Deconstructing populists rhetoric presented in the tweets of the South African Trade Union, Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (AMCU): a critical discourse analysis study

Abstract

This study argues that social media network Twitter possess underlying political populist rhetoric and uses different discursive practices in the verbal and visual texts primarily to legitimise and/or delegitimise a political discourse. Thus, political populism rhetoric is inherently ideological rather than objective. Political populism rhetoric is presented on the Twitter account of the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (AMCU). This study makes the following significant contribution: (1) populism is increasingly an issue of concern that undermines the South African democracy, (2) the study is the first of its kind that explored underlying political populist rhetoric of AMCU in South Africa. What is key to this study is to deconstruct and/or interrogate underlying political populists rhetoric on Twitter, by means of different research methods of the Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), namely: the three-dimensional model of discourse, political discourse analysis, discourse mythology analysis and social semiotic analysis. The above-mentioned interpretative, critical and reveal underlying discursive practices of a particular political discourse. The study sampled AMCU tweets collected from March 2019 to September 2020. The units of analysis are the verbal and visual texts of AMCU tweets. The findings of the study revealed that AMCU employed political myths, political language and visual aspects as rhetoric. This was primarily to construct the underlying populist political rhetoric. The significance of these rhetoric is firstly, to legitimise the relevance of AMCU as a trade union in the mining sector of South Africa. Secondly, to lament socio-economic conditions of the marginalised mineworkers. Thirdly, to demonise the role of the mining management as exploiters of mine labourers. Lastly, the study revealed the use of different linguistic features such as grammar and political metaphors rhetorically to construct a populist political rhetoric that

delegitimises the South African mining management. While the visual texts are used rhetorically to legitimise the populist, heroic and master myth of AMCU as a trade union. On the other hand, AMCU employed verbal and visual rhetoric to delegitimise the political discourse of the African National Congress (ANC) led government in post-1994 South Africa.