Can the Powerless Speak? Linguistic and Multimodal Corporate Media Manipulation in Digital Environments: the Case of Malala Yousafzai

Abstract

Paraphrasing Spivak’s essay, “Can the subaltern speak?” (1988), this paper will discuss how blogs can be manipulated by corporate media at both a linguistic and multimodal level, analysing Malala Yousafzai’s 2009 blog. Malala won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2014 and is known for her activism in women’s rights, but critics have questioned the authenticity of her voice, maintaining that her language is not likely to be produced by a child. This paper will address the question as to whether her blog has been manipulated, analysing linguistic features - such as lexical density, readability, keyness, modality markers in English, and multimodal resources. Linguistic and visual data will be discussed to see how multimodal approaches to communication can disentangle corporate mass media manipulation.