ABSTRACT
In the midst of the changing landscape of politicking, political actors have used social media exhaustively to advance their causes at the expense of their opponents. However, political actors are not the only ones involved in the phenomenon of using social media in campaigning. Their supporters, too, have taken to social media to voice their preferences, convince others, and antagonize those with opposite political views. This study was conducted to analyze the deictic expressions used by selected political supporters on their Facebook pages. It further examined how they placed person, time, place, discourse, and social relationships in their posts and determined whether or not the use of deictic expressions influence the readers’ political views. The study made use of synchronic stylistic analysis to understand the explicit meaning of non-literary texts with emphasis on deictic expressions. Guided by the Input-Process-Output framework, the study revealed that political discourses with deictic expressions bear strong influence in shaping their readers’ political views. Thinking Pinoy’s strategic use of deictic expressions gave him the platform to effectively associate himself as a pro-Duterte supporter and proclaim the opposition as the root cause of tribulations in Philippine society. Meanwhile, Prof. Antonio P. Contreras’ tactical use of deictic expressions paved the way to castigate Duterte’s critics and summon his readers to rally behind the President. Moreover, the success of the administration ticket in the last Elections can be linked partially to the effective use of deictic expressions in the political discourses of supporters on their Facebook pages.
Keywords: deictic expressions, stylistic analysis, language in politics, Facebook
INTRODUCTION
Politics and language are both forms of arts that have strong link with each other. History proves it that political actors who have great grasp and command of a specific language are the most successful in their political careers. These political actors always display certain character and personality when conveying their speeches (Suhadi and Baluqiah, 2017). Character and personality in a speech do not only denote the manner how the political actors deliver it using both verbal and non-verbal cues, such as: tone of the voice, facial expressions, gestures, and the like but through the written words used which comprise the speech as well.
As Fairclough and Fairclough (2012) put it, political discourse is primarily seen as a form of argumentation, which involves practical argumentation: argumentation for or against particular ways of acting, behavior or belief that can ultimately lead to a concrete decision. Meanwhile, Holzscheiter (2010) offers a more extensive definition of political discourse as “text and talk that is produced in specific institutional settings belonging to a political system”. She further sees it as a vaulting structure that shapes one’s identity, thoughts, social practices and everyday life. These definitions are reflective on how political actors in the Philippines write and deliver their speeches. All of them do not fail to include emotionally arousing statements in speeches to legitimize their platforms and advocacies and even raising controversies against their political opponents to outdo in the race (Alico and Rivera, 2017).
It is but normal for political actors to be involved in hot exchanges of thoughts, beliefs and points of view with their opponents. It is when joining this process where they can position themselves, espouse their respective advocacies and ultimately harness their campaign slogans and branding based on the reception of their constituents to their advocacies. These hot exchanges are widespread most especially during the campaign period. Gerstle and Nai (2019) further explain that these hot exchanges both appeal to enthusiasm and fear, which intend to capture the attention of the public and transform it into better electoral fortunes.
Nowadays, these hot exchanges do not only happen on television and radio shows, broadsheets, and during campaign sorties but on various social media platforms as well. Social media have now become part of the day-to-day life of the majority of Filipinos. The Philippines has topped the world in terms of social media usage once again with a record of 67 million users (Camus, 2018). According to We Are Social’s Digital 2018 Report, Filipinos spend an average of 3 hours and 57 minutes per day on social media sites, primarily on Facebook. Filipinos, regardless of age and social status, are hooked on Facebook for entertainment, friendly chats, self-expression, and engage in exchange of thoughts on various social topics, especially politics.
The win of the current Philippine President Rodrigo Roa Duterte, for example, in the 2016 Elections was widely associated to the power of social media. His socmed team was able to mobilize supporters, convert other supporters, and engage with the supporters of his opponents who were based in the Philippines and abroad through spreading propaganda materials in the form of information brief, Facebook posts, and news articles that tackle issues related to him and his opponents (Ressa 2016, Guerrero 2016, Aguirre 2017).
Social media was, of course, not exclusive for President Duterte. All of the presidential candidates have used the social media exhaustively to gain supporters and ultimately translate it to electoral fortune. The most utilized social media platforms in the 2016 Elections were Facebook, Twitter, and web blogs. Of the three platforms, Facebook was the most effective in terms of cyber campaigning because there were about 47 million active Facebook accounts owned by Filipinos in 2016 and 22 million of which were actively engaged in conversations about the 2016 Elections (Galivan, 2016).
Apart from the socmed teams of presidential candidates, there were volunteers who have thrown their support to their chosen candidates. They have created Facebook pages to disseminate information about their candidates and antagonize other candidates. In fact, the 2016 Elections was considered the most divisive elections in recent history. Galivan (2016) observes that “there were incidents where healthy and informative debates turned toxic and hostile due to people who resort to personal attacks when faced with opinions different from theirs”.
Duterte supporters like Mocha Uson created Mocha Uson Blog, RJ Nieto published Thinking Pinoy, and Sass Rogando Sasot produced for the Motherland. They were very active in the proliferation of information about the goodness of then-Mayor Duterte and criticized his opponents. On the other hand, the anti-Duterte groups have established Pinoy Ako Blog by Jover Laurio, Silent No More PH, and Superficial Gazette of the Republic of the Philippines. The information about the creators or administrators of the last two-mentioned Facebook pages are unknown. They were involved in debunking claims of pro-Duterte supporters while building the images of their preferred candidates.
As of November 25, 2018, the above-mentioned political supporters account a total of 8,854,216 followers who regularly receive feeds and engage in various political issues by writing comments on the published articles or by simply clicking the preferred reactions or emojis. The said number of followers is massive enough to affect the results of the 2019 Elections.
Apart from ordinary supporters, distinguished people from various fields of specializations also went online and voiced out their thoughts, support, and criticisms. The likes of Prof. Antonio P. Contreras, a Full Professor at De La Salle University and a columnist for The Manila Times, Atty. Paula Defensor-Knack, who is a legal luminary especially in field of International Law, and Mr. Jay Sonza, who is a renowned broadcaster and a station manager of UNTV changed the settings of their Facebook accounts to public so more people would be able to read their posts and eventually influence their followers’ views.
This study is expected to give a good explanation on to how political supporters use deictic expressions in their discourses, unravel how the meaning of the discourse is drawn, and deepen the readers’ ways of thinking about language.
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