On the Impossibility of Discursive-material closures: A Case of Banned TV channels in Ukraine

Social Sciences & Humanities Open. 2022. Vol. 6. No. 1. Article 100329.

Baysha O.

Drawing on the ideas of Laclau and Mouffe (1985) and Carpentier (2017), this paper shows how, on the one hand, discursive-material assemblages within the digital environment of interconnected information networks prevent the possibility of final discursive closures, while, on the other hand, they may weaken discourses, preventing them from serving as a mobilizing force for social change. To illustrate this, the paper discusses the case of Volodymyr Zelensky, the president of Ukraine, who banned oppositional television channels in a bid to shut down oppositional discourse by both discursive (the reduction of oppositional arguments) and material means (the physical closure of the studios). Discourse-material analysis presented in the paper draws on the discourse theory of Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe and Nico Carpentier’s Discursive-Material Knot.

Keywords: Ukraine, discourse theory, Discursive-Material Knot, Volodymyr Zelensky