Presentation given at the IDRC Davos 2010 by Prof. Dr. Una Dirks (University of Hildesheim, Germany)

1. Evidentiality
&
Security Literacy
Prof. Dr. Una Dirks
(University of Hildesheim, Germany)

2. Former US-President George W. Bush
In an interview on Fox News, 23.09.2003:
„The best way to get the news is from
objective sources. And the most objective
sources I have are people on my staff who
tell me what‘s happening in the world.“
© U. Dirks
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3. Contents
1 Security Literacy – what for?
2 The empirical impact on resilience:
the Iraq war at issue
3 A Taxonomy for ‚decamouflaging‘
arguments from ignorance
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4. 1 Security Literacy – what for?
Security literacy enables you …
to identify indicators for the quality of
evidentiality in discourses.
to make systematic differences between
qualitative & ‚objective‘ evidence.
to be aware of evidentiality in relation to
varying situational conditions (cf. resilience).
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5. 2 The Empirical Impact on Resilience:
The Iraq War at issue
Political & communication studies as well as
linguistic media research focus on conflicts that
have escalated, not on their prior development
(exceptions: Dorman/Livingston 1994, Shaw/Martin 1993).
Lack of knowledge about prevention of war:
e.g. Why has the Iraq conflict escalated?
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6. Traditionally: Focus on War & its Outcomes
Situation at situation
the beginning after action
of action???
collective effects
actors‘ framings? individual effects
(cf. qualitative waging of the
evidence) Iraq war
logic of the
logic of selecting logic of aggregation
situation
specific practices (effects)
(context)
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7. 2a) Resilience in relation to ‚Interpretive
Explanations‘ (Max Weber 1922)
Research project on the
„De-/construction of the Iraq war in the media“
during the pre-war period;
supported by the German Foundation for Peace
Research (2004-2007, cf. Dirks 2010):
Research questions:
How did actors of the political sphere promote the war
reasons?
How did the media cover the war reasons?
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8. Focus on the Pre-War Situation
Situation
situation
before the
after action
Iraq war
collective effects
actors‘ framings
individual effects
(cf. qualitative waging of
evidence) the Iraq war
logic of the
logic of selecting logic of aggregation
situation
specific practices (effects)
(context)
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9. Interpretive Explanations of the pre-war Situation
Situation before
Situations1,2,n:
the Iraq war =
Ext. & interior
situation after
conditions Critical Discourse events1,2,n &
Moments (CDM‘s): its effects
referring to salient,
dramatized topics
(cf. Chilton 1987)
actors‘ framings:
drawing on speci- individual effects
fic situational cond.
process of acting
Interpretive Understanding:
Interpretive Explanations:
Re-/constructing actors‘ framings
Understanding & explaining effects w. regard
on behalf of their practices
to relevant causal factors
(situation, framings, practices, indiv. effects)
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10. CDMs: Sphere of Politics Sphere of the Media
Terror attacks (11.09.01)
(I)
Sep 01
Congress approves Use of Force
Oct 01 (14.09.01)
at the outset
Situation
Nov 01 War Enduring Freedom (07.10.01) Excluded from
investigation
Dec 01
(Karzai appointed President of
Jan 02 Afghanistan (22.12.01) Jan 02
Bush: „Axis of Evil“ (29.01.02) Diversification: heterogeneous framing
& priming, multiple addressing
Jun 02 (Bush: „Preemptive Strike“ West Point, 01.06.02) (does not hit the agenda)
Jul 02
(II) Growing Density of Agenda
Aug 02 Address Cheney Nashville: „There is no doubt
Sep 02 that S.H. now has WMDs.“ (26.08.02) ‚Paths‘ of reporting get etablished:
1st anniversary terror attacks (11.09.02) Extension of diversification with
Oct 02 Bush: address to UN (12.09.02) habitualized genre practices exploited
Approval of Iraq war by Congress (10./11.10.02) for emotionally loaded soundbite-
Nov 02 arrangements in the face of continuous
Elections of Congress (05.11.02)
uncertainty about the weapon situation
Dec 02 UN Security Council: Resolution 1441 (08.11.02)
Bush signs Dept. of HS (25.11.02) in Iraq
(III) Agenda
Jan 03 Restart of weapon inspections (27.11.02)
Feb 03 Bush: State of the Union address(28.01.03)
Powell: address to UN Security Council (05.02.03) profiling Clear-cut profiles of media (actors‘)
Mar 03 Summit of Foreign Ministers F, Ru, G (05.03.03) preferential strategies
Blix report on disarmament UN Security Council (5/7.3.03)
News conference w. Bush (06.03.03)
Bush: Ultimatum to Saddam Hussein (17.03.03) Abrupt change of genre practices (cf. ‚rally
War Iraqi Freedom (20.03.03) around the flag‘- Effect, Russett et al. 2004)
Key Dates, in: AEI (2005), America after 9/11, S. 253-254, amendments by Viehrig & Dirks.
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11. Research Data
All kinds of documents about the war reasons
(weapon reports, expertises) and communication
infrastructure within the political sphere of the US-
Administration
Front Pages of the international quality press
(part.: Washington Post, New York Times;
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Süddeutsche
Zeitung)
Interviews with the papers‘ journalists.
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12. What is a Genre?
A textualized, habitualized, potentially hybrid struc-
ture- & agency complex (here: texts of the press)
that offers its users situation-bound, meta-/linguistic
orientations when searching for communicative
solutions that suit specific social demands.
Hence, genres comprise the communicative
chances & obstacles „of constructing, maintaining
& changing social order.“
(Luckmann 1986: 205; cf. Bakhtin 1986, Volosinov)
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13. Genre-typical Functions of
Front Page Articles
Select the most important daily information
(cf. agenda-setting)
provide readers with new information
„The front page is a newspaper’s billboard, its
way of making a statement about what is
important, and stories trumpeted there are often
picked up by other news outlets.” (Kurtz 2004)
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14. Preview: Excuses of the US-Media
26.05.2004, 12.08.2004:
The NYT & WP (not the FAZ & SZ) submit their
apologies to their readers for having reported on
the basis of insufficiently proved information
about the war reasons, particularly on their front
pages.
What had happened?
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15. 2b) Selected Research Findings – the pre-war period
The semiotic artefacts (verbal/visual texts) of the political
and media spheres were dominated by politicians‘
framings dealing with the purported war reasons
(WMD‘s, terrorist collaboration of Hussein with al Qaeda).
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16. NYT/WP: LexisNexis-Research about the
War Reasons (Viehrig 2010)
Artikel NYT & Washington Post
120 Weapons of Mass
Destruction [554]
101
80 Qaeda AND (Iraq OR Hussein) [93] 79 80 74
(manuell überprüft) 67 64
56 55
40 Regime Change [505] 46 44 40
33 40
22 20 30 41 29
0 19 18 17
8 11 10 11 31
1 13 5 7
bis 20.3.03
Dez 02
Apr 02
Jun 02
Aug 02
Okt 02
Nov 02
Jan 03
Jan 02
Mrz 02
Feb 03
Feb 02
Sep 02
Mai 02
Jul 02
Archiv LexisNexis, quantity of articles w. searched terms in whole texts (Viehrig 2010).
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17. SZ/FAZ: LexisNexis-Research about the
War Reasons (Viehrig 2010)
Archiv LexisNexis, quantity of articles w. searched terms in titles & leads (Viehrig 2010).
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18. 2b) Selected Research Findings – the pre-war period
The semiotic artefacts (verbal/visual texts) of the political
and media spheres were dominated by politicians‘
framings, dealing with the purported war reasons
(WMD‘s, terrorist collaboration of Hussein with al Qaeda).
Politicians‘ framings contained ‚narrated‘, but unproved
information. Actors of the media sphere hardly ever chal-
lenged this kind of „qualitative evidence“ assigning to it a
factive status: „Arguments ad ignorantiam“ (Walton 1989: 47).
Journalists served as „animators“ of politicians‘ sound-
bites (Goffman 1981: 226), not as advocates in search of ‚good
reasons‘ (media as the ‚Fourth Estate‘?); the German
press copied the US press: „Wir haben alle voneinander
abgeschrieben“.
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19. Example: Fallacious framings –
fallacious reasoning
Jacques Chirac in an interview with the NYT:
Asking for evidence of the ‚WMD‘s!
NYT, 09.09.02:
Two front page articles about the interview with Chirac
w.o. his request!
Relegated to A9(!):
Chirac asked for „‘indisputable proof‘ of the existence
of WMD‘s“.
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20. Jacques Chirac asking for evidence of the ‚WMD‘s‘
NYT, 09.09.02, A1:
Potentially supportive quotations of members of the US-
Administration (TIME AS NO RESOURCE, POWER IS UP/ POLITICS IS ACTION):
„... Cheney warned grimly that ‚time is not on our side‘, ...
Hussein‘s efforts to build an arsenal of immensely
destructive weapons left the US little choice but to act
against Iraq. ‚There shouldn‘t be any doubt in anybody‘s
mind that this president is absolutely bound and
determined to deal with this threat‘ ... He said that Iraq
was sparing no effort to revive its nuclear weapon
program ...“
Rice: „‘there will always be some uncertainty about how
quickly‘ Mr. Hussein can acquire nuclear weapons.“ (cf. FAZ)
Rumsfeld:
„The world cannot wait to see what Iraq may do.“
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21. Selected Research Findings –
the pre-war period (cont.)
Actors of the political & media sphere did not
create or resort to evidence-based genre
routines.
Rare primings of counter-perspectives (political
opposition, weapon reports) on the agenda,
the exploitation of counter-metaphors like WAR IS
DOWN, DIPLOMACY-AS-A-JOURNEY, TIME-
AS-A-RESOURCE does not succeed in contrast
to TIME AS A MENACE, POWER IS UP,
POLITICS AS ACTION (domestic framings).
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22. Interdependencies
between the Spheres of Politics & the Media
Situational Effects
Politicians‘
Conditions of Politicians‘
Practices
of an Event Practices
The communicative challenge:
qualitative evidence – no ‚objective‘ evidence
Situational
Effects
Conditions
Journalists‘ Practices of Journalists‘
of Journalists‘
Practices
Work
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23. Reasons for missing evidence-based
genre routines
Staff writers have been in great danger of losing
their jobs due to the ‚media crisis‘, don‘t risk inno-
vations.
Media actors (journalists) ‚sell‘ news to be bought
by as many readers as possible (ca. 1/3 of papers‘
income) and found supportable by advertisers
(ca. 2/3 of papers‘ income).
Media actors try to make their papers as easily
accessible as possible by the assumed readership
in spite of the news‘ ‚foreignness‘: Reports of the
US-media obey to the criterium ‚storifyable‘ (‚do-
mestication‘) resulting into antithetic soundbite-
arrangements.
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24. Pincus (WP): Political Discourse about
„facts“ instead of „quotes“
The eldest political journalist of the Washington
Post, Walter Pincus:
„The main thing people forget to do is reading
documents.“
„First of all, it‘s [a good report] got to be factual, to
me it‘s a basis of everything. And the problem with
reporting these days is that people tend to write
much too long pieces and they tend to put too
many quotes from people.“ (Interview 4/126ff.)
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25. POLITICAL DISCOURSE AS STORY TELLING
Editor of the Washington Post, Leonard DownieJr:
„... difficulties in editing Pincus may have been a
factor in the pre-war period, because he is ›so
well sourced‹ that his reporting often amounts to
putting together ›fragments‹ until the pieces were
[…] ›storifyable‹.” (Kurtz 2004)
Maxim of public discourse: provide information
from the political sphere with „a narrative view on
life“ (Hymes 1996).
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26. Building Blocks of Stories
Referring to events that happened in the past
at specific places
binary Membership Category Devices:
‘good guys’ vs. ‘bad guys’
category-bound activities seemingly close to
everyday experience (‘domestic framings’):
practices of ingroup’s & outgroup’s members are
praised or blamed for unfavorable conditions
(cf. blame stories), e.g. connected with appella-
tive speech acts in the shape of ‘urging’,
threatening, etc.
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27. Chances for creating new Stories?
Depending on
amount of time, cognitive & material resources
for investigative approaches
creative practices of connecting narrative
structures with new contents,
e.g. telling a story about how experts of different
interest groups tried to find evidence for their
arguments
providing the audience with proper information
about the quality of experts’ findings
resulting into a discourse about good evidence in
contrast to relying on politicians’ framings, only.
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28. 3 Tools for ‚decamouflaging‘ „arguments
from ignorance“
No help from linguistic sub-/disciplines?
„Unfortunately, in spite of the professed
attention to argument as a form of ordinary,
contextually embedded language use or
situated discourse, in informal logic, as yet,
no systematic study has been undertaken of
what these indicators are and how exactly they
should be used in reconstructing unexpressed
premises“. (van Rees 2001: 182)
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29. A Taxonomy of Security Literacy (cogn. Sociolinguistics)
Strategies of de-/ Indicators & Practices of Security Literacy
encoding Meaning
Description of the Taking account of the situation‘s inner conditions:
situation & its history indiv. frames & scripts, identity & of its outer conditions:
cultural frames, material resources, institutional rules.
Description of Which practices (orally, written) can be observed or
practices reconstructed?
Interpretive Re-/construction of actors‘ framings: how did they define
understanding I the situation (cf. ‚covert action‘)? Why? e.g. COHESION of X/Y IS UP
Interpretive Re-/construction of actors‘ scripts: which practice(s) have
understanding II they chosen to enact (cf. ‚covert action‘, Schütz 1971)?
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30. Strategy of ‚Interpretive Understanding‘
Situation
Situation
before the
after action
Iraq war Searching for
collective effects
evidence of
claims,
e.g. slides 19, 20
actors‘ framings individual effects
(cf. ‚qualitative actors‘
evidence‘) practices
logic of the
logic of selecting logic of aggregation
situation
specific practices (effects)
(context)
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31. A Taxonomy of Security Literacy (cogn. Sociolinguistics)
Strategies of de-/ Indicators & Practices of Security Literacy
encoding Meaning
Description of the Taking account of the situation‘s inner conditions:
situation & its history indiv. frames & scripts, identity & of its outer conditions:
cultural frames, material resources, institutional rules.
Interpretive Re-/construction of actors‘ framings: how did they define
understanding I the situation (cf. ‚covert action‘)? Why? e.g. COHESION of X/Y IS UP
Interpretive Re-/construction of actors‘ scripts: which practice(s) have
understanding II they chosen to enact (cf. ‚covert action‘, Schütz 1971)?
Description of Which practices (orally, written) can be observed or
practices reconstructed?
Description of effects Which effects (changes of the prior situation) can be
observed?
Interpretive Create causal-functional connections betw. the effects &
Explanations relevant context factors trying to explain the collective
effects, i.e. the explanandum.
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32. Strategy of ‚Interpretive Explanations‘
Situation
Situation
before the
after action
Iraq war
Searching for collective effects
effect-related (explanandum)
context factors
actors‘ framings individual effects
actors‘
practices
logic of the
logic of selecting logic of aggregation
situation
specific practices (effects)
(context)
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33. Thank you for your attention!
In case of questions or remarks,
please,
don’t hesitate to get into touch
with me:
dirks@uni-hildesheim.de
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34. Selected Literature
Bakhtin, Michail M. (1986). Speech genres and other late essays. Ed. by Caryl Emerson & Michael Holquist,
translated by Vern W. McGee. Austin.
Chilton, Paul & Christina Schäffner (1997). Discourse and Politics. In: Teun A. van Dijk (ed.): Discourse as Social
Interaction. Discourse Studies: A Multidisciplinary Introduction. Volume 2. Ld., 206-230.
Cummings, Louise (2005). Pragmatics. A Multidisciplinary Perspective. Edinburgh.
Dirks, Una (2006a). How Critical Discourse Analysis faces the Challenge of Interpretive Explanations from a
Micro- and Macro-theoretical Perspective. Review Essay: Gilbert Weiss & Ruth Wodak (eds.) (2003):
Critical Discourse Analysis. New York, N.Y. In: Forum: Qualitative Social Research. [On-line Journal, Vol.
7, No. 2, URL: http://www.qualitative-research.net/fqs-texte/2-06/06-2-26-e.htm].
Dirks, Una (2010). Der Irak-Konflikt in den Medien. Eine sprach-, politik- und kommunikationswissenschaftliche
Analyse. Konstanz.
Esser, Hartmut (2001). Soziologie. Spezielle Grundlagen. Bd. 6: Sinn und Kultur. Frankfurt/M.
From the Editors (2004). THE TIMES and Iraq. In: The New York Times, 26.05.2004, A10.
Glucksberg, Sam (2001). Understanding Figurative Language: From Metaphors to Idioms. Oxford.
Goffman, Erving (1974). Frame Analysis. An Essay on the Organization of Experience. New York.
Goffman, Erving (1981). Forms of talk. Oxford.
Hymes, Dell (1996). Ethnography, Linguistics, Narrative Inequality: Toward an Understanding of Voice. Ld
Kurtz, Howard (2004). The Post on WMDs: An Inside Story. In: The Washington Post. 12.08.2004, A1.
Lakoff, George (2003). Metaphor and War again. 18.03.2003 [URL: http://www.alternet.org/story.html].
Luckmann, Thomas (1986). Grundformen der gesellschaftlichen Vermittlung des Wissens: Kommunikative
Gattungen. In: Friedhelm Neidhart et al. (ed.). Kultur und Gesellschaft. Sonderheft 27 der Zeitschrift für
Soziologie und Sozialpsychologie, 191-211.
van Rees, Agnès (2001). Argument Interpretation and Reconstruction. In Frans H. van Eemeren (ed.). Crucial
Concepts in Argumentation Theory. Amsterdam, 165-199.
Viehrig, Henrike (2010). Die Salienz der Kriegsgründe. In Dirks, 87-108.
Walton, Douglas (1989). Informal Logic: A Handbook for Critical Argumentation. Cambridge.
Weber, Max (1988 [1922])7. Gesammelte Aufsätze zur Wissenschaftslehre. Tübingen.
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