Critical Discourse Analysis: Decoding Conflicting Visions of Peace in Colombian Public Opinion
The Challenge
By 2015, Colombia’s peace negotiations with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) had reached a critical juncture. While the government and the FARC sought to finalize an agreement, public opinion remained deeply polarized, especially as the regional elections that year intensified political tensions. Key political actors—including the government, the opposition, and the FARC—used Twitter as a battleground to shape public perception of the peace process.
The challenge was to:
- Analyze how different political actors framed the concept of “peace” in their online discourse.
- Examine how political agendas shaped narratives around the peace negotiations.
- Identify linguistic and rhetorical strategies used by the government, opposition, and FARC.
- Provide a research-based understanding of how political discourse influences public perception of peace processes.
The Solution
As part of my Master’s research in Multilingual Communication at Université libre de Bruxelles (ULB), I conducted a Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) of political narratives surrounding the peace talks, focusing on Twitter content during the 2015 regional elections.
The methodology & research approach I used consisted of:
- 📊 Corpus Analysis: Examined 914 tweets from 12 key political actors, categorizing and interpreting their discourse strategies.
- 📚 Bibliographic Research: Explored case studies on discourse and peace negotiations in other global conflicts to contextualize findings.
- 🔍 Linguistic & Rhetorical Analysis: Identified shared referents (e.g., “peace,” “justice,” “security”), revealing how different actors reframed these concepts to align with their political agendas.
- 🌎 Fieldwork & Interviews: Conducted interviews with representatives of the Raizal community—a historically marginalized group—to integrate perspectives beyond mainstream political discourse.
- 🌐 Multilingual Research: Analyzed a Spanish-language corpus while producing the thesis entirely in English, bridging linguistic and academic audiences.
Results
The main conclusions of my work are:
- 📢 Divergent Narratives on Peace: While all actors used common referents (e.g., “reconciliation,” “justice”), each assigned different meanings aligned with their political interests.
- 📱 Strategic Use of Twitter: The opposition framed peace talks as a threat to democracy, while the government positioned them as a historic opportunity for stability. The FARC, in turn, leveraged social media to construct a legitimacy-seeking narrative.
- 🗳 Insights into Electoral Strategy: Political actors adapted their discourse based on electoral timing, reinforcing support among their bases while attempting to sway undecided voters.
SERVICES
Critical Discourse Analysis
Political Communication
Social Media & Digital Political Strategy
Multilingual Research
Academic Writing
Qualitative & Quantitative Political Analysis
SEE MORE
Read and download the full text of my thesis from Academia
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