Social media, language

and politicsAdvanced English Course – Francesca Helm

What

political

impact

can a

tweet like

this have?

Background contextual knowledge

needed to understand the story

What does the ‘white van’ represent in the UK?

What is the England flag seen to represent?

Why is Rochester significant at this time?

Where are you going to get this information?

What happened after the tweet was published?

The tweet was ‘re-tweeted’ on Guido Fawkes’ blog, one of the most

widely read ‘political commentary’ blogs – with the heading below

– and from here went on to mainstream media outlets

This is a very ‘British’ story, but it serves to bring out some of the strong links

between language and culture and, to a lesser extent, language and

politics, the themes we will be discussing for the next few weeks, as well as

political blogging.

It is linked to so much ‘cultural’ baggage that even international

newspapers had trouble understanding and interpreting the story – to the

extent that the Guardian published an article on how to explain the story to

non-British people.

It is also of relevance to the topics you may do for your blogs as it includes

issues of power, media and also gender issues.

Links

Emily Thornbetty’s Twitter account

"Snob Labour MP's Twitter dig at White Van Man's England Flags“

http://uk.reuters.com/article/2014/11/21/uk-britain-politics-flag-

idUKKCN0J515Z20141121

Guido Fawkes’ blog

The Guardian explains the story

Article we will be analysing in class on Friday

Vocabulary: by-election

A by-election takes place when a seat in the House of Commons becomes

vacant between general elections

A seat becomes vacant during the lifetime of a Parliament either when an

MP resigns from Parliament, for example to take up a job which by law

cannot be done by an MP, or because an MP has died. The law also allows

a seat to be declared vacant because of a Member's bankruptcy, mental

illness or conviction for a serious criminal offence.

http://www.parliament.uk/about/how/elections-and-voting/by-elections/