Polemics as discursive displacement in digital media: a case study
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.30973/esdi.2026.12.1.247Keywords:
recontextualización mediática, discurso polémico, lenguaje inclusivo, UruguayAbstract
The media construct, reproduce, and disseminate, and even construct public controversies in diverse ways. Based on a larger corpus of 72 digital news articles on gender-inclusive language in Uruguay, this article analyzes 13 news items concerning a controversy surrounding the decision to issue university degrees using non-binary gender language. Unlike the larger corpus, news discourse about this event does not construct the news as a controversy but rather offers some textual cues which are picked up by online readers, who actually construct the event as polemical through comments in newspaper forums. Results contribute to a better understanding of the situated ways in which polemics are (co-)constructed in digital media nowadays.
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