Digital Media and Public Opinions: A Critical Discourse Analysis of the Performance of Jubilee Government of Kenya (2013-2015)

Abstract

Recent years have seen a great deal of academic interest in the possibility of using digital media to measure public opinion on politics. Different scholars have attempted to use digital media data to predict election results in Kenya. However, limited analysis has been done in terms of situating public opinions in themes, ideologies, attitudes and language patterns that inform political positions and power asymmetry. This paper presents public opinions drawn from three Kenyan digital dailies-Nation media, Standard media and Star digital media on the performance of Jubilee Government of Kenya between April 2013 and December 2015. This study used Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) approaches and software to examine these themes. One thousand opinions were uploaded into software and analysed using Teun van Dijk's, Norman Fairclough's and Ruth Wodak's Critical Discourse Analysis approaches. This study revealed that digital media reflects salient opinions of the public that influences and shapes political behaviour of Kenyan citizens, public demands on performance government and evaluation of existing government policies.