Uyahe na Raghba ya Jinsia kama Mikakati ya Propaganda: Uchunguzi Kifani wa Mdahalo wa Urais wa Kenya, 2013

Abstract

Politicians use various communication styles to direct and determine how voters understand their political messages. Often, these communication styles end up blurring the voters understanding of the issues to the extent that they end up electing undeserving people. Of the many styles available, propaganda techniques are the most used in political campaigns. This study analyses how two propaganda techniques; plain folk and appeal to gender were used by candidates in the 2013 Kenyan presidential debate to both woo voters and establish their preferability. Two theories guided the research; the Critical Discourse Analysis theory and the Functional theory. Data was words and statements that fall in the categories of plain folk and appeal to gender techniques. Critical, content and qualitative approaches were used to do the analysis. Results showed that the two techniques used by candidates, on one hand built their supposedly good leadership qualities, and on the other, destroyed qualities of their opponents. The candidates also used the two techniques to sell their policies and those of their parties while belittling those of the opposing parties as well as their opponents. This work is valuable to the study of discourse analysis and political communication. It forms a good reference for students of discourse analysis, political science and communication. Further research can be undertaken to establish the use of other styles like rhetoric under a different theory. Keywords: Appeal, gender, plain folk, propaganda, techniques