ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book concerns processes of ‘technologization of discourse’ in workplaces during the past 40 to 50 years, especially in higher education, processes associated with the ‘neoliberal’ form of capitalism. It proposes a specific analytic model to assess the affordances, effects and dangers of the new medium and its messages. The book presents a framework for analysing the discursive recontextualization of performance, along the lines of earlier work on the representation of social actors and social actions and applies it to the way the performance of presidents and prime ministers are recontextualized in offline and online media. It demonstrates the dangers inherent in such a system and illustrates how audiences, including juries, can be unintentionally or even at times intentionally, manipulated. The book offers a more explicit framework for the study of social movement discourse.
