Discursive Strategies of Legitimization in Tweets Related to Television Advertising in Chilean Referendum Campaigns During 2020-2022

Abstract

This article aims to characterize the discursive strategies of legitimization in tweets related to the televised electoral slots of the referendums for a new constitution in Chile (2020-2022), from a critical perspective that integrates principles of critical discourse studies, specifically, in the study of legitimation (van Leeuwen, 2008; Reyes 2011; Hansson and Page, 2022) and the conceptual framework of the hybrid media system (Chadwick, 2017). This qualitative study analyzes a random sample extracted from a corpus of approximately 100,000 tweets marked with the hashtag #Franjaelectoral published in the campaign periods of the entry (2020) and exit (2022) referendum for a new constitution in Chile. A random sample of 50 tweets from each data set was analyzed in detail to characterize the discursive strategies of legitimation used in these texts and thus contrast the texts generated in both campaigns. It was found that users use various legitimation strategies in their texts to justify their position in relation to the electoral processes related to the new constitution in Chile. The most frequent strategy in this data set is that of moral evaluation related, mainly to the valuation of the electoral strip and the constitutional process, followed by the authorization that refers in this corpus to public figures with experience, the rationalization that questions the arguments of the adversaries and, finally mythopoesis, related to previous political processes that would serve as a framework for action for them.