doxa.comunicación | 27, pp. 43-62 | 45

julio-diciembre de 2018

Santiago Castelo Heymann

ISSN: 1696-019X / e-ISSN: 2386-3978

ISSN: 1696-019X / e-ISSN: 2386-3978

to this author, ethos consists of the presentation that the speaker creates of him or herself in the speech when enunciating, which goes beyond the content of his or her statements.

According to Amossy (2000) previous ethos’ refers both to the role of the speaker in the social space, with regard to their institutional functions and status, and to the stereotype that is collectively associated with their personage. The oratory ethos is influenced by pre-existing components and will try to substantiate, modify or refute the idea that the public already has of the speaker. In the same vein, for Charaudeau (2005), role and social status give the orator the right to speak and legitimize its use.

Therefore, ethos is dialogical and polyphonic, due to fact that factors such as previous discourses, ideologies, power relations, etc., intervene in its development. Moreover, identity is co-constructed in social exchange, and the subject is “partially influenced by forces that pass through him without his knowing it: the will and intention of a speaker do not determine the meanings with which his words and gestures will be interpreted” (Dagatti, 2017: 40).

Ethos has been the object of assorted taxonomies, from Ancient Rhetoric to the Analysis of Contemporary Discourse by authors such as Charaudeau (2005), Amossy (2010), and Maingueneau (2002). Recently, Montero (2012b) and Dagatti (2017) have carried out systematic analyses of Néstor Kirchner’s ethos, establishing specific classifications for the speeches of the former Argentine president. In this article we propose a new classification, and being inspired by its precedents, it is strictly linked to the political identity of Ada Colau. We will try, therefore, to deepen the understanding of the presentation of a leader who is in a new public position, which seems initially to be in conflict with the previous one.

2. Corpus and methodology

The corpus is composed of the 185 texts that were published on Ada Colau’s2 Facebook page between May 24, 2015, which was the day of the municipal elections that placed her in the Mayor’s office, and January 18, 2017, the day when this investigation began. The May 24 election is an appropriate date for the purpose of analysing the discourse of a political leader at the precise moment when her position of stable power was questioned as a result of a change in institutional status. The choice of the channel is based on two criteria related to the characteristics of the social network, on one hand, and how the network is used by Colau, on the other.

Regarding the first, Facebook is not only the most extensive social network and leader in user engagement time, but it follows a biographical model that organizes activities in a chronological way, as if it were a personal diary, in a type of “updated biographical continuum” (Gurevich, 2016). This is significant when considering Colau’s presentation in relation to her political career. Regarding the second criterion, instead of the extended daily post, the mayor only publishes one post

2 For the present analysis, it is considered that any use of the word of a political leader in the public space - and here Facebook is included - implies a presentation of oneself. This is independent of the material authorship of the content, that is, it does not matter who writes and finally publishes the messages, it is understood that, being a verified account, the politician is responsible for what is published and his user is exhibiting a self-image (Amossy, 2000; Maingueneau, 2002; Dagatti, 2017).