Use of the discourse analysis method to study current political practice (by the example of representation of the political leader image)

Abstract

The potentialities in the application of the discourse analysis method to study a political discourse as a current political practice are shown. The authors, using the Foucault methodology, offer a sociological definition for the political discourse. It is the authors' opinion that the approach mentioned allows investigating a political discourse as a practice for the formation of a certain reality, specific agents, institutions and organizations. A political discourse is a simulative dynamic model of political area where various subdiscourses interact, thus creating their own ideas of policy, symbols and images. Subdiscourses of political leaders become dominating. Inasmuch as a political discourse in a current political system is carried out with the aid of mass media, it could be considered as a media discourse of policy. The authors consider the representation as a basic mechanism for the formation of a political discourse, by the example of the representation of the image of