TY - JOUR

T1 - The Legitimating Power of Discourse

T2 - Constructing the 1973 War under Mubarak

AU - El Menshawi, Mustafa

PY - 2020/11/1

Y1 - 2020/11/1

N2 - In this article, I examine a corpus of texts that address the 1973 war; these texts cover the period from 1981 to 2011, marking the beginning and end of Hosni Mubarak’s rule. Utilizing Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), I explore how Mubarak’s regime employed the war to legitimize its power and defend its policies by deploying longstanding culturally-embedded ‘macro themes’. These macro themes refer to the war as an overwhelming and undisputed ‘Egyptian victory’ and, more significantly, they portray Mubarak himself as ‘war personified/war personalized’. The analysis of linguistic and extra-linguistic features in al-Ahram newspaper (the mouthpiece of the state), among other media texts on the war, show how the discursive construction was made consistent, coherent and resonant in a managed context that characterized the political and media landscapes. Depending on unique access to those who produced, edited and even censored the texts under analysis, this method unravels a complex set of cultural messages and conventions about the war, and fills a lacuna in the literature by offering insight into the deliberate and well-coordinated process of shaping and reshaping a specific discourse for a specific purpose.

AB - In this article, I examine a corpus of texts that address the 1973 war; these texts cover the period from 1981 to 2011, marking the beginning and end of Hosni Mubarak’s rule. Utilizing Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), I explore how Mubarak’s regime employed the war to legitimize its power and defend its policies by deploying longstanding culturally-embedded ‘macro themes’. These macro themes refer to the war as an overwhelming and undisputed ‘Egyptian victory’ and, more significantly, they portray Mubarak himself as ‘war personified/war personalized’. The analysis of linguistic and extra-linguistic features in al-Ahram newspaper (the mouthpiece of the state), among other media texts on the war, show how the discursive construction was made consistent, coherent and resonant in a managed context that characterized the political and media landscapes. Depending on unique access to those who produced, edited and even censored the texts under analysis, this method unravels a complex set of cultural messages and conventions about the war, and fills a lacuna in the literature by offering insight into the deliberate and well-coordinated process of shaping and reshaping a specific discourse for a specific purpose.

KW - Egypt

KW - 1973 War

KW - Arab-Israeli Relations

KW - Political Discourse

KW - Israel

KW - Egyptian media

KW - al-Ahram

KW - Hosni Mubarak

KW - Middle East media

KW - Middle East politics

U2 - 10.1163/18739865-20202000

DO - 10.1163/18739865-20202000

M3 - Journal article

VL - 13

SP - 256

EP - 275

JO - Middle East Journal of Culture and Communication

JF - Middle East Journal of Culture and Communication

IS - 3

ER -