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Factors and Justification of Reconstructing Meaning of Political Texts under Conditions of Cognitive and Interpretative Uncertainty

Fidrya E.S.,

Vice-Rector for Social Communications, Associate Professor at the Institute for Humanities, Immanuel Kant Baltic Federal University, EFidrya@kantiana.ru

elibrary_id: 492928 | RESEARCHER_ID: N-4325-2019

DOI: 10.17976/jpps/2019.04.04

Rubric: Theme of the Issue: Looking into the Nature of the Political

For citation:

Fidrya E.S. Factors and Justification of Reconstructing Meaning of Political Texts under Conditions of Cognitive and Interpretative Uncertainty. – Polis. Political Studies. 2019. No. 4. P. 40-56. (In Russ.). https://doi.org/10.17976/jpps/2019.04.04

The study has been supported by a grant of the Russian Science Foundation (research project No. 18-18-00442 “Mechanisms of sense formation and textualization in social narrative and performative discourses and practices”)

Abstract

In this article, political text is treated as a construct for expressing one’s viewpoint on the events of political landscape; creating a certain effect on different groups of society with an aim to encourage collective will and actions; as well as representing a collective interest. Types of structural and situational factors (including structural balance of social and political groups, cultural and symbolic space, participants of a communication, and their resources recognized by a society) and the way they influence the recipient’s interpretation of a text’s message are shown. Stuart Hall’s Model of Communication, possible ways of coding and decoding both text content and ideological principles of an author and audience are described and discussed. It is noted that, due to the fundamental features of social communication, both authors and recipients find themselves in a situation of constant cognitive and interpretative uncertainty. Whereas situational factors do not distort the meaning but contribute to its construction and further interpretation, the structure of participants, their resources, and the context of communication is accomplished. This article explores the process of text construction and its meaning’s further reconstruction as an active process, in which an agreement is reached between communicative participants on the meaning of their own piece of text and its cultural, social, structural, pragmatic and political contexts, produced by the subjects under the condition of uncertainty. The model reflects the process and factors of text production and perception of its meaning. It is revealed that the interpretation of the meaning of political texts, and the position of participants of communication, depends primarily on claims that they possess social and political capital as resources that ensure the encouragement of collective will and representation of interests. The role of dispositives (as a context of communication) that allows the regulation of cognitive uncertainty and which define appropriate ways of qualification is shown. The article also describes the model of the process of text construction and meaning reconstruction with cultural, social, structural, pragmatic and political context being taken into account as well as the role of political texts in communicative strategies of political actors. 

Keywords

political text, uncertainty, political communication, justification of worth logics, political capital, dispositif.

 Full Text 

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