الفهرس 
Political Context of the U.S Senate Midterm ElectionsOnly 14 pages are availabe for public view
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Abstract
One of the social domains where ideology reigns supreme is politics. Politics is a struggle for power in order to put certain political and social ideas into practice. In this process, every political action is prepared, influenced and manifested through language to persuade and cajole people’s minds. Among the fields of ideological battles in which political language is exploited is political campaign discourse. Comparing to other campaigning genres (speeches and interviews), televised pre-election debates have become one of the most significant integral factors of the political campaigning process (Benoit and Harthcock, 1999, p. 341). They afford candidates a greater opportunity to communicate themselves, verbalize their ideological positions and policies as well as to distinguish themselves from their opponents in a way that seems persuasive to voters.
Among the themes that have received special attention recently are the 2018 United States Senate midterm elections, which took place in the middle of the Republican president Donald Trump’s terms. Although there has not been a great deal of interest in midterm elections by international audiences, who tend to focus more on U.S. presidential contests, this year is different. Trump’s domestic and foreign policies have been a source of outrage, controversy and enthusiasm across USA and throughout the world. In other words, 2018 midterm elections is seen as a “referendum on President Trump and his policies” (Serhan, Donadio & Schultheis, 2018, para.2). Therefore, the formation of the Congress’s two chambers this time and the outcome of the midterms could reduce Trump’s powers or might work in his favour. This has plunged U.S. into a cold civil war: a struggle between two nations-within-a-nation “Republic and Democratic Parties” without any room for obvious compromise. If Republicans lose control of either chamber of Congress, the president’s domestic agenda will be largely stonewalled on arrival at Capitol Hill. If Democrats win the House, they would be able to decide which bills come to the floor, control the committee chairmanships, and also begin impeachment proceedings against Trump, though they would need a two-thirds majority in the Senate to remove him from office.
On November 2018, the results announced that Democrats took control of the House of Representatives and Republicans kept power in the Senate, in spite of the fact that Trump’s deep unpopularity and the historic trend of voters pushing the Democratic Party in power gave Democrats serious advantages to win. It was the first midterm elections since 2002, in which the party holding the presidency gained Senate seats. In spite of the fact that Trump’s deep unpopularity and the historic trend of voters pushing the Democratic Party in power gave Democrats serious advantages to win, on November 2018, the elections ended with the Republicans’ retention of the Senate and took up 53 to 49 controlled by Democrats, including the two independent caucus. It was the first midterm elections since 2002, in which the party holding the presidency gained Senate seats. Even though in the 2018 elections, of the 35 United States Senate incumbents who were up for reelection 29 remained in office, a notable exception to this pattern is observed in the six battleground races, which have resulted in delineating the outcome of the 2018 elections. Republicans won Democratic seats in four contested races (Florida, Indiana, Missouri, and North Dakota), while Democrats won Republican seats in one open seat (Arizona) and one contested race (Nevada).
Such debates are like boxing sport, prospective political candidates spar their opponents face to face but in a dialogical duel in front of an audience/ television viewers. Additionally to the political indicators that have a great influence on the candidate’s success in winning the public consensus, namely political environment, party affiliation, and incumbency, one of the conspicuous factors that contribute to the success of the political figure is their ability to designate a positive, likeable and trustworthy self- image. Respectively, the speaker will portray their opponents negatively to diminish their chances of winning, appeal to the public, and convince them to vote. In order to achieve this goal in short and memorable segments, prospective candidates may fall back on an entire spectrum of persuasive strategies by exploiting different modalities (verbal and non- verbal) as powerful means to defeat their opponents and make a difference in voters’ decisions. Thus, as far as the U.S Senate midterm elections is concerned, the account of the battle between the Republican and Democrats for power on Capitol Hill necessitates the candidates of each party to come up with different ideological values, presented in their arguments and body language, to convince the audience of whichever standpoint they took.
Hence, the current study attempts to fill that apparent gap and remedy the lack of attention paid to the campaign debates at the U.S. non-presidential level, with a particular focus on the 2018 U.S. Senate midterm pre-election debates, including candidates running in mixed-gender races. More specifically, this study applies multimodal critical discourse analytical approach (henceforth MCDA) to unveil the candidates’ ideological polarized structures of positive self-presentation of “Us” and negative other-presentation of “Them” in candidates’ utterances as means of mind controlling and manipulating the audience through their verbal and nonverbal modalities to win the elections.
The study includes a table of contents that shows the dissertation six chapters and their pages. It also includes a tables list and a list of abbreviations and figures. Finally, it contains a reference list and appendices.
The study comprises six chapters. Chapter 1 outlines the context of the study, objectives and research questions, significance as well as rationale of the study, the methodology comprising a brief account of data collection and the analytical framework, and finally the study layout.
Chapter 2 falls into four sections. Section 2.1 presents an overview of the historical role of the United States Senate, as defined in the U.S. Constitution, developments of the U.S. political parties. Section 2.2 outlines the pivotal micro/macro political factors, which have a great influence on what is considered today as the normal components of candidate debate. Section 2.3 highlights the general characteristics of the 2018 Senate debates. It also presents the most conspicuous variables that contribute to the form and content of the 2018 senatorial debates and determine candidates’ vote shares in a given Senate election. Finally, in section 2.4, the conclusion brings the chapter to a close.
Chapter 3 is divided into four sections. Section 3.1 reviews the theoretical framework of CDA, along with its aims, key concepts, namely, power, ideology, and manipulation in general, and specifically in relation to political discourse. Section 3.2 discusses briefly the two main approaches of CDA and the multimodal approach that are employed in the study. Section 3.3 summarizes the previous relevant studies that dealt with Senate midterm to highlight the gap addressed in this study. Finally, in section 3.4, the conclusion brings the chapter to a close.
Chapter 4, which consists of four sections draws an outline of the data collected, and methodology and approaches of the research. Section 4.1 sets forth the procedures and criteria for selecting, gathering and transcribing the data. Additionally, Section 4.2 gives an account of the methods, both quantitative and qualitative, used for analyzing the data. Section 4.3 provides a detailed review of the MCDA adapted eclectic model used for the collected data under analysis, comprising Van Dijk’s (1995, 2006) Ideological Discourse Analysis, along with Fairclough’s (2003) “Intertextuality” from CDA model and Gunther Kress and Theo van Leeuwen’s Visual Grammar (1996- 2006). Finally, section 4.4, the conclusion brings the chapter to a close.
Chapter 5 focuses on analyzing the verbal and nonverbal communication content of the 2018 U.S. Senate midterm eight televised debates through the eclectic model adopted from Van Dijk’s (1995, 2006) Ideological Discourse Analysis, complemented with Fairclough’s (2003) “Intertextuality” from CDA model and Gunther Kress and Theo van Leeuwen’s Visual Grammar (1996- 2006). This entails an examination of (1) the discursive structures and persuasive strategies (verbal and non- verbal) adopted by the Senate Republican and Democratic nominees in order to construct the positive agency of the self / negative image of the other and appeal to the rational and emotive perceptions of the voters; (2) to what extent the winning/losing candidates’ verbal persuasive strategies are congruent with their non- verbal ones; (3) the similarities and differences in the use of strategies employed by the winning and losing candidates; and (4) to what extent these discursive structures and persuasive strategies help in delineating the outcome of the elections.
Chapter 6 provides a summary and discussion of the findings of the study. It presents the similarities and/or differences in the persuasive strategies employed by candidates to construct favorable images of themselves and negative representation of ‘others’ and persuade voters to elect them It also highlights the conclusions and implications based on these findings and pinpoints the limitations of the study. Finally, it ends with listing recommendations and suggestions for further research.