Ideological Discourse Analysis of Iraqi Political TV. Interviews

Abstract

One of the most significant changes in Iraq is the emergence of satellite channels in Iraqi life which was accompanied by discussions and dialogues among new politicians, which we previously lacked before 2003. Before this time, Iraqis were living under a single party, political discourse was often one-dimensional. Now, interviews and debates on Iraqi and Arab channels showcase competing visions, which is a hallmark of democratic life. In this study we reviewed several interviews, how they discussed, argued, expressed their opinions and showed their arguments. We aimed to show to researchers and other people which ideologies where our politicians argued and how we applied Van Dijk, T.A. (1995a) models on their dialogues. We reviewed how politicians portrayed themselves positively and portrayed others negatively and let people judge who is right and who is wrong in his position. We took our data from Iraqi and some Arab channels. We followed the qualitative approach in analysing their dialogue. The study is divided in two parts: theoretical which was about Van Dijk models and some researches on ideology analysis discourse  like: Fairclough, 1989, 1992; Kedar, 1987; Kramarae, Schulz and O Barr, 1984; Kress, 1985; Ng and Bradac, 1993; Wodak, 1989). The second part was the practical and it was about the interviews of Iraqi politicians on channels and how we analysed them according to Van Dijk models.