Political Narrative : A Never Ending Rhetorical Tool

Abstract

This case study presents two pieces of data taken from the third debate which took place during the presidential election held in the United States of America in 2008 and which had as main opponents the Democratic Senator Barack Obama and the Republican Senator John McCain. The analysis of the data is based on two narratives provided by the candidates during their interventions. The aim of this paper is twofold: on the one hand, to investigate the reasons why these candidates used narratives during their interchange and, on the other hand, to question their narratives' truth-value relative to the images they present. In brief, what impact these narrative may have had on electors and which images the senators wanted to encapsulate in them.