Populist discourse : an Adornian rhetorical analysis of the emotional appeal of Pauline Hanson's ...

275 Pages·2014·11.8 MB·English

POPULIST DISCOURSE: AN ADORNIAN
RHETORICAL ANALYSIS OF THE
EMOTIONAL APPEAL OF PAULINE
HANSON'S ONE NATION
By
Christina Laura Bobrowski BA Hons
A thesis submitted in fulfilment of the
requirements for the Degree of
Doctor of Philosophy
UNIVERSITY
TASMANIA
OF
November 2004
STATEMENT OF ORIGINALITY
This thesis contains no material which has been accepted for a degree or diploma by the
University or any other institution, except by way of background information and duly
acknowledged in the thesis, and to the best of the candidate's knowledge and belief no
material previously published or written by another person except where due
acknowledgement is made in the text of the thesis.
Christina Laura Bobrowski
November 2004
STATEMENT OF AUTHORITY OF ACCESS
This thesis may be made available for loan and limited copying in accordance with
the Copyright Act 1968.
Christina Laura Bobrowski
November 2004
ABSTRACT
This thesis offers a sociological explanation for the electoral appeal of Pauline
Hanson's One Nation (PHON) by performing a discourse analysis of the parties
manifesto. This manifesto is comprised of the public speeches, parliamentary
speeches and media releases of PHON delivered during the period of Hanson's term
in the Australian Federal Parliament 1996-1998. The analysis is a synthesis of
methodological approaches originated by Theodor Adorn° and Erving Goffrnan.
These approaches are rhetorical analysis and frame analysis. The combination of these
approaches augmented by the simultaneous identification of key thematic domains
allows the discourse analysis to be linked to issues canvassed by the Australian
Election Study 1998 (AES 1998).
It is proposed in the thesis that Hanson's political style is of the populist type that is
demonstrated to be increasingly prevalent in Western politics. It is the paucity of
sociological explanation that focuses on the manifestos of contemporary populist
politics in order to understand the mechanism of appeal of such political movements
that warrants this in-depth analysis of an Australian example of the phenomena.
Firstly, the work of Adorno is revisited by considering the historical climate in which
he was working in the 1930s including the development of The Frankfurt School.
During this time, Adorn° developed a 'Gallery of Tricks and Devices' for analysing
the radio programs of the fascist Presbyterian preacher, Martin Luther Thomas. The
Gallery is actually a typology of rhetorical devices that Adorn° identified in the
speech of Thomas. Thomas employed a populist style and is known for his emotional
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appeals to his audience. This typology was then applied to the manifesto of 116
documents comprised of public and parliamentary speeches and media releases
produced in Hanson's name from her election to Federal Parliament in 1996 until her
defeat in 1998. The objective of this step of the discourse analysis was to assess the
utility of Adorno's typology. A content analysis was also performed to ascertain the
weighted means of the prevalence of the devices within each of the document
categories. The results suggested that the typology required some revision to enhance
its suitability for the efficient analysis of contemporary populist discourse. A Revised
Typology was formulated and applied. This new typology has the potential to be
useful in the analysis of the manifestos of a variety of political movements.
This rhetorical analysis gives insight into the potential impact on listeners of
particular excerpts of speech. The impact is the transference of messages about
particular issues and is frequently emotive in tone. The incidence of each rhetorical
device is composed of one or more sentences. The key issues identified were grouped
according to theme. Three key thematic domains are identified and are labelled
Cultural, Social and Economic Sovereignty.
A contemporary form of Goffman's (1974) frame analysis developed by Snow and
Benford (1986) informs the scrutiny of the discourse. The purpose of this step of the
analysis is to ascertain what the overall potential impact of the collective effect of the
rhetorical devices is on audiences. The term applied by Snow and Benford to describe
the collective impact of the meaning of a particular discourse is Master Frame. It is
asserted that the Master Frame of the PHON discourse is an Identity Frame. It has
been suggested that a factor lacking in frame analysis generally, is the absence of the
acknowledgement of the role of emotion in attracting people to political or social
movements. The incorporation into the analysis of the application of a rhetorical
typology addresses this shortcoming. It also serves to identify the emotional
component of the discourse that is associated with the populist political style.
The thesis claims that PHON's appeal is founded on successfully communicating its
master frame to the constituency via its populist style. Furthermore that that this
populist style relies heavily on emotionally charged presentations by the leader. The
identification of the key thematic domains of the discourse is necessary in order to
establish if there is indeed a link between the master frame of the discourse and
PHON's appeal to the constituency. This is achieved by the statistical analysis of the
•AES 1998 data set.
The first step of this analysis was to create a reliable scale to measure respondents
'feelings' towards PHON's leader, Pauline Hanson. Ten items were selected from the
data sets that address aspects of respondent's feelings towards Hanson. This scale was
labelled the Emotional Energy Scale following Randall Collins' (1988b) definition of
this concept.
The data set was then searched for items that addressed issues encapsulated by the
thematic domains. Section D. Election Issues, E. Social Policy and G. Constitution,
Rights and Minorities were found to contain items that corresponded to the thematic
domains. Section D. related to Economic Sovereignty; Section E. related to Social
Sovereignty and Section G. related to Cultural Sovereignty. Factor analysis was used
to create scales from items within each of these sections that addressed issues that
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dominated the PHON manifesto. Regression analysis was then employed. The results
indicate that high levels of positive Emotional Energy for Hanson is predictive of
shared attitudes towards issues by respondents with Hanson.
This suggests that there is a strong correlation between the feelings held for people
towards PHON and the level of support for PHON's position on issues. These
findings indicate that Hanson successfully employed populist rhetoric to achieve a
remarkable level of support for her new political party. However it must be
acknowledged that an audience already existed for whom the PHON message could
resonate.
The demographic characteristics of PHON this audience of voters has been described
at length elsewhere and this work is acknowledged. It must however be appreciated
that though Pauline Hanson has experienced the inevitable decline of the charismatic
leader, those who demonstrated support for her still reside in the electorate. These
people may still be waiting for the right 'style' of voice to emerge on the political
scene to represent them. This thesis provides an innovative approach for
understanding the mechanism of populist appeal in contemporary politics. It proposes
a revised typology for assessing populist rhetoric and it is the first thorough,
systematic analysis of PHON's manifesto.
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
A piece of work like this that takes an individual so long to produce, is none-the-less a
burden carried by many— partners, supervisors, parents, colleagues and friends, all of
those who are in the web of the writer's social network. Now that it is finished I
suspect that the only feeling that will be more overwhelming will be the one that
comes with relating the outcome to the long suffering crew.
Firstly I must thank my supervisors. I have been very fortunate to have had input from
such patient and clever people. I use the plural, as I seem to have a knack for being
assigned to academics that are on the brink of promotion to positions that take them
away to greener pastures or at least more distant offices.
Dr Timothy Phillips who helped me to get on track when the wheels had all but fallen
off. I always felt better about the project after discussing my thoughts with Tim.
Dr Glenda Jones who was willing to hold the fort whilst others were indisposed.
Dr Bruce Tranter who was always willing to share unwritten rules and large data sets.
Professor Jan Palculski who was always generous with his time and encouragement.
But especially Professor Stephen Crook who convinced me to come to Tasmania in
the first place and who casually asked me one day if I had read much of Adorno. It
makes me terribly sad to think that he is not here to see the finished product. No
student has ever had a more inspirational mentor than he. He is greatly missed.
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Sincere thanks must go to my colleagues at the Tasmanian School of Nursing and
Midwifery for their support, generosity and practical advice.
My best friend Annette Marlow deserves a special mention. Her friendship is like
sustenance on the bad days and champagne on the good. She knows when to listen,
when to visit, when to go and when to take you shopping!
To Mum and Dad who have never had any doubt about my ability to do anything and
who have supported me through good times and bad.
However the person without whom I'd be in big strife is my wonderful husband Peter
Bobrowski who could not have done more to help me achieve this. Proofreading,
cooking, being my sounding board, bringing me drinks and treats to keep me going,
formatting.. .his talents are endless and delightful.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
STATEMENT OF ORIGINALITY II
STATEMENT OF AUTHORITY OF ACCESS III
ABSTRACT IV
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS VIII
TABLE OF CONTENTS X
LIST OF TABLES XIV
LIST OF FIGURES XVI
Chapter One 1
OVERVIEW 1
Problems, Aims and Research Questions 5
Chapter Two 9
THE EMERGENCE OF POPULISM IN MODERN SOCIETIES 9
Introduction 9
Populism 10
For the People, By the People! 13
Populism in the United States of America 16
The Emergence of Right-Wing Populism in Europe 20
Populism in Modern Australia 22
Conclusion 25
Chapter Three 28
REVISITING ADORNO 28
Introduction 28
The Frankfurt School 28
Theodor Adorno (1903-1969) 30
Adorno and the Christian Demagogue 31
Rhetoric 34