Get fulltext from our e-platform
Manufacturing Dissent
Manipulation and counter-manipulation in times of crisis
Editor
Spotlighting case studies of manipulation practices at the onset of the Covid-19 crisis in different countries and socio-political circumstances, the authors expose context-specific discourse and argumentation strategies of 'infodemics’ (misleading information and fake news), public policy mismanagement, deceptive online and offline communication tactics, and conspiracy narratives, which end up disrupting community social cohesion. In addition to targeting manipulation-driven dissent across discourse genres through corpus-based investigations, a major strength of this volume consists in debunking manipulation while foregrounding compelling acts of counter-manipulation.
The volume’s breadth of topics, depth of analytical insights and range of methodological frameworks provide unique perspectives by capturing crisis-related manipulations across a worldwide political and cultural spectrum (Austria, Brazil, China, the Czech Republic, Portugal, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom, United States), with a focus on the scale and extent of multifaceted repercussions. Reaching beyond the boundaries of pragmatics and discourse analysis, this book should be a valuable resource for researchers and practitioners of rhetoric, argumentation, media studies, social and political sciences.
The volume’s breadth of topics, depth of analytical insights and range of methodological frameworks provide unique perspectives by capturing crisis-related manipulations across a worldwide political and cultural spectrum (Austria, Brazil, China, the Czech Republic, Portugal, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom, United States), with a focus on the scale and extent of multifaceted repercussions. Reaching beyond the boundaries of pragmatics and discourse analysis, this book should be a valuable resource for researchers and practitioners of rhetoric, argumentation, media studies, social and political sciences.
[Pragmatics & Beyond New Series, 339] 2024. vi, 311 pp.
Publishing status: Available
Published online on 3 January 2024
Published online on 3 January 2024
© John Benjamins
Table of Contents
- Crisis manipulation: Discourse- and argumentation-based approachesCornelia Ilie | pp. 1–23
- Part I. Crisis-driven and context-related manipulation practices
- Chapter 1. Spanish influenza 1918/19: A diachronic and cross-cultural perspective on blame and blame-avoidance in media and politics in times of crisisMaria Stopfner | pp. 26–61
- Chapter 2. Manipulation in exceptional times: Exploiting overwhelming contextual parameters for manipulative purposesDidier Maillat and Steve Oswald | pp. 62–84
- Chapter 3. Manipulating citizens’ beliefs and emotions: Consensus-seeking and dissensus-generating tactics in crisis managementCornelia Ilie | pp. 85–118
- Chapter 4. Maintaining political authority and credibility during the Covid-19 crisis: The case of Czech government press conferencesMartina Berrocal | pp. 119–156
- Chapter 5. The legitimation of conspiracy theories through manipulation: The case of climate lockdownsMassimiliano Demata | pp. 157–183
- Part II. Discursively and argumentatively framed counter-manipulation strategies
- Chapter 6. How can governments be prevented from manipulating statistics about Covid-19? An example from UK politicsCristina Marinho and Michael Billig | pp. 186–214
- Chapter 7. News media’s epistemological framings of the Covid-19 ‘lab leak’ hypothesis: A contrastive metapragmatic analysis of ‘conspiracy theory’Cedric Deschrijver | pp. 215–239
- Chapter 8. Strategic communication in the Covid-19 pandemic: Uses of arguments and manipulative tactics in institutional social media communicationFabrizio Macagno and Ana Carolina Trevisan | pp. 240–283
- Chapter 9. Lessons learned? The role of conventional arguments in avoiding blame and rebuilding trust in banking after the financial crisisRuth Breeze | pp. 284–307
- Index | pp. 309–311
“While deception and manipulation are a regular feature of human interaction, in Manufacturing Dissent, Professor Cornelia Ilie has adroitly marshalled a compelling collection of studies that demonstrate the growing role of manipulation in political and institutional life. It is a must-read for scholars of discourse analysis, communication and pragmatics, and indeed anyone interested in better understanding the current time of seemingly never-ending crises.”
Michael Haugh, The University of Queensland
“Through a range of innovative and compelling state-of-the art chapters, this volume advances and illuminates our understanding of manipulation and counter-manipulative strategies. Importantly, cross-cultural investigations construe these phenomena as situated, tied (among others) to core discourse processes such as identity construction and intergroup communication, which shape and are shaped by societal values and ideologies. Manufacturing Dissent: Manipulation and counter-manipulation in times of crisis is destined to become a major reference for scholars and advanced students of manipulation.”
Pilar G. Blitvich, University of North Carolina at Charlotte
“The volume Manufacturing Dissent captures the problematics and paradoxes of manipulative communication and its dissent-inducing effects through a diversity of discursive, meta-discursive and inter-discursive perspectives on co-constructed manipulation by diverse actors across national, cultural and institutional contexts. The potential readership extends beyond discourse studies and includes academics and practitioners in politics, national security, conflict resolution, and other areas.”
Cezar M. Ornatowski, San Diego State University
“In an era characterised by profound epistemic uncertainty, increasingly ossified ideological polarisation and wilful campaigns to misinform publics, a book about the manipulative manufacture of disbelief in the face of authoritative knowledge is to be welcomed. And this is a remarkably impressive volume, replete with serious theoretical insights and diverse empirical content.”
Stephen Coleman, University of Leeds, in Journal of Language and Politics 24:5 (2025).