The Pragmatics of Political Deception on Facebook
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Date
2019
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Department of English Language Studies, Elizade University, NIgeria
Abstract
Facebook, an intrinsic part of 21st century social realities where cognitive-participatory activities are
largely captured, is consistently explored for political deception. This chapter investigates how participants
utilize language to deceive politically the Nigerian electorate on Facebook. For data, 250 Facebook posts
on Nigerian politics were sampled, out of which 50 were purposefully selected for being highly rich in
deceptive content in order to unpack online deception through multimodal critical discourse analysis.
Four deceptive forms—equivocation of identity, exaggeration of performance, falsification of corruption
cases, and concealment of offences—within two socio-political contexts—election and opposition—constituted the posts. These prompt an evocation of a messianic figure, blunt condemnation, and evocation
of sympathy and retrospection to achieve the political intentions of criticism, self-presentation, silent
opposition, and galvanizing public support. The chapter concludes that political propaganda taps into
Facebook users to appeal to their political biases and sway their opinions.
Description
Keywords
Pragmatics, Political Deception, Facebook
Citation
Olajimbiti, E. (2019). The Pragmatics of Political Deception on Facebook. In Handbook of Research on Deception, Fake News, and Misinformation Online (pp. 308-325). IGI Global.