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Theoretical references to polemic social
representations
A classic definition for the concept of so- cial representation considers it as “a form of knowledge, socially produced and shared, having practical ends, and competing for the construction of a common reality of a social ensemble” (Jodelet, 1989, p.36, our transla- tion). It follows that a social representation is always the representation of something (ob- ject) belonging to someone (subject) and that it is social not only in the sense of the tautologi- cal definition referring to the social nature of the object itself, but becomes social in the very aspect of being shared (Jodelet, 1989). Polemi- cal representations, the notion introduced by Moscovici in 1988, are always related to the limits of sharing of social representations in society as a whole due to the conflicting nature of relationships between groups. In what can be called the fertile debate about the notion of social representations,
which marked the period of revival of the social representations theory in European so- ciopsychological research in the eighties (de Rosa: 1992; Jodelet: 2008), one critical point referred to the insufficient conceptual clarifica- tion on the difference between collective and social representations (Jahoda: 1988), thus not justifying the replacement of ‘collective’ with ‘social’ in describing the phenomenon, as was proposed by Moscovici (1984). In his exten- sive answer to Jahoda’s criticism, Moscovici (1988) made a specific point about the ways in which a representation can become social, which he considered to be directly related to the relations between group members. Mosco- vici suggested therefore a classification of rep- resentations into three types, depending on the different degrees of sharing them. The three types of representations envisaged he labeled hegemonic, emancipated , and polemical. Hegemonic representations were defined as:
On the notion of polemic social
representations – theoretical developments
and empirical contributions
Alina Pop 1
Abstract: Within the rich research fi eld informed by the social representations theory in social psychology, the concept of polemic social representations seems to have gained less attention. By inventorying the main theoretical developments and by showing some of the few empirical contributions to the concept of polemic social representations, this paper argues about the usefulness of the notion in analyzing social confl icts.
Keywords: polemic social representations; social representations theory; social confl ict
“Representations shared by all members of a highly structured group – a party, city or a nation – without their having been produced by the group. [They] prevail implicitly in all symbolic or affective practices. They seem to be uniform and coercive. They reflect the ho- mogeneity and stability that the French soci- ologists had in mind when they called these representations collective.” (p. 221). Emancipated representations were consid- ered: “(…) the outgrowth of the circulation of knowledge and ideas belonging to subgroups that are in more or less close contact. Each sub- group creates its own version and shares it with others. These are emancipated representations with a certain degree of autonomy with respect to the interacting segments of society. They have a complementary function inasmuch as they result from exchanging and sharing a set of interpretations or symbols. They are social by virtue of the divisions of function and the information brought together and coordinated by their means.” (p. 221). Lastly, polemical representations were de- scribed as: “There are representations generated in the course of social conflict, social controversy, and society as a whole does not share them. They are determined by the antagonistic rela- tions between its members and intended to be mutually exclusive. These polemical repre- sentations must be viewed in the context of an opposition or struggle between groups and are often expressed in terms of a dialogue with an imaginary interlocutor.” (p. 221-222). The example used to illustrate this last type of social representations, was the representa- tion of Marxism in France, where different versions of Marxism could be identified, each shaped by the polemic relations between be- lievers and non-believers, or communist and liberals. This differentiated view of social repre- sentations was considered to be in opposition to the uniform view which characterized col- lective representations and also more suited to characterize the current state of society. Even if the main factor invoked by Mosco- vici for differentiating between the types of representations refers to the context of social relations existing between their holders, an- other important aspect is implied by these definitions, that is the degree of autonomy/
freedom individuals have in relation to dif- ferent representations. In this sense, the clas- sification suggested in 1988 followed another one, also tripartite, which Moscovici made two years earlier in an editorial to a special is- sue of the Italian journal Psicologia e Società (1986, cited in Galli: 2006). There, a differen- tiation was proposed between: closed social representations, whose elements are uniform and similar for all population; agonal or criti- cal social representations, whose elements are more or less the same in an entire population, but whose significance is determined by con- trasting values; open social representations, whose elements are distributed among various categories of the population, therefore it is re- quired to combine them so that they can find their coherence. We can easily see the resemblances be- tween closed and hegemonic representations, between open and emancipated representa- tions, and between agonal/critical and po- lemical representations. But the differences in labels are suggestive for the aspect which is prominent in defining them, i.e. degree of individual autonomy vs. social relations which characterize the context of interaction be- tween individuals. While in the case of close/ hegemonic representations the individuals’ autonomy or freedom to choose them is rather absent, these representations being coercive, in the case of open/emancipated representations individuals and subgroups have the entirely liberty to create, communicate and make use of them. However, in the case of agonal/polemi- cal representations the degree of autonomy for single individuals is not very clear. By men- tioning this category on the second position in the classification Moscovici made in 1986, we might suppose that social representations of this type are something in-between close and open social representation with respect to the degree of liberty they imply, being uniform and coercive at the level of the group where they are shared, but diverse and autonomous at the level of society. However comprehensible the taxonomic definition of social representations might be, the operational definitions of the different rep- resentation types, the relationships between them, and also the evolution of one social rep- resentation from one type or status to another, were not always very clear. This led to vari- ous conceptions about the three types of social
Alina Pop On the notion of polemic social representations
who are dominated in society. Glynis Breakwell (2001) keeps the distinc- tion between the three different representation types in discussing the scope for personal rep- resentations. She refers precisely to the degree of freedom that the different types give to in- dividuals in constructing a personal represen- tation. Hegemonic representations allow little individual variations, while emancipated and polemical representations suppose individual variations. Individual variation is based upon differential exposure within group contexts in emancipated representations, and upon the prevailing conditions of intergroup conflict in polemical representations. More than that, this author acknowledges an active role for indi- viduals in mediating the emancipated and po- lemical representations, since “personal repre- sentations will be perpetually under pressure to change from the social representations which surround them. Individuals who are powerful (through position, expertise, or other route) are more likely to be able to retain their own personal representations and to be able to in- fluence the development of social representa- tions”. (p. 275). Thus, this is judged to be the essential condition for innovation and change to take place. Another idea brought about by this author in the same article regards the viability of the tripartite classification of social representa- tions. She questions whether there are actu- ally different types of social representations, or whether these are just different stages in the lifespan of a social representation, but without going into any further into this debate. How- ever, in a later work (2007) Breakwell explic- itly assumes the existence of these categories when discussing about social representations of hazards in the social amplification of risk framework (SARF). In function of what type the social representation of a specific hazard is, there are significant implications for the type of intervention needed to intensify or attenuate individuals’ representations of that risk. An explicit point for rejecting the classifi- cation into hegemonic, emancipated, and po- lemical representations in a strict Aristotelian sense is made by Li Liu (2004). Within the dialogical perspective in the study of social representations (Marková: 2000, 2003), Liu discusses the relationship between themata and different ways for sharing social repre- sentations. A central concept within the dia-
logical perspective is that of themata, defined as ‘source ideas’, ‘primary notions’, ‘image concepts’, ‘first principles’ or ‘preconcep- tions’ which generate social representations and also form their deep structure (Moscovici & Vignaux: 2000). Themata were also defined as “such oppositional categories which, in the course of history, become problematized; for one reason or another they become the focus of attention and a source of tension and con- flict”. (Marková: 2000, p. 446). For Liu, it is precisely the emergence of social representa- tions from themata that makes problematic the classification of representations into three types. Rather, she considers that there are three ways of sharing a social representation (i.e. he- gemonic, emancipated, and polemic) that can simultaneously apply to a social representa- tion in a complementary way. To cite her fully, “Different layers and different aspects of a rep- resentation entail different ways of sharing. A representation is generated through hegemon- ic, widely shared themata, but it also involves more emancipated and polemical dimensions. The emancipated and polemical dimensions of a representation express the particular societal conditions of social actors who activate them in their specific contexts and in relation to di- verse life spheres. At the same time, they re- flect the broadly social, economic, political and ideological change and conflicts. Thus, a social representation may be, at one and the same time, hegemonic, emancipated or polemical.” (2004, p. 261). This conception is defended by making reference to the social representation of quality of life in China, organized around the thema “Having/Being”, historically rooted and widely shared in the Chinese culture and, thus, hegemonic , but which also contains, ac- cording to the author, elements of emancipated and polemic nature, which are linked to the dif- ferent social positions of social actors. Thus, these non-hegemonic elements of the social representation are related to differences be- tween rural and urban population of China, or between older and younger generations. Still, Gillespie (2008), another schol- ar whose work on social representations is strongly informed by the dialogical perspec- tive, keeps the classic distinction between the three types of social representations when de- scribing the concept of alternative representa- tions. For this author, the plurality of social representations in contemporary society makes
Alina Pop On the notion of polemic social representations
it necessary to conceive the existence of alter- native representations, whose primary function is to make individuals who share a specific representations deal with and adapt to the plu- rality of other and potentially competing social representations. Simply defined as ‘representa- tions of other people’s representations’, alter- native representations are considered to be dia- logical sub-parts within certain representations that can either destabilize or, on the contrary, strengthen a particular social representation. According to Gillespie, hegemonic represen- tations are completely devoid of alternative representations, since they are completely ego- centric. On the contrary, alternative representa- tions “only exist as dialogical shadows within polemical or emancipated representations. They are shadows in the sense of reflecting, usually in a distorted and very simplified form, the social representation of other groups. They are also shadows in the sense that they are firmly attached to what the speaker wants to say, and are a sort of inverse of what the speak- er wants to say. Alternative representations are “alter” in the sense of being attributed to other people and in the sense of being foreign objects within the given representation. Alternative representations are the Alter within the given social representation.” (p. 382). Evidence for alternative representations is given after rein- terpreting data from Moscovici’s famous La Psychanalyse (1961/1976). Gillespie ascribes emancipated social representations to diffusion and propagation, while polemical representa- tions are assigned to propaganda, as commu- nication systems or genres which character- ized the different media originally analyzed by Moscovici. Gillespie considers an emancipated representation to be forged in a context of di- verse alternatives with which it is constantly in dialogue. On the contrary, polemical represen- tations are judged to have one major alternative representation which functions as a rhetorical counterpoint. Usually the alternative represen- tation within a polemical social representation is a caricature, a straw man, and serves to the reinforcement of the in-group representation of the object. To illustrate this, Gillespie makes reference to the representation of psychoanaly- sis held by French communists interviewed in the fifties by Moscovici. For them, psychoanal- ysis was a kind of capitalist ideology. However their responses reveal the fact that they were aware of an alternative definition of psycho-
analysis, in fact a caricaturized working model of psychoanalysis, but which was outright re- jected. The conclusion is that despite their ever presence within polemical representations, al- ternative representations are kept at a distance and not much dialogical interchange between the main representation and the alternative takes place, all this assuring the protection of the representation from the potential change implied by a dialogue with the alternatives. This is possible due to several semantic bar- riers that prevent such dialogue. Two of them, i.e. maintaining rigid opposition and transfer of meaning, were originally identified by Mosco- vici (1961/1976). Besides these two, Gillespie identifies prohibited thought, separation, stig- ma, undermining motives, and bracketing, all concurring to keep the alternative representa- tion at distance.
Empirical contributions to the study of
polemic social representations
Polemic social representations was a rather neglected concept in the field of social repre- sentations (Jost & Ignatow: 2001). By this we mean that it did not generate a systematic line of research within the paradigm. There are how- ever some scholars who explicitly employed this notion in their empirical studies, some of them even trying to clarify or to develop the classification of social representation proposed by Moscovici in 1988. In this section we will briefly present some contributions to the study of polemic representations that we were able to identify in the social representations literature. Five years after the article in which Serge Moscovici suggested the tripartite classifica- tion of social representations, the study of Da- vid Canter and Circe Monteiro (1993) was a first attempt to examine the different types of social representations. The authors launched the hypothesis of a network (lattice) of inter- relating and overlapping social representations existing in a culture, which they considered inherent to the idea of distinguishing between hegemonic, emancipated and polemic repre- sentations. As a the theoretical implication of this premise, the authors considered that “it is the interplay of social representations that have enough in common to allow communica- tion, but are also different enough to require accommodation or assimilation that creates the dynamics of society”. (p. 225). A practical
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groups is, besides the matter of content, also a matter of validity of such content. One of the mechanisms by which social representa- tions of a group are supposed to be defended is made through intergroup differentiation of consensus. Another such mechanism refers to validation of polemic representations through intergroup differentiation of variability. In the first case, it is considered to be true (valid) what is consensual among in-group members and, on the contrary, invalid what is believed to be consensual among out-group. In the sec- ond case, it is the perception about in- and out- group members that counts for the validation of contrasting representations: the validity of what members of the in-group thing derives from the heterogeneity of those members; on the contrary, errors of the out-group are due to the homogeneity of its members. The first line of argument, discussed within the social psychological literature on social validation of beliefs and opinions, was considered to be insufficient: “if both groups have equally and widely consensual but opposite positions, their positions should be viewed as equally true be- cause they are shared” (p. 474). This is why a second strategy, of inter-group differentiation of heterogeneity is usually employed, because “only the variability of the ingroup guarantees that consensus information is a reliable cue to validity” ( idem ). This mechanism functions on the basis of another representation: the valida- tion of a representation which is polemic in relation to the representation held by the rival group is made by differently representing the in-group and the out-group subjects. In the rep- resentation of the object “in-group”, its mem- bers are considered heterogeneous regarding their personal traits and attributes, but still homogenous regarding values and beliefs of the in-group. On the contrary, members of the out-group are considered to be homogeneous regarding their psychological traits (stereo- typical) and less homogenous in their beliefs. Besides reference to the literature, this sec- ond strategy of validation was demonstrated in three semi-experimental studies set up both in a context of simple intergroup differentia- tion and in an open political conflict (during an electoral campaign). Also in the nineties, the notion of polemic social representations was tackled in the stud- ies analyzing the communication strategies of Benetton (de Rosa & Losito: 1996; de Rosa
& Smith: 1998). In the early nineties the Ital- ian company launched a very unusual form of advertising, one in which the commercial product or the brand name was entirely absent (de Rosa: 2001). The company based its com- munication strategy on critical advertising, ad- dressing crucial social problems which were objectified through shocking images contained in posters. By creating public controversy, re- lated to the specific issues addressed through advertisement, but above all to the publicity campaign itself, the company attained social visibility and ultimately reached its profit ori- ented goals. Advertising was seen as a com- munication genre which activated and diffused polemic (controversial) social representations about the appropriateness of such publicity: on one side it was strongly disapproved for being “necrophile”, cynical and based on the prin- ciple of selling at any cost; on the other it was judged to be original, efficient, remarkable and socially beneficial. The associative network, using pictures from the campaign autumn-win- ter 92-93 and brand name as stimuli, was used for collecting empirical evidence of polemics. The results revealed a bipolarized attitude to- wards the images that constituted Bennetton advertisement, with a trend for judging them negatively^3. However, in spite of a major nega- tive evaluation of the Benetton campaign, the representation of the Benetton brand remained mainly positive, confirming the success of the strategy “[selling] pullovers by provoking dis- cussion on social issues” (de Rosa: 1998). Directly related to conflicts raised about environmental issues, the study of Twigger- Ross and Breakwell (1999, cited in Breakwell:
- analyzed how a community responded to a potential waste incinerator, planned to be built in an already highly industrialized area. The plans for introducing the new facility raised opposition from environmental groups like Greenpeace and Friends of Earth. The re- search focus of the study was on the consent of local residents for the new incinerator, which was studied in relation to their perception of the risk entailed by it, their trust in governmen- tal regulation of such risk, the image they held about the company, and their concern about the environment and acceptance of “green” beliefs. The results showed that local residents were divided in their representations of the risk and, what is more, that the representation they reproduced depended upon the extent to which
Societal and Political Psychology International Review volume 3 ● number 2 ● 2012 ● pp. 109-
respondents identified themselves with envi- ronmentalist groups or the company seen as a traditional and trusted employer in the area. These results suggest that “polemical represen- tations of risk are most significantly mediated by identity processes” (Breakwell: 2001, p. 282). This kind of approach of polemic repre- sentations, linked to the identity process theory elaborated by one of the authors (Breakwell: 1986), demonstrate that individuals reject so- cial representations that might threaten aspects of their identity, the feeling of belonging to various groups (environmentalists, company) determining rival social representations. More recently, the idea of representations of polemic nature constructed with the purpose to protect individual and group identities is maintained also by Deaux and Wiley (2007). They illustrate it with reference to the represen- tation of citizenship constructed by the immi- grants who reject being called and represented as ‘illegal citizens’ due to the fact they came illegally in the country. The new representa- tion is a conflicting alternative as it introduces a change in meaning from ‘illegal citizens’ and using instead ‘undocumented citizens’, like in the United States, or ‘sans papiers’, in France. A research line which employed the distinction between hegemonic, emancipated, and polemic social representations can be found in different studies on social representa- tions of history, one example being the work of James Liu and collaborators about social representations of history in multiethnic soci- eties (Liu et al. : 1999; Liu et al. : 2002). These studies linked social identity theory with the theory of social representations and empha- sized the relevance of studying social repre- sentations of history for the understanding of the present state of inter-group relations from a cultural perspective, thus outlining “how the past weights on the present” (Liu & Hilton: 2005). History is seen as providing raw materi- als for symbols that can either unite, divide or something in between. In the first case these symbols are part of hegemonic representa- tions; in the second case they inspire polemic representations; and in the third case they are contained in emancipated representations (Liu: 2004). The three different types of representa- tions of history are described as follows: “When social representations [of his- tory] are hegemonic, or consensual among all groups, they are treated as though they were a
reality. (…) They can be used to understand how strong consensus allows societies and peoples to move together as one, and enact cul- ture specific solutions to their problems. When something that is social is treated as though it were a reality, it has the power to create new realities through social policies. (…) By contrast, when social representations of history are polemical, or in serious disagree- ment across different groups, they indicate the presence of historically rooted conflict. One group may have an historical grievance against another group, and this may require special treatment to resolve. Polemical representa- tions indicate “fault lines” in society where the relationships between groups may become tense or break. (…) The final type of social representation is emancipated. This means that different ver- sions co-exist in different groups of society, but they are either generally not in conflict, or only in conflict under limited circumstances” (Liu: 2004, pp 9-10). The empirical findings confirmed in one case the existence of polemic representations of history held by members of an ethnic mi- nority group (i.e. Maori population in New Zeeland) which confront the hegemonic rep- resentation of New Zeeland’s history of the dominant group (Paheka – European descen- dants in New Zeeland), as identified from the list of important historical events cited by dif- ferent subjects. However, a kind of conceptual ambiguity is to be found in the description of the representation of Maori subjects, judged to be both “emancipated from and polemical to that of Paheka students” (Liu et al. : 1999, p. 1042). More consensual representations of history were found among different ethnic groups in Malaysia and Singapore, suggesting that multi-ethnicity is not a sufficient condi- tion for polemic representations about history to emerge. The lack of polemics on specific political issues (e.g. the border demarcation between Singapore and Malaysia) may explain the absence of polemic representations. Also, a higher control exercised by the state on educa- tion, media and freedom of speech (as it hap- pens more in Eastern societies rather that in the West) can block alternative views about history to be expressed, and thus polemic representa- tions to emerge (Liu et al. : 2002). Another study inspired from the same re- search area focused on the historical represen-
Alina Pop On the notion of polemic social representations
considered to transform into hegemonic ones, especially for subjects at a third generation dis- tance from the traumatic event. In an ethnographic study carried out on families of Israeli soldiers exposed to health risks during their training in military service, Ben-Asher (2003) also used the distinction be- tween different types of social representations and tried to demonstrate the dialog function in the evolution from hegemonic and emancipat- ed representations of the Israeli army (Israeli Defense Forces) to polemic representations. The author considered that initially hegemonic representation of the Israeli Defense Forces
- in a country with a long history of military conflicts and where military service, apart from being compulsory, is seen as an essen- tial civic duty and constitutes a national Zion- ist narrative – account for high levels of faith in the army by soldiers and their parents, who consent by signing a contract of trust to leave absolute responsibility for the safeguard and welfare of their children/soldiers to the army, in the absence of any information regarding military activities. New information regard- ing the training naval commando soldiers in polluted waters and the health risks involved
- contained in emancipated representations constructed by small sections of society and the media – was seen as clashing the “hege- monic notion of absolute faith in the contract of trust with army” (p.6.4) and, as a result, par- ents of risk exposed soldiers gather around to form an associative group and start to construct through their dialogue polemic representations opposed to the official version of authorities’ hegemonic representation. The evolution of social representations is seen in a linear way, passing through all the three types of representations described by Moscovici (1988). First, hegemonic represen- tations are challenged by emancipated repre- sentations which emerge from new informa- tion. Then it is assumed that social change occurs when emancipated representations evolve into polemic representations “that ren- der the self-evident existence of hegemonic representations impossible, at least for some members of the group, and call for innovation and change” (p.6.4). Confronted with the in- formation about the health risk and at the same time with the initial refusal of state authorities to take responsibility to tend to sick soldiers and their families, parents gathered in an orga-
nization which acted both as a support group and as a pressure group in the new conflicting context with authorities. During their meet- ings and through social interaction a polemic representation of the army was considered to emerge. The reorganization of social represen- tation into a polemic one undergoes a process of creating group identity, a parents’ group, which gives to the group internal empower- ment and the capability to face new circum- stances. However, after the official recognition of the state’s responsibility to care for the sick soldiers and for the families of soldiers who died after training in contaminated water, the parents’ organization ceased to exist and at that point, the study concludes, parents “preferred to return to the hegemonic representations of the army as a foster parent, which are shared by Israeli society as a whole” (p.6.4). One merit of this study is that it emphasizes the role of environmental hazards in generat- ing polemical social representations. How- ever, a certain misuse of the concepts related to the types of social representations which can lead to some confusion is to be noted. For example, the “silence breaker” parents group constructs a “hegemonic” representation with regard to the new parents group, necessary for the group’s cohesiveness, but “polemic” re- garding the surrounding social institutions (p. 6.8). Then, after explaining the linear evolution from hegemonic to polemic representations, all this through the intermediary of emancipated representations, the study shows how parents of naval commandos “adopt the universal he- gemonic representation of parental obligation to safeguard their children” (p.6.8). The author introduces thus a distinction between “state’s hegemonic representations” and “universal he- gemonic representations”, the latter remaining unchallenged. The emphasis put by the study on communication processes rather than on content of social representations makes it dif- ficult to wholly seize the nature and structure of polemic representations. It is also not very clear why and how in this case emancipated representations are considered to evolve into polemic ones. The initial refusal of the authori- ties to acknowledge their responsibility is cited as a source of dispute with authorities and as a reason for building polemic representations by the parents of soldiers who have been di- rectly exposed to water pollution. But the par- ents’ polemic representations are considered
Alina Pop On the notion of polemic social representations
to come into conflict with the same parents’ hegemonic representations of the army. Due to the resolution of the dispute parents aban- don polemic representations and “return” to the hegemonic ones, the only evidence for this furnished by the study being the dissolution of the contesting parents organization after the state authorities fulfilled their demands. This assumption may be considered both evasive and intriguing: it is hard to acknowledge that hegemonic representations, with their stability in society and coercive character as described by Moscovici (1988), once challenged still re- main unchanged. In a more recent study, Ben-Asher and Leb- el (2010) further employed the distinction be- tween different types of social representations in their analysis of another public controversy in Israeli society, this time related to a law stip- ulating the loss of entitlement to rehabilitation for IDF (Israeli Defense Forces) widows once they remarried. The confrontation between IDF widows and state institutions, considered to be a struggle between a republican-collec- tivist and a liberal-individualist perception of social policy, was analyzed in terms of hege- monic, emancipated and polemic representa- tions co-existing in the public discourse on the issue. The concrete manifestations of these three types of representations in the specific context studied are summarized as follows: hegemonic representations are dominant narra- tives which embed the conviction in the social ethos of the ‘IDF spirit’, entailing the central value of sacrificing one’s life for the state, and the state’s commitment to care for its wounded and for the bereaved families; emancipated representations are new information, or ‘winds of change’ that challenge the traditional view, manifested in the case of IDF through widows forming a new intimate relationship aiming to contest the previsions of the restrictive law; polemic representations are thought to emerge precisely because of the clash between hege- monic representations and emancipated ones and are manifest through a strong criticism of the state. Several statements, identified in in- ternet talkbacks and considered to illustrate the different types of social representations held on the issue, were tested for agreement in a wider public. The analysis revealed that indeed social representations of different status (i.e. hege- monic, emancipated and polemical) co-exist in social thinking. This would suggest that the
three categories of social representations are not mutually exclusive, nor even evolve and transform in a linear way as was previously suggested (Ben-Asher: 2003). With the overall intention to cross a commu- nication barrier between social representations theory and studies derived from social cogni- tion Angelica Muchi-Faina (2004) applied Moscovici’s distinction between hegemonic and polemic representations to the research in the domain of inter-group relations and so- cial stereotypes. The social representation of women was identified from definitional traits ascribed by male and female students. The author followed the hypothesis that if one re- moves from a representation of a group or cat- egory the hegemonic elements it is possible to seize the polemical elements, considered to be typical in inter-group representations. Accord- ing to this author the distinction between two different “levels” of a social representation, i.e. hegemonic and respectively polemic (p.609), permits the dissociation of the aspects linked to the social stereotypes from the aspects of in- group favoritism. “Hegemonic elements” and “polemical elements” are established accord- ing to their frequencies of appearance in the re- sponses of the subjects. “Polemical elements” are found in the differences in women’s traits mentioned by the members of the in-group (female students) and of the out-group (male students). Hence, Moscovici’s differentiation between types of social representations is re- duced to the difference in status of the elements of a single social representation. However, the study concludes, consensual elements cited by both groups investigated are thought to be part of a hegemonic representation of women, shared within the whole culture, whereas rep- resentations linked to group membership are polemical. This kind of approach to the differ- ent categories of social representations is con- sonant with Li Liu’s suggestions (2004) that hegemonic and polemic features may coexist within the same social representation due to the antinomy entailed by themata as source ideas for social representations.
Polemic social representations – a useful
tool for analyzing conflicts
The brief overview of studies which em- ployed the classification of social representa- tions suggested by Moscovici (1988) and ex-
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knowledge is rooted in practice and, in part at least, used in order to move people to create new social practices (indeed, to argue that the source of social power lies in the creation of forms of social knowledge) is to suggest that the various forms of knowledge are embedded in a process of mobilization and that change depends upon effective mobilization. That is, people do not come to understand the world through a neutral process of contemplation. Rather, they are enjoined to see the world in particular ways. This then leads us to think in terms of those who mobilize and those who are mobilized.” (p. 745). We find here similarities with the idea of Sen and Wagner (2005) that it is representational politics that shapes polemi- cal representations. In this light, it is easy to defend that the communication genre which characterizes the transmission of polemical social representa- tions by conflicting actors is that of propa- ganda. Propaganda, envisaged by Moscovici (1961/1976) in relation to the circulation of the social representation of psychoanalysis in French communist press during the fifties, was defined as “a modality of expression of a group in a conflicting situation and the instrumental elaboration, with the intention of action, of the representation that the group makes about the object of conflict” (p, 442, our translation). By creating social representations, propaganda seeks to control opinion and shape behaviours. The cognitive organization of representations originated in propaganda makes them be sim- plified and distorted versions of reality, built upon dichotomized themes, and, thus, highly stereotypical. When searching for an operational defini- tion for polemical social representations one must keep in mind that a necessary condition for polemical representations to occur is a situation characterized by inter-group conflict. There are two situations that can be envis- aged in relation to the history of the conflict characterizing the situation. First, the conflict between groups may exist already, having his- torical or ideological roots. In this situation, the antagonistic relations will concur to the creation of opposing social representations of a given object that will further maintain the con- flict. A second situation that can be envisaged is the emergence of a new and problematic ob- ject that raises polemics. In this case represen- tational processes that will divide groups can
take place (Flament & Rouquette: 2003; Raud- sepp & Wagner: 2012). This will concur to the creation of polemical representations that not only maintain the conflict but can also be con- sidered as the very sources of the conflict itself. Then, besides the conflicting context, in order to be able to highlight polemical repre- sentations one must look at the content and structure of such representations. Different or even antonymic contents may sure be a clue of polemical representations. But the focus only on the content might be a trap. Within the structuralist approach it is considered that two representations about a same object are different when they don’t have the same cen- tral core (Abric: 2001a, 2001b, 2003). It can thus happen that two representations defined by similar content be radically different if the organization of their content into the central core and peripheral elements is different. Ac- cording to Flament and Rouquette (2003), in order to judge two representations as being op- posite there is not even need to consider that one is contrary to the other. To be considered opposite, hence polemical, their central cores should not be the same and, in addition, that “the thematic valorization of at least one ele- ment from the central cores should be opposite for the groups” (p. 37).
Endnotes:
(^1) Asist. univ. dr., Universitatea Creștină „Dimit- rie Cantemir“, București. (^2) Data was analyzed with a non-metric multiple scaling procedure, the Partial Order Scalogram anal- ysis by the use of coordinates (POSAC) (^3) Calculations were based on the polarity index- es obtained by the images (^4) For example, in the recent book edited by Iva- na Marková and Alex Gillespie (2012) which was especially dedicated to the study of trust and conflict from a social representations perspective, the notion of polemic representation was mentioned only once. It was mentioned (only one time) in a study of Raud- sepp and Wagner which focused on the analysis of the escalation of an inter-ethnic conflict in Estonian society around a symbolic issue. But it was totally absent in the analyses of the conflicts in Cyprus (Psaltis) or Georgia (Wertsch & Batiashvili).
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