COLLECTIVE IDENTITY

Collective identity is a social construct that represents group-shared values, beliefs, and ideas within the dynamics of social power relations between various groups. For a group to be recognised and positioned within the social hierarchy, it must possess a set of shared ideas and beliefs that are consistently upheld by its members.

Media and political discourses frequently reflect these power dynamics through representations of collective identities. Such representations are closely intertwined with collective emotions, which serve as foundational elements in constructing intergroup relations, managing conflict and facilitating conflict resolution.

Collective emotions play a significant ideological role in positioning ingroups and defining their relationship with outgroups. More critically, these emotions act as a driving force for ingroup representation, reinforcing core ideas and beliefs, while motivating collective action in relation to the outgroup. In this context, collective identity is often mobilised during conflicts with outgroups, where positive emotions are evoked toward the ingroup, while negative emotions – towards the outgroup. To illustrate, consider how the negative emotion of anger is often directed by one political group at its opponents during elections, or how a sense of in-group collective identity is reinforced through the negative emotion of fear, which is directed at other social groups such as refugees, migrants or religious minorities.

In Critical Discourse Studies, collective identity can be analysed through three key discursive strategies: identification, polarisation and legitimisation. Identification refers to the categorisation of discourse through explicit mentions of social actors, states, institutions and their representatives, including the use of collective pronouns. Polarisation highlights conflict-laden representations between social actors or states, often characterised by negative portrayals of the ‘Other’. Legitimisation involves positive representations of the ‘Self’ in collective terms. The combined use of these discourse strategies helps sustain a narrative of collective emotion, shaping public perceptions about the ingroup and its relationship with the outgroup.

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