinguishes three groups of voices according to the actors’ political importance. Thus, frst-order voices include Vladimir Putin, Donald Trump, Nicolás Maduro and Juan Guaidó; second-order voices are represented by other powerful political fgures, as well as government and party members, while third-order voices are ordinary people, locals and eyewitnesses.