The devil Is not So Black as He Is Painted (on Television). dehumanization as a Tool to discredit a Political Opponent, on the example of Donald Tusk

Abstract

The subject of the research is the image of donald Tusk as the leader of the Civic Coalition and the informal leader of the opposition in Poland, emerging from public television broadcasts, in particular from the main edition of Wiadomości” broadcast on TVP1. The article identifies and discusses a set of means of expression and television techniques used by the program's producers to discredit a political opponent. It was assumed that the malicious discrediting of donald Tusk takes place, among others, using a dehumanization strategy. In order to obtain results that will enable the purpose of the research to be achieved, the following questions were asked: 1. What image of the opposition leader emerges from the evening edition of the TVP1 news program?; 2. does the way of portraying donald Tusk bear the hallmarks of malicious discredit?; 3. Which dehumanization techniques do TVP producers use and how?; 4. What threats does the dehumanization of a political opponent pose to the individual and the state of democracy in Poland? The sample included the content of 32 main editions of Wiadomości (2021–2022), and the research was qualitative (semiotic analysis, discourse analysis).