Using a discursive lens, we argue that politicians rhetorically construct categories, storylines, and moral fields. We further claim that such discursive products are action-oriented toward gaining popular support in a public sphere that is politically fault lined along similar moral orders. As a case in point, we analyze speeches delivered during congressional voting on a Reproductive Health bill (RH bill). Employing a mixed methods strategy, we first implement a quantitative lexical analysis of frequently used words, followed by a qualitative detection of cohering storylines on both sides of the debate. Results show that oppositionists mark their speeches with a deployment of the word God, while bill supporters use the word access conspicuously. One storyline claims that The RH bill stands against God, while the other purports that The RH bill advocates rights and access. Although both storylines assert moral righteousness, they invoke two different moral orders backed by power blocs and the public at large. The God story appeals to a Catholic discourse and the moral order loudly supported by the politically powerful Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines. The rights/ access narrative references a liberal morality frame maintained by social liberals and Philippine President Aquino. We end our paper by introducing the idea of an intrastate discursive lens to analyze moral fields constructed by politicians, oriented toward winning support from the public at large.We propose a way of understanding legislative debate through a discursive lens by considering political categorization, storylines, and moral fields as action-oriented constructions aimed at mobilizing political support from the public at large. Our argument moves forward in five steps. First, we clarify that political categories in the public sphere are discursively constructed. Second, we elucidate on the political nature of categorization in the public sphere. Third, we show how political categorization is context laden, as categories are discursively employed to mobilize one's power in political 853 0162-895X
This article explores Facebook's role in how Filipino migrants negotiate their diasporic chronotopes, that is, spatio-temporal constructions of their past/homeland and present/hostland. Specifically, focus group and digital ethnographic data with Filipino migrants in Germany are analysed using ethnography and discursive psychology approaches. Findings illustrate how Facebook enables Filipinos to re-enact and challenge past/homeland practices, which in turn help create a more meaningful present/hostland life. Facebook further facilitates the capture of conflicting yet socially consequential chronotopes – or irony chronotopes – that traverse and impact both offline and online dimensions of diaspora relations. Capturing such spatio-temporal interplays in migrant realities through social media provides a nuanced and dialogical view into migrants’ lifeworlds, looks beyond the communication role that social media play therein, and contributes to the digital media and temporal turns in diaspora studies.
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