Winning, Losing and the Presentation of Self: Senators’ Election Campaign Victory and Concession Speeches

• In Event: 40420 - Section on Political Sociology Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): Table 3: Electoral Politics 2

Abstract

This working paper investigates how U.S. Senatorial candidates make persuasive use of rhetorical and pragmatic interactional strategies in their victory and concession speeches in order to manage impressions and convey a positive self-image as a candidate. A qualitative discourse analytic approach is employed which utilizes transcription conventions and concepts from conversation analysis and concepts such as “impression management” and “presentation of self” from symbolic interactionism. Forty U.S. Senate campaign speeches are analyzed (20 by Republican and 20 by Democratic candidates, in matched pairs of winners and losers). The data have been collected from the publicly available C-SPAN online video archive, and transcripts have been made of speeches from each candidate. In this working paper the analysis will focus on how interactional strategies and techniques used in victory speeches may differ from those used in concession speeches, and will also explore potential differences between approaches to presentation of self in speeches by Democratic and Republican candidates. This paper focuses our attention on the interactional techniques senatorial candidates used in their concession and victory speeches to attempt to convey a positive presentation of self. In addition, this proposed project facilitates a direct comparison of interactional strategies used depending on the political party of the candidate. Particularly given the current historical period in which polarization and negativity are rampant in politics, research into how political figures (in this case, Senators) communicate to audiences in victory and concession speeches can produce insights and information that may be useful both analytically and practically, and may also provide a lens on shifting norms for this genre of political communication.

Author

• Angela Cora Garcia, Bentley University