Social Media Portrayals of War of Waters: A Critical Discourse Analysis

Abstract

Although war of waters has existed throughout history, it has gained increasing relevance in recent decades, particularly in regions where transboundary rivers are politically contested. One of the most critical and ongoing disputes is between Iraq and Turkey over the control on the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. The study seeks to achieve three primary objectives: investigating the types of transitivity processes most frequently used in the politicians' utterances; analysing how the positive self-representation and negative other-representation are uncovered in the politicians' utterances; and exploring the similarities and differences in these linguistic tools between the two opposing sides. To achieve these objectives, the researcher employs a qualitative descriptive design, using an eclectic model that integrates Fairclough's (1989) dialectal relational approach with van Dijk's (1998) ideological square. One social media report is selected and analysed using transitivity at the micro level to uncover hidden ideological representations at the macro level. The findings reveal that material processes are the most frequently used in the politicians’ utterances, highlighting their focus on concrete actions and tangible events. Through these linguistic tools, they emphasise positive self-representation and de-emphasise, or delegitimise, the opposing side. The findings also reveal that in some instances Iraqi and Turkish politicians employ similar linguistic tools to shape their narratives and to ideologically represent the self and the other in different ways. In other instances, they employ different linguistic tools with different ideological representations. A corpus-assisted CDA of war of waters in Arab newspapers could be conducted in future research to examine ideological representations across diverse media.