Mental models in journalistic discourse and on Facebook: the (re)production of knowledge about #OcupeEstelita

Abstract

In this study we analyzed the comments written in response to a post by the action #OcupeEstelita on Facebook, and two newspaper stories in order to understand the cognitive-discursive relations established between distinct social groups. We adopted Van Dijk’s socio-cognitive perspective (2010, 2012), analyzing the categorization (LAKOFF, 1987; LANGACKER, 1987), the nominalization, and referentiation (MONDADA; DUBOIS, 2003) processes, as well as the manner how information is organized in news pieces (VAN DIJK, 1988), in order to recover the mental models created about the action, its representatives, and the social issues in question. We observed that the journalistic media tends to develop a pejorative conceptualization of the action; that the action places itself as the guardian of social-democratic interests; and that comments on Facebook tend to reproduce the same event models developed by the journalistic media. We realized, thus, that the role of conceptualization through discourse in the (re)production of socially relevant knowledge is at stake in this discursive clash.