Paveau, Marie-Anne

Discursive Frontiers of Militariness (the Military) - 2000.


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The discourse of French soldiers concerning their relations with the Press is clearly apparent in the journal Armées d'aujourd'hui, thanks to group representations born of shared knowledge: the rapport with the journalist, that radical Other, is simply placed under the sign of incompatibility. From there on in, two antithetical scripts are construed around the journal's discourse. One is about incommunicability, in harmony with the basic scenario, causing the journalist to tumble from the sphere of Otherness into the realm of Hostility. The other is about communication, partly a result of administrative policy; it is opposed to the root scenario, since it presupposes collaboration. Nevertheless, linguistic analysis shows that communication with the journalists is presented very much like a military action, in which the Other is hardly distinguishable from an enemy. In the end, the antinomy of the two scripts is resolved because the root scenario of incompatibility wins out.