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RHETORIC, POLITICS AND SOCIETY

Post-Truth, Post-Press,
Post-Europe
Euroscepticism and
the Crisis of Political
Communication
Paul Rowinski
Rhetoric, Politics and Society

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Goldsmiths, University of London
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Rhetoric lies at the intersection of a variety of disciplinary approaches
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 Paul Rowinski

Post-Truth,
Post-Press,
Post-Europe
Euroscepticism and the Crisis of Political
Communication
Paul Rowinski
University of Bedfordshire
Luton, UK

Rhetoric, Politics and Society

ISBN 978-3-030-55570-2 ISBN 978-3-030-55571-9 (eBook)
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For Frederick Baker: one of the Barnet Boys; Mountain Man; venerable
leader of the Wherever I Lay My Hat Europe tour (circa 1984); a good
European to his very core; but most of all a good father, husband and the
very best of loyal friends.
We shall never forget how you declared to that congregation: “I am the
Lord.”
And as always to my incredible family: Rosa, Mattias and Roberto.
Without your support nothing would come to pass.
 Praise for Post-Truth, Post-Press,
Post-Europe

“Paul Rowinski’s typically robust polemic pulls few punches and is not
for the faint-hearted or the closed-minded. Ardent fans of tabloid xeno-
phobia masked as Euroscepticism are unlikely to enjoy this rollercoaster
ride, an uncompromising critique of the political and journalistic rhetoric
of contemporary European nationalism. This book fights fire with fire. It
isn’t so much a cure for the rabid pack of the populist press and their
demagogic masters. Rowinski has brought a shotgun to the party, and his
cartridges are well primed.”
—Professor Alec Charles, Dean of the Faculty of Arts, University of
Winchester, UK

“The thesis by Rowinski—that a beleaguered mainstream press is failing

to confront the emotiveness of Post-Truth and nationalism, but actu-
ally feeding it—is a very relevant one. The focus is on “Euroscepticism”,
which of course is more than only “EU-scepticism”. The thesis extends
further, arguing that the response of the mainstream media could threaten
its role as the gatekeeper of democracy, while actually exacerbating the
risk of its own demise. According to Rowinski the sanctity of veracity
and holding governments to account is at stake. These problems are very
important ones for democratically constituted societies.”
—Professor Sebastian Köhler, HMKW University of Applied Sciences,
Germany

vii
viii PRAISE FOR POST-TRUTH, POST-PRESS, POST-EUROPE

“In the new Covid-19 era it is very important to understand the dynamics
of political communication via Web and Paul Rowinski’s book is essential
to understand the dynamics of political communication, particularly on
social media. This book is a compass for orientation in a sea of fake news
shaken by the waves of populism.”
—Alessandro Scipione, journalist and geopolitical analyst at Agenzia
Nova, Italian News Agency
 Contents

1 Introduction 1

2 A Voyage Through Emotive

Rhetoric—And the Challenge to Truth 21

3 Methodology 69

4 Italy First 83

5 Italy First: A Journey into Emotive Rhetoric 95

6 Britain First 145

7 Britain First: A Journey into Emotive Rhetoric 149

8 Conclusions 211

References 231

Index 245

ix
 CHAPTER 1

Introduction

Populist politicians can today circumvent the need for the press, by
conveying their messages on social media. It can be a place where they
can communicate an emotive Post-Truth Eurosceptic rhetoric. This book
investigates if a beleaguered press in two European countries is growing
similarly shrill over the same issues—in a bid to hold the readership.
Our times reflect a real coarseness in public discourse as the disillu-
sioned and disaffected respond to and feed the bating by some politicians.
It has never been more important, as journalists, to hold politicians’ feet
to the fire, speak truth to power and make sure an enraged and emotional
public is not duped or misled. And yet this book explores if journalists
have instead fallen prey to the same manipulation by the political class.
The mainstream media is fighting for attention on a series of fronts.
The likes of Matteo Salvini, the former extreme right Italian interior
minister, can appeal to the emotions of his audience directly with ‘per-
sonal’ video messages on Facebook—that are then lifted directly by news
websites including the offerings of the mainstream media. To what end?
Sometimes journalists are just giving his Post-Truth a whole new audi-
ence. But just maybe could such mainstream media posting allow Salvini
to be hoisted by his own petard? It depends.
Similarly the British audience may want to hear from the prime minister
in a speech, regarding the Brexit crisis enveloping Boris Johnson’s govern-
ment and the country, more often than not, before reading the perhaps

© The Author(s) 2021 1

P. Rowinski, Post-Truth, Post-Press, Post-Europe,
Rhetoric, Politics and Society,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-55571-9_1
2 P. ROWINSKI

more measured, balanced story in a serious newspaper online. Everybody

is posting it. In the battle for clickbait, if one newspaper does not post it,
another will. That could mean more clicks and views of the subsequent
story. Catch 22.
It is suggested, the public may often opt to first hear emotive and
sometimes vitriolic and even racist rhetoric, with a video link posited
immediately above the story—before they actually read the analysis below.
If they like what they hear from Johnson or Salvini, for instance, it will be
that narrative, that context, prefacing all with emotion, rather than what
Aristotle called logic (what today would be described as facts), colouring
their reading of what follows. What this book goes on to do is to analyse
the discourse of newspapers online, establishing if they are feeding the
Post-Truth Eurosceptic rhetoric, not just by giving the likes of Johnson
and Salvini a platform, but by feeding it with their own Post-Truth
discourse. In so doing, the press, it could be argued, is self-harming.
What could be assumed at this point is that those giving Salvini or
Johnson a platform, are those supporting their views: the Breitbarts and
Fox News media organisations of this world. But it may also be more
moderate, mainstream media organisations, like the Daily Telegraph or
Corriere della Sera. Those giving these leaders a platform are also at least
of the centre-right, so yes, this could be the Daily Telegraph or Corriere
della Sera. What should also be investigated is if those opposed to the
emotional jostling of Johnson and Salvini are responding in a similar
emotive vein to them with their counter-arguments.
The media can accentuate the problem when we frame and amplify the
story in a way predisposed to Johnson or Salvini. Instead it is argued that
even those media organisations sympathetic to them, should challenge
these politicians with a little thing journalists often convey: substantiated,
corroborated facts. These facts may fly in the face of the emotive, persua-
sive rhetoric based on an appeal to the people. That holding to account is
crucial. It is that holding to account that is under threat, it is argued.
Johnson claimed at the height of the parliamentary crisis in the UK,
that the opposition was scuppering his chance of using a no deal over
Brexit, to force the EU to come to a settlement. The EU made clear
there were NO negotiations ongoing at that stage—despite Johnson’s
government creating the impression that they were knee-deep in serious
discussions. The impression Johnson and his government left with the
public on this issue is what lingered and it went largely unchallenged by a
lot of the mainstream media. The media instead should have pinned him
 1 INTRODUCTION 3

and his government to the wall. Maybe this too is a by-product of our
age: suspending at times our willingness to dig out the story. Maybe, in
the rush to compete for readers online, journalists drift into the emotional
rather than digging and corroborating the story. The lack of EU negotia-
tions could and should have been a big story. Are we allowing Post-Truth
to go unchallenged?
At the time of writing, Salvini’s rhetoric has backfired and his bid to
become prime minister and force an election failed. Salvini succeeded in
creating the opposite, uniting his enemies, who had previously refused to
form a government together. The Five Star Movement deserted Salvini’s
League Party and instead reformed the government with the Democratic
Party. Something similar happened in Britain. The Labour Party, the
Scottish National Party, the Liberal Democrats and the Greens, found
themselves cooperating more than they would have liked, in what turned
out to be the stop Boris and Brexit show. They failed.
Johnson’s provocative rhetoric, some have argued, could be part of
his undoing, with many openly calling him a liar. Salvini has suffered a
similar critique. Yet the former is firmly ensconced as prime minister—and
the latter has been temporarily reduced to the sidelines, but like Marie
Le Pen in France, Salvini is far from done. The rhetoric of Salvini and
Johnson, two far-right populist politicians seeking to rule through divi-
sions (although bifurcation means they claim to be uniting their nations),
will be the focus of analysis—and indeed the media packaging of their
utterances—and indeed when the media itself is guilty of the same.
Post-Truth denotes circumstances in which objective facts are less influ-
ential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal
belief (Oxford English Dictionary 2016). Further investigation is pref-
aced by closer scrutiny of the history of rhetoric (Aristotle 2012; Wiesner
et al. 2017; Toye 2013; Leith 2012) before exploring the Post-Truth
language and discourse of a previous recent populist leader in Europe,
drawing parallels and discerning differences—pre-dating the obsession
with Trump, yet still possibly informing his rise.
What is developing is not just a retreat to nationhood (as Britain has
proposed with Brexit) but what is now being dubbed a retreat to English
nationalism—and actually a Post-Truth threat to democracy in both the
UK and Italy.
At the time of writing, the Coronavirus crisis has enveloped the world.
The EU has complained that member states have not sought to cooperate.
The British government, despite initial denials, decided not to work with
4 P. ROWINSKI

the EU-wide scheme to respond to the crisis, including the distribution

of crucial ventilators. Conversely, it has been argued the EU has failed
member states. Giuseppe Conte, the Italian Prime Minister wanted the
debt incurred by the pandemic pooled and argued the political crisis was
so deep the existence of the EU itself was under threat. Boris’s Brexit has
damaged the EU. The departure of Conte’s Italy, would sign its death
warrant.
The thesis is that a beleaguered mainstream press, in the social media
age, is failing to confront the emotiveness of Post-Truth and nation-
alism—but actually feeding it. In this case, the focus is on Euroscepticism.
The thesis extends further, arguing that the response of the mainstream
media could threaten its role as the gatekeeper of democracy, while actu-
ally exacerbating the risk of its own demise. The sanctity of veracity and
holding governments to account is at stake—not only on their interaction
on the European stage—but also on a much broader canvas.
The quotability of populists (in politics and indeed journalism)
courting controversy has made for ‘good’ (sellable) journalism copy
on one level; while sometimes demonstrating support for populist
agendas on another. The UK newspapers responded to Labour leader,
Jeremy Corbyn, refusing to countenance a general election until the act
confirming a no deal Brexit was off the table, was on the statute book.
Shrewd, not trusting Johnson, the Prime Minister, or was Corbyn chicken?
It depends on who you wish to believe and how the story is framed.
‘Hypocrite’ Corbyn rejects election to break deadlock, as the Daily Tele-
graph quoted the PM on its front page. Again also drawing on a Johnson
quote, the frontpage headline of the Daily Mail read: Corbyn chickens out
of an election, with The Sun on its front reading: Is this the most dangerous
chicken in Britain? A less accusatorial approach is taken on the left, by The
Guardian and Daily Mirror—but that is not to assume that it is always
so.
How new this Post-Truth phenomenon is, is questioned at the outset
(D’Ancona 2017; Romano 2017; Lewis 2016; Strong 2017; Economist
2016). The book explores how we may have been here before—with
a view to establishing later, if in some sense, this really is a new
phenomenon, born of our time or if indeed the specificities of this
situation, making it somehow incomparable with what has preceded.
The study systematically revisits the communicating of these populist
Eurosceptic voices through the conventions of the mainstream media
(Rowinski 2016, 2017).
 1 INTRODUCTION 5

The attention then becomes the exponential growth and speed with
which social media conveys information and the dawn of a new polit-
ical communications age—with populist Eurosceptic politicians growing
adept at circumventing the need to converse with mainstream newspa-
pers (favourable or viscerally opposed to them). To misquote McLuhan
(2001), is the (social) media perhaps becoming the message?
Social media, it is argued, has harnessed people’s anger and fear in
the echo chambers of say Facebook and Twitter, feeding them what reaf-
firms those emotions. However, we have arrived at a point where social
media sometimes, in the form of hate speech, also fuels acts of violence
(Charles 2012; Facebook 2017; Hopkins 2017). The question then has
to be asked, are the mainstream media doing likewise? It is nigh impos-
sible to quantify if hate speech in the mainstream media has increased,
as journalists jostle for position in our media landscape with politicians
talking directly to their people online on one hand—and bloggers and the
Twitterati on the other. But if hate speech surfaces in the mainstream
media, in the context of these competing voices for public attention over
Europe, it will be called out.
Maybe the mainstream media is being slowly sidelined? If it has started
to develop a shrill Eurosceptic Post-truth rhetoric of its own is central
to the investigation, competing in the race for emotiveness against the
populists on one hand and the alternative media voices, bloggers and their
niche markets, on another.
The press may have also failed to challenge the comedic rhetoric of
the affable populists (Lewis 2016; Kaltwasser 2014; Moffitt and Tormey
2014; Freedland 2016), not calling out the lies at the outset. False
premises formulated by populist politicians, go unchallenged, demon-
strating a lack of rigorous background research by interviewers. Populist
liars are sometimes given equal weighting to those who then respond to
those lies. This further legitimises Post-Truth, in what journalists deem
balance or impartiality. Instead it is often a false equivalence (Lewis
2016; Freedland 2016; D’Ancona 2017), a concept explored in due
course.
A detailed critical discourse analysis of Post-truth Eurosceptic language
in the press, examines news stories, editorials and commentaries in both
Britain and Italy, around major Europe-related issues, including:

Italian coverage ahead of the 2014 and 2019 European elections;

The 2018 Italian general election;
6 P. ROWINSKI

The 2016 UK referendum on EU membership;

The 2017 UK general election;
The 2019 parliamentary debate following the UK Supreme Court
ruling that the proroguing of the British Parliament was illegal.

The unravelling of politics in our emotionally fuelled age, from the

economic downturn (Mason 2015; Pettifor 2017) to now and compre-
hension of what is driving those emotional reactions in the rejection of the
mainstream political class (Ahmed 2014; Mishra 2017; Nussbaum 2016),
is very much necessary, as a means of contextualising and unravelling the
power struggles, lurking below the surface of subsequent political and
indeed media discourse to be analysed.
A methodology, exploring the synergies that can combine in the
specific context of Post-truth Eurosceptic discourse, sometimes ultimately
fuelling hate, is implemented. From persuasion, use of metaphor and
argumentation (Rowinski 2017; Mautner 2008; Lakoff and Johnson
1980; Wodak and Reisigl 2001; Wodak 2015; Musolff 2004) a wider
paradigm is needed to include the growing intensity, considering fear,
anger, compulsion and hate, providing analysis of these emotions in the
political sphere and ultimately in the discursive construction of Europe
(and indeed fellow Europeans) in the press.
In the author’s last book (Rowinski 2017), a persuasion and the indul-
gences of national prejudice surfaced in the newspapers. In a much coarser
age, it is expected that the discourse will reflect that.
In the death throes of what could be deemed a depressing post-
apocalyptic book, there is a ray of hope. The national newspapers, both
in Italy and Britain have a chance to change. The mainstream media has
a chance to effectively indulge in stringent self-regulation, going to back
to basics. Solid journalism. We have to do better than what is happening
at present.
This is an existential threat, not just to journalism, but its role as
guardian and gatekeeper of democracy and the centrality of veracity, on
which our world is built. Without it, the walls may tumble and a laughing,
amenable autocracy can be welcomed in unchallenged. Facts, their sanc-
tity and the regaining of trust, lost to who knows who, out in the digital
ether, is paramount—or else we may just hand over the reins to the
algorithms on Facebook and a large smiling piece of artificial intelligence.
It’s time. There is a chance. We need to go back to basics.
 1 INTRODUCTION 7

Post-Truth
Post-truth received the accolade of joint US-UK word of the Year in
2016, according to the Oxford English Dictionary. Post-truth (Adjec-
tive): “relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are
less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and
personal belief”.
Post-Truth: Generally applied to politics, specifically the US election
and the EU referendum. Taking place in a time when the truth has
become an irrelevant concept (Oxford English Dictionary 2016). The
neologism Post-Truth needs some investigation at the outset, in order
to establish more clearly what this study will explore. The dictionary
reported in 2016 that the use of the word had increased by 2000% over
that year. The word itself will not be the focus of this investigation but
rather the manifestation of the phenomenon in language spoken by politi-
cians; by politicians quoted in the mainstream newspaper media (MSM);
and by the language used by the MSM. One of the questions posed will
be: has the rise of social media changed the game?
The thesis advanced is that sections of the MSM are themselves taking
on the language of Post-Truth, as opposed to only acting as a conduit for
politicians to do so. What has to first be understood is if Post-Truth itself
is anything new and for what reasons. Much of the literature focuses on
the United States and the rise of Trump and in that particular cultural
context of the right responding to the liberal elite and within it large
swathes of the MSM (The Economist 2016; Lewis 2016; Laybats and
Tredinnick 2016).
The phenomenon of Post-Truth within the academy is starting to
undergo investigation. Romano (2017) focuses on how the Australian
media should counter the post-truth of Pauline Hanson. Several academic
journal editorials comment on the phenomenon, without offering an anal-
ysis of the language used (Laybats and Tredinnick 2016; Social Studies
of Science 2017). To take just one example, there was a forerunner in
the art of emotive specifically Eurosceptic rhetoric in the form of satirist-
cum-politician, Beppe Grillo in Italy. This is pertinent to both the focus
on Euroscepticism and the comparative nature of this particular investi-
gation. As the author has previously established (Rowinski 2016, 2017;
Bordignon and Ceccarini 2013), there are many Euroscepticisms specific
to the contexts of different national narratives (Billig 1995; Heer and
Wodak 2008; Fossum and Schlesinger 2007). For Post-Truth political and
8 P. ROWINSKI

media discourses to be unravelled more effectively, the specific cultural

terrains giving rise to them must be scrutinised first. That means returning
the focus to Europe, rather than the preoccupation with the United
States.
The term Post-Truth is of itself not new. Blogger David Roberts coined
the phrase “post-truth politics” suggesting voters were more likely to
choose a party aligned to their identity and values, consciously seeking
out evidence to support its proposals, rather than assess the facts and
then choose the party. Robert’s focus was on climate change and how the
right in the United States were keen to discredit the claims advanced by
the liberal left media. The term truthiness , was popularised by Stephen
Colbert, describing statements people feel are intuitively true—regardless
of whether they are backed up by facts (Lewis 2016; Davis 2017).
There is the notion of Post-Truth emanating from when those who
wish to challenge an elite, are given a voice. Returning to the dictio-
nary definition, there was the circumstance of the vote for Brexit. Former
Times journalist and Conservative government minister, Michael Gove,
dismissed the importance of economists in establishing what life would be
like in Britain after Brexit (Calcutt 2016; Laybats and Tredinnick 2016;
Chatham House 2017). Then a Conservative minister, Boris Johnson,
argued the UK would save £350 m a day, if the country left the EU, which
was incorrect and ignoring the EU rebate, which reduced the amount by
some £100 m (Freedland 2016). Johnson was also the Telegraph’s Brus-
sels correspondent in the nineties. Former colleague, Sarah Helm recalled:
“Johnson’s half truths created a new reality…correspondents witnessed
Johnson shaping the narrative that morphed into our present-day populist
Euroscepticism”. (Freedland 2016) Elsewhere the notion of decrying the
elite found a clear voice, with the enigmatic leader of Italy’s Five Star
Movement, Beppe Grillo lumping the Italian political and media elite
together as La Casta, the caste (Bordignon and Ceccarini 2013; Barlett
et al. 2013).
The roots of Post-Truth also need consideration. As Calcutt (2016)
argues, some thirty years ago, academics started to discredit truth as “one
of the grand narratives which clever people could no longer bring them-
selves to believe in…a new intellectual orthodoxy permitted only truths
– always plural, frequently personalised, inevitably relativized”. Calcutt
(2016) and AC Grayling (Coughlan 2017) argue that post-modernism
and relativism are at the roots of Post-Truth, the irony being that these
developments were harvested by the left—and are now being exploited
 1 INTRODUCTION 9

by the far right. In relation to the core focus of the proposed study—the
impact of Post-Truth on the discursive construction of Euroscepticism in
the MSM, it should be noted how some journalists followed academics in
rejecting objectivity in the mid-nineties (Calcutt 2016).
What is also not new is the re-evaluation of truth. Baudrillard
suggested, 35 years ago that “we live in a world where there is more
and more information, and less and less meaning (1994: 79). What
may be happening and different—and its manifestation in language will
be the focus—is what film-maker Adam Curtis calls the filter bubble of
contemporary mediated digital content and its influence on forming and
entrenching opinion (Curtis 2016). As Laybats and Tredinnick (2016)
argue: “The filter bubble of social media is perhaps only a mirror of
the filter bubble that individuals have always created for themselves by
choosing to prioritise relationships and to consume information content
that reinforces their existing values, opinions and beliefs”. The difference
is perhaps the scale on which this is now possible, amplified very quickly,
so “where information proliferates freely, inevitably, so also do untruths”
(Laybats and Tredinnick 2016). Appeals to emotion can be amplified
within seconds on social media and that includes the bravado of populist
politicians like Grillo, Johnson and Salvini.
Philosopher professor, AC Grayling, has reflected (Coughlan 2017) on
the climate that has precipitated Post-Truth, which perhaps suggests a
different climate to at least recent history:

“The world changed after 2008,” says Prof Grayling - politics since the
financial crash has been shaped by a “toxic” growth in income inequality.
As well as the gap between rich and poor, he says a deep sense of grievance
has grown among middle-income families, who have faced a long stagna-
tion in earnings. With a groundswell of economic resentment, he says, it
is not difficult to “inflame” emotions over issues such as immigration and
to cast doubt on mainstream politicians. (Coughlan 2017)

And Grayling alludes to the social media environment, which he suggests

creates a new relationship to information. Grayling argues it is no
longer the soundbite (drawing from broadcast journalism) but rather the
“I-bite” where strong opinion overshadows evidence (Coughlan 2017).
Grayling argues:
10 P. ROWINSKI

The whole post-truth phenomenon is about ‘My opinion is worth more

than the facts.’ It’s about how I feel about things. It’s terribly narcissistic.
It’s been empowered by the fact that you can publish your opinion. You
used to need a pot of paint and a balaclava to publish your opinion, if you
couldn’t get a publisher. But all you need now is an I-phone. Everyone
can publish their opinion – and if you disagree with me, it’s an attack on
me and not my ideas. The fact that you can muscle your way on to the
front row and be noticed becomes a kind of celebrity. (Coughlan 2017)

The legendary former Sunday Times editor, Howard Evans, did comment
on the implications for the quality of journalism, in the Post-Truth age
(Jackson 2017):

“In terms of truth of journalism it is a very perilous time,” said Evans.

“We have those people who don’t have the brains to distinguish facts
[from fiction]. Then we have the bad performers in the press, particularly
numerous in the UK … Then you have got the assault [on the media].”
He later added that the combination of factors meant the media had “never
known a worse situation than this…”

Media discussion on Post-Truth focuses on the phenomenon among

populist politicians and indeed how journalists should respond (The
Economist 2016; Lewis 2016; Freedland 2016) but not on the manifes-
tation of the phenomenon in the journalism produced—the focus in this
investigation.
Lewis’s (2016) Nieman Report, entitled, Post-Truth Politics, does start
wading into the issues of widespread misinformation, in relation to politi-
cians. However, the exposition does in part offer analyses transferable to
the arena of Post-Truth journalism and some valuable contextualisation,
helping to explain how we got here.
As was apparent from research conducted by the author, the discursive
construction of Europe in the media often starts from different national
vantage points and different facts are used to support those often nation-
ally based premises over Europe (Rowinski 2017; Billig 1995; Heer and
Wodak 2008). “Epistemic competition is as much about choosing which
truths can be considered salient and important as about which claims can
be considered true and false, and these choices have important conse-
quences” (Social Studies of Science 2017). Post-Truth may be a way
in journalism, of reaffirming national, Eurosceptic perspectives. In reaf-
firming certain truths, others (regarding the narrative of a country in
 1 INTRODUCTION 11

Europe) can be sidelined in what Nietzsche described as active forgetting

(Heer and Wodak 2008: 4) and by Davies (1997: 25–26) as a mechanism
of elimination:

These are the normal mechanisms of propaganda. They devalue the

diversity and the shifting patterns of European history; they rule out inter-
pretations suggested by the full historical record; they turn their readers
into a mutual admiration society.

Late US Democratic senator, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, remarked that

‘everyone was entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts’
(Lewis 2016: 2). Lewis also noted that the presidential election that saw
Trump victorious “has been characterized by competing sets of facts”.
The same was evident in Britain’s EU referendum, vis-à-vis the £350 m
Brexit battle bus claim.
In deepening our understanding of Post-Truth, in relation to the
discursive mainstream media construction of Europe, distinctions will be
drawn. Post-Truth, when articulated through the language of journalism
can occur when: replicating and giving a platform to politicians, appealing
to public sentiment; and when the media is of itself appealing to that
sentiment. Coupled with this, the analysis will investigate if this appeal to
emotion and public sentiment is coupled with an attack on the Separa-
tion of Powers, which could threaten democracy in the UK and Italy. Is
the sovereignty of Parliament questioned? Are the Speakers of Parliamen-
tary houses and their bid to remain impartial in debates, questioned? An
example of pertinence would be the Daily Mail story headlined, Enemies
of the People, when the judges who ruled the UK Parliament should ulti-
mately have a say over Brexit, suffered systematic character assassination.
This falls outside of the case studies analysed, but is a case in point.

Euroscepticism
Literature on Euroscepticism does not reflect sufficiently on the discursive
construction of it by the media, in both Britain and Italy, something the
author has tried to address (Rowinski 2016, 2017). Newspapers and their
online versions are themselves discursively constructing their nation’s rela-
tionship with European integration—not just reflecting it—and in recent
years this has meant an ever-stronger articulation of Euroscepticism.
12 P. ROWINSKI

The origin of the term Euroscepticism appears to be a series of articles

in The Times in 1985 and 1986 (Spiering 2004: 127) It was a term used
to refer to a section of the British right within the Conservative party that
was increasingly opposed to the second wave of integration initiated by
the Delors Commission.
It is necessary to comprehend how European history itself has
been discursively constructed, posing questions already about what we
(within our national spheres) understand by Europe (Gifford 2014;
Ginzborg 2003; Mudde 2012; Szczerbiak and Taggart 2008; Fossum
and Schlesinger 2007) leading us to subsequent comprehensions of
Euroscepticism(s) as a further articulation of that understanding. Our
collective memory of Europe (seen through the prism of nation) has
subsequently coloured our understanding—and in some instances led
to various and sometimes very different manifestations of Euroscepti-
cism (Rowinski 2016, 2017; Gifford 2014)—and it is suspected, possibly
different articulations of Post-Truth.
In terms of historical narrative, coherence is constructed for us. Heer
and Wodak (2008: 2) refer to how memory is a highly active system
of connected cortical, sensory and motor processes. In this context, the
repetition of specific stimulus patterns is seen as a significant structuring
factor in perception and a basic element in learning processes. The visual
system responds with heightened awareness to structures and sequences
of events, which have shown themselves to be coherent and ordered in
earlier experience (ibid.: 245).
Within this historical narrative, it has been argued that prejudices are
internalised. Heer and Wodak (2008: 3) refer to van Dijk’s (1998) socio-
cognitive model, internalising this way. Hence prejudices, stereotyping
and ideologies can be explained through the internalisation of cogni-
tive schemata. Once cognitive and emotional schemata are acquired and
reinforced through socialisation, they can only be prised open with diffi-
culty. Heer and Wodak (2008: 4) argue there are studies that show how
“collective memory exists as the sum of ‘real’ group memories and how
groups preserve their stability and construct of identity by integrating
positive memories and rejecting negative ones”. It is worth relating this
briefly to the dictionary definition of Post-Truth: “relating to or denoting
circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public
opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief”. The dictionary also
refers to: “Taking place in a time when the truth has become an irrelevant
concept”.
 1 INTRODUCTION 13

The truth—or at least certain uncomfortable truths—are possibly

disbanded in this active forgetting (ibid.: 6) as a way of dealing with
the past. Political and journalistic actors seeking to control the discourse
on European integration may practice Geschichtspolitik, functionalising
(aspects of) history for political ends (ibid.: 5).
There is the conundrum of whether Euroscepticism should be oper-
ationalized in absolute or relative terms, raising the question of how
opposed to (or supportive of) a particular EU policy (such as the euro or
a cohesive response to Covid19) one has to be (and compared to whom)
“in order to be classified as Eurosceptic” (Katz 2008: 3). Katz (ibid.:
3) cautions against commentators interpreting parties that problematize
an aspect of European integration at any one time, as then Eurosceptic
“which is clearly not axiomatically the case”. He (ibid.: 3) concedes that
one assesses trends in Euroscepticism temporally “given that the EU is
a dynamic concept, making the Europe about which one might be scep-
tical a moving target?” As Szerbiak and Taggart (2008: 5) concede: “that
what constitutes Euroscepticism in one country may not be the same as
what constitutes it in another. In other words, we accepted the need for
measures that were contextually sensitive.” This is of pertinence, when we
consider how the Brexit Party and indeed the cabal now controlling the
Conservative government were in favour of Britain withdrawing from the
EU—whereas their recent, close Italian partner in the European Parlia-
ment, Beppe Grillo’s Five Star Movement (M5S), only ever contemplated
leaving the euro—but never the EU itself. And just as what constitutes
Euroscepticism in one country may not be the same as another, the same
may be the case in the articulation of Post-Truth and its manifestation in
the language of the media.
Diamanti and Bordignon (2005) found that immigration was the
argument most utilised by Eurosceptic parties, finding a correlation
between fear of immigrants and falling support for EU integration.
They also found a rise in xenophobia, alongside increasing distrust of
institutions to respond. Ipsos-Mori (2014) asked in 14 countries, what
percentage of the population did people think were immigrants. In the
UK, people thought 24%. It was actually 13%. Immigration was the key
focus in UK newspaper coverage just before the referendum (Deacon
2016).
The issue of free movement of labour is an integral part of being an
EU member—but one that has become an issue for Britain since 2004
(Springford 2013). The UK was one of just three EU countries not
14 P. ROWINSKI

to impose transitional restrictions, as eight further former Warsaw pact

nations, joined. Migration from these eight was much larger than envis-
aged. There are around 1.1 million people from these countries in the
UK. However, studies have found little evidence that the large arrival
after 2004 increased unemployment among Britons or reduced Briton’s
average wages (Springford 2013).
The notion that EU migrants in the UK are benefit tourists is
misplaced. David Cameron, ahead of the referendum, failed to renegotiate
EU free movement rules on benefits. In terms of EU immigrant ‘benefit
tourism’: 0.2% claim unemployment benefit but have never worked in the
UK; 0.4% are on unemployment benefit six months after arriving in the
UK, rising to 0.8% after a year (Springford 2013).
Some 2.1% of EU migrants claim child benefit and 1%, tax credits.
A fifth of British nationals are claiming both. The western Europeans
and subsequent 2004 eastern European influx are better educated than
the average Briton. More have finished secondary education and univer-
sity degrees (Springford 2013; Sumption and Somerville 2009). An LSE
study (Wadsworth et al. 2016) corroborates further. EU immigrants are
more educated, younger, more likely to be in work and less likely to
claim benefits than the UK-born, with about 44% having some form
of higher education compared with 23% of the UK-born. The study by
Wadsworth et al. (2016) also concludes: “New evidence in this report
shows that the areas of the UK with large increases in EU immigration
did not suffer greater falls in the jobs and pay of UK-born workers. The
big falls in wages after 2008 are due to the global financial crisis and a
weak economic recovery, not to immigration”.
The British labour market has ‘hollowed out’. Most new jobs are
created at the top end and conversely in low-skilled work (Springford
2013). Springford’s research (2013) shows that EU immigrants are net
contributors to the treasury. The post-2004 employment rate is higher
than that of British nationals, with 88% in work, as opposed to 77 for UK
citizens.
Further corroboration is offered in Devlin et al. (2014) and their
Home Office report. In their forward they write: “Assessing the impact
of migration on the employment outcomes of the UK workers is a hugely
challenging analytical issue. It is difficult to isolate the effects of migration
from the other factors that simultaneously affect labour market outcomes.
Even if one is confident that the effect of migration has been isolated, it
is hard to be sure that what is measured is a causal estimate of the impact
 1 INTRODUCTION 15

of migration on labour market outcomes, and not the reverse. Moreover,

assessing aggregate national impacts may mask impacts that vary markedly
across localities”.
This is worth bearing in mind, when analysing the Eurosceptic framing
and presentation of information in the British mainstream media.
In the executive summary of the report (Devlin et al. 2014: 4) stip-
ulate: “To date there has been little evidence in the literature of a
statistically significant impact from EU migration on native employment
outcomes, although significant EU migration is still a relatively recent
phenomenon and this does not imply that impacts do not occur in some
circumstances”.
However Devlin et al. (2014: 14) also then add: “The evidence also
suggests that where there has been a displacement effect from a particular
cohort of migrants, this dissipates over time – that is, any displacement
impacts from one set of new arrivals gradually decline as the labour market
adjusts, as predicted by economic theory”.
The Migration Observatory also produced a report entitled: A Decade
of Immigration in the British Press (Allen 2016). The study noted a
sharp increase in the frequency of discussion of migrants from Europe
after 2013, with a particular spike in 2014, when migrants from Romania
and Bulgaria achieved full access to the UK labour market. The report
suggests that press depictions of migrants have focused on concern about
high levels of net migration and particularly EU migration. This numer-
ical focus has eclipsed a waning focus on ‘illegal’ migration and become
the leading migration form in UK national newspapers. The second most
frequent way the press described immigrants was with the terms “EU’ or
‘European’ after the most popular: illegal.
The UK has left the EU. What remains to be established is if there
will be a deal with the EU at the end of 2020, at the time of going to
press, and if a close relationship is articulated in that deal, or indeed not.
The British government’s stance strongly suggests it will not sign up to
free movement and will therefore not have full access to the single market
(Springford 2013; Ashworth-Hayes, April 2016). There is currently no
further public discussion on these issues and the possible implications for
jobs and trade. Springford (2013: 9) noted UK politicians were facing a
hostile public “fed misleading stories on immigration by a hostile press”.
Ashworth-Hayes (April 2016) argues: “Eurosceptics have no basis for
saying that Britain could quit the EU, dispense with free movement and
maintain full access to the single market”.
16 P. ROWINSKI

Indeed the British government positions seem to categorically rule out

free movement, as it is bound to complying with a single market.
Ashworth-Hayes (April 2016) makes clear that no country has thus
far succeeded in controlling free movement and remained in the single
market. Switzerland tried and failed (Ashworth-Hayes, April 2016; Sodha
2015). When the UK joined the then EEC in 1973, in the 1957 Treaty
of Rome signed, it clearly stipulated in article 1c “an internal market char-
acterized by the abolition, as between Member States, of obstacles to the
free movement of goods, persons, services and capital”. The preamble
also referred to “ever-closer union among the peoples of Europe”.
As Sodha (2015) explains, free movement, post-war, was designed
to allow people to move from countries with unemployment, to ones
that were suffering labour shortages, boosting European growth and
helping to prevent war, by getting people to mix across borders. Leave
campaigner, Bavarian-born, Gisela Stuart admitted, the principle had
succeeded (Sodha 2015). Stuart, a Labour MP confirmed that the
founding fathers of post-war Europe: “wanted it to be a construct that
also had a political integration and for that you needed people to move
because the minute people cross boundaries and borders, you had deeper
integration…both a social as well as economic aim” (Sodha 2015).
The free movement debate was part of the discussion in the UK media,
ahead of the 2016 EU referendum and the need to control EU immigra-
tion to Britain. Issues revolving around EU migrants from certain states
to Italy, such as Romania and Bulgaria, have caused controversy and are
the source of stories there.
Looking at Euroscepticism from the vantage point of the different
political structures in Italy and Britain offers us a further perspective that
may prove pertinent in subsequent analysis. Britain has its majoritarian
two-party system and Italy its coalition governments (Hallin and Mancini
2004), which often result in very similar policies to the previous govern-
ment as the long reign of the Christian Democrats and then Berlusconi,
can attest to (Ginzborg 2003).
Aspinwall’s comment (2000: 433) is pertinent to Italy therefore: “In
those countries characterised by power sharing governments, a range of
institutional mechanisms enables the ‘Eurosceptic social voice’ to be ‘fil-
tered out’” (Aspinwall 2000: 433). Yet it has been argued by several, that
in a series of Berlusconi governments in Italy, the junior partner of the
then Northern League, was pivotal in creating a more caustic Eurosceptic
environment in Italy overall (Giordano 2004; Ginzborg 2003).
 1 INTRODUCTION 17

In comparison, British governments Gifford (2014: 3–4) operating

in a system of one-party rule have to give greater consideration to
backbench Eurosceptic opinion than proportional representation systems,
which tend to produce broad, centrist governments. Instead, because
of strong opposition within party ranks, particularly if they have small
majorities, there has been a tendency to adopt negative positions towards
European integration.

From this perspective, the significance of Euroscepticism is to be found in

a specific set of British institutional dynamics that has allowed Eurosceptic
factionalism in the main parties to take on a particular significance. In
summary, peculiarities of the British political system creates comparatively
core opportunities for Eurosceptics to influence mainstream party positions
and government policy, and is that much harder to ‘filter out.’ (Gifford
2014: 4)

In Italy, the minor yet increasingly muscular Euroscepticism of the

Northern League has spawned the largest Italian political party, in
the now no longer secessionist northern, but plain Italy-wide League,
trouncing Berlusconi’s Forza Italia at the 2017 election covered later and
embedding a deep Euroscepticism in the Italian body politic. This contra-
dicts Gifford’s (2014) thesis of countries like Italy that use proportional
representation, producing broad, centrist governments. Instead what has
happened is that a series of Berlusconi governments had to secede power
to the extremist Eurosceptic positions of the then Northern League, in
order to cling to power and that narrative coloured those administrations
and spawned Salvini’s subsequent success.
Conversely in Britain the once marginalised UKIP, was eclipsed by
Nigel Farage’s new party, the Brexit Party. The Conservatives took
a gamble and lurched sharply to the right and became pathologically
Eurosceptic and that won them a large government majority in 2019,
covered fleetingly in the conclusions of this book.

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 CHAPTER 2

A Voyage Through Emotive

Rhetoric—And the Challenge to Truth

Post-Truth may not be new. Delving into the evolution of rhetoric may
offer some insight into previous manifestations of these issues, when
looking at the language of politicians and journalists.
The roots of political rhetoric and its evolution, seeking to understand
how it has changed and in what circumstances, may offer us clues as to
what is afoot in today’s age. Traits of what is now dubbed Post-Truth are
investigated later.
Keith and Lundberg (2008: 5) argue, regarding rhetoric: “Whether
active or passive; specific or general; in the political, social, intellectual, or
other spheres; persuasion is the key to coordinated action. Persuasion is
the glue that holds the people to a common purpose and therefore facili-
tates collective action”. On June 23, 2016, that action in the UK was to
vote to get our country back. For a minority, collective action meant verbal
abuse, beatings and in one instance, the killing of a Pole (Quinn 2016).
There is that common purpose, that belief, held by the current UK Prime
Minister, Boris Johnson, that the will of the people means he could be
minded to defy what was the will of Parliament and the law, in pursuing
a no deal Brexit at the end of 2020. It is in that vein that Johnson
speaks. Johnson speaks for the people—but they will not be consulted
again before the end of 2020 and an arguably likely no deal.

© The Author(s) 2021 21

P. Rowinski, Post-Truth, Post-Press, Post-Europe,
Rhetoric, Politics and Society,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-55571-9_2
22 P. ROWINSKI

Wodak and Reisigl (2001: 265) argue democratic legitimacy has to be

the result of discourse: “performed under the condition of largely egali-
tarian reciprocity and located within the different public spheres or fields
of political action, of a free, open and rational formation of public opinion
about political problems and questions of shared interest”. So was some
democratic legitimacy lost among the press? This is akin to Plato’s chal-
lenge of the Rhetoric of the Sophists, which is now commonly understood
by the pejorative ‘sophistry’. Plato argued dialectic was required and the
exchange of positions, supported by logic, what we would now commonly
understand as evidence and truth (Toye 2013).
The possibility that the following is prevalent will be explored. Wodak
and Reisigl (2001: 266) argue: “how is it possible that in post-war
Europe such explicit discrimination against certain groups of ‘foreign-
ers’… migrants, Jews, Roma… is still encountered and even helps to win
votes, is politically functionalised to create scapegoats and out-groups, and
is acceptable and tolerated?” Nearly twenty years since this book’s publi-
cation, it is not just that such press discourse is still happening—but as
will be explored, is directed not at minority groups, but all EU migrants,
in the case of the UK and definitely at say Romanians in Italy.
Richardson (2007: 171) argues:

Racist rhetoric not only reflects the extent to which such views have
‘become part of what is seen as ‘normal’ by the dominant group’… but
also is (re)productive and transposable, modifying, material power relations
in other fields… Such rhetoric should be met head-on and confronted
without equivocation.

Both this utilising of in- and out-groups, coupled with discriminatory

rhetoric will form part of the subsequent analysis of rhetoric. Toye (2013:
3) argues that just as politicians “position themselves with voters, we
position ourselves in relation to a peer group (real or imagined), with
rhetorical inflections of which we are frequently unconscious”.
The circumstances in which a text, be it a political speech or columnist
writing (in the case of Johnson, frequently both) is written, considering
the contextual hinterland and the way the text was mediated, delivered
and received, is important (Toye 2013: 5). One cannot exclude the
notions of dramatic effect, physicality and crucially technology, as Matteo
Salvini, Luigi Di Maio, Boris Johnson and Jeremy Corbyn can all address
 2 A VOYAGE THROUGH EMOTIVE RHETORIC … 23

audiences on Facebook and Twitter and not just through the vessels of
La Repubblica or the Daily Telegraph.
Leith (2012: 3–5) makes the point that rhetoric is understood in the
context of its utterance, also noting the “intrinsic rhetoricality” of all
language and that it is not just the domain of speech theorists, struc-
tural linguists or literary critics. Similarly Toye (2013: 5) stresses the
importance of the social, political and cultural context, but then makes
a point worth considering and running tandem with subsequent analysis
of language: “Above all, we need to appreciate that rhetoric is not merely
the means by which ideas are expressed, it is also a means by which they are
generated”. In the same vein, Wodak and Reisigl (2001: 65–66) argue, in
relation to discourse:

On the one hand, the situational, institutional and social settings shape and
affect discourses, and on the other, discourses influence discursive as well
as non-discursive social and political processes and actions. In other words,
discourses as linguistic social practices can be seen as constituting non-
discursive and discursive social practices and, at the same time, as being
constituted by them.

Clearly Salvini tried and failed to shape Italian discourse, arguing it was
time for the League to govern alone. This spectacularly backfired, driving
his coalition partner, The Five Star Movement, under Luigi Di Maio, into
coalition with the centre-left Democratic Party, something both political
groups had previously said was unthinkable. Salvini’s provocative rhetoric
did perhaps help to shape the narrative, but not as intended, instead
driving two adversaries together.
In a similar vein, Boris Johnson, through the use of populist rhetoric,
is trying to shape British discourse, contemplating and possibly driving
the country to a no deal Brexit. This similarly has resulted in adver-
saries becoming bedfellows, with Labour in agreement with the Liberal
Democrats, Scottish Nationalists and Greens and Conservatives leaving
the party to join the Liberal Democrats. Had the list system been used
in the UK’s 2019 general election, then there would have been a hung
Parliament and the possibility of a ‘rainbow coalition’ ameliorating the
most Eurosceptic outcomes possible wanted by the far right of the
current Conservative party (Forrest 2019). That proportional represen-
tation system would have given the Liberal Democrats 70 MPs and a say
in the political outcome and similarly a very different emotive rhetoric
24 P. ROWINSKI

ardently pro-Remain, counterposed with the Brexiteering of Boris, would

have created a different kind of language in government (making the
very big assumption that Johnson would have gone into coalition with
them, rather than muscle on as a minority government). Here Gifford’s
(2014) thesis of proportional representation systems creating more broad,
centrist governments, would have proved correct. Here too, returning to
Toye’s (2013: 5) earlier point, the political rhetoric of the uneasy bedfel-
lows of the second Conservative-Liberal Democratic government would
have not only “expressed” different ideas over Brexit. They would have
also been “a means by which they” were “generated”. The power of polit-
ical rhetoric, if given a platform is not to be underestimated, in relation
to Euroscepticism, as this case exemplifies. The British media, even the
extreme ends of the right-wing press, would have been forced to convey
the rhetoric of a prime minister less nationalistic and bullish over Brexit—
if he wanted to avoid another four years of minority government, with
what would have been a reinvigorated Liberal Democratic party blocking
him at every fork in the road.
To paraphrase Wodak and Reisigl (2001: 65–66) in relation to this
specific context: media discourses can constitute social practices, including
how we view, understand and ultimately engage in Europe and the EU
as well as be constituted by them. This runs in concert with my previous
offering (Rowinski 2017), in which I argued that the press in Italy but
more overtly in Britain had discursively constructed Europe. That is not
to forget the discourses of those masterful in the art and craft of political
rhetoric and indeed social media actors, all of which help to influence
media discourses.
As Toye (2013: 5–6) argued: “familiar thoughts, spoken in a new
context, may take on new meaning. The requirement to take a stand,
and to interact with the rhetoric of both supporters and opponents, not
only crystallises ideas, but creates new ways of thinking as well as speak-
ing”. As mentioned, political adversaries can find common truck and end
up speaking in a common tongue. In Italy, Five Star Movement politi-
cians mitigated their adversarial language towards the Democratic Party,
as they entered government together. In Britain, former Conservatives
developed a more centre-right perspective as they deserted Johnson to
join the Liberal Democrats. And had there been a PR system in the UK, a
Conservative-LibDem government under Johnson would have mitigated
his adversarial and sometimes hateful language, analysed later.
 2 A VOYAGE THROUGH EMOTIVE RHETORIC … 25

A deeper delving into the evolution of rhetoric is necessary, as issues

relating to truths and indeed half-truths and competing conceptualisa-
tions of the forms rhetoric take, are pertinent to what is to come. The
Sophists in Greece stood accused by Plato of “favouring arguments based
on probability over those based on truth. …The charges of quackery and
disregard for truth may have been unfair, but they were amplified and put
into a powerful form by the Sophists’ most searing critic: Plato” (Toye
2013: 9). As Leith (2012: 6) argues, rhetoric is: “made up of three. It is
made of repeated phrases. It is made, as often as not, of half-truths and
fine-sounding meaninglessness, of false oppositions and abstract nouns
and shaky inferences”.
In The Republic, Plato (Toye 2013) argues that objective, absolute
knowledge can only be obtained through dialectic. Plato appeared to
object to relativist conceptions of morality. This absolutist position is
useful, as it is argued that relativism is part of the maelstrom that gave
rise to Post-Truth, hence a connection. Calcutt (2016) and AC Grayling
(Coughlan 2017) argue post-modernism and relativism are at the roots
of Post-Truth, as does Keyes (2004), harvested by the left but now
being exploited by the far right. As part of that relativism, journalists
followed academics in rejecting objectivity in the mid-nineties (Calcutt
2016; Gaber 2014). There is a need to address the manifestation of Post-
Truth in Eurosceptic political rhetoric and the subsequent mainstream
media discourse.
Plato leaves us thinking that public politics and rhetoric are wholly
suspect. They gave rise to the pejorative word ‘sophistry’. In his book,
Gorgias (2004) Plato argues for the need for the quest for truth, through
logical argument between individuals. In the text, Plato presents a quasi-
fictional version of Socrates’ conversations with the Sophist, Gorgias
(2004) and is a struggle over the purpose of rhetoric, in which Socrates
(who was killed by Athenian democrats) catches out Gorgias (Plato, circa
380BC):

Socrates: It turns out, then, that rhetoric is an agent of the kind of persua-
sion which is designed to produce conviction, but not to educate
people, about matters of right and wrong.
Gorgias: Yes.
Socrates: A rhetorician then, isn’t concerned to educate the people assem-
bled in law courts and so on about right and wrong; all he wants to do
is persuade them. I mean, I shouldn’t think it’s possible for him to get
26 P. ROWINSKI

so many people to understand such important matters in such a short

time.
Gorgias: No, that’s right.

This, it could be argued, is the precursor to Post-Truth, where the

facts in such rhetoric are not the thing, but the feelings and emotions
conjured and their persuasive power. Further parallels too, can be formu-
lated with Plato, who argued dialectic was the only proper method of
argument and the only valid medium for political life—and those that
lament the ‘coarseness’ of current political discourse, with strong adver-
sarial positions taken and little understanding of the counter-argument
sought. To some, this coarseness means out-and-out xenophobia and hate
speech (ECRI 2016a, b; Liberty 2017a, b; Corcoran and Smith 2016)
and Post-Truth rhetoric, creating an environment inciting hate acts, with
Prime Minister Boris Johnson accused by a Labour Seikh MP of inciting
hatred of veiled Muslim women on the floor of the House of Commons,
following Johnson’s Daily Telegraph article (Proctor 2019).
Plato argued that rhetoric created “belief without knowledge” (Toye
2013: 12). This resonates, with Post-Truth denoting circumstances in
which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than
appeals to emotion and personal belief (Oxford English Dictionary 2016).
This resonated further with a Reuters article the author happened to be
reading while writing: a piece about League leader, Matteo Salvini and
his rallying cry in Pontida, northern Italy, to disrupt the work of the new
Italian government. Alex Sirani, a League supporter from Brescia, put it
simply, when interviewed by Reuters (Camilli 2019): “Whatever Salvini
does is right”.
Aristotle (Barnes 1984) in turn, offers us deeper parameters, which
will be employed to help the author develop a more nuanced under-
standing of what is being said by politicians and the press in subsequent
analysis. Aristotle saw rhetoric as the counterpart of dialectic and separate
from it, putting them on an equal footing, rather than being dismissive
of the former and arguing only for the latter, as Plato had done. Aristotle
referred to three types of proof a speech might contain. This in turn will
extend beyond the utterances of politicians and consider the news and
commentaries of journalists.
The first depended on the personal character of the speaker (Ethos).
Leith (2012) stresses the first few moments of an address as the foun-
dation on which all else follows, creating the connection between the
 2 A VOYAGE THROUGH EMOTIVE RHETORIC … 27

speaker and the audience. Beyond the realms of television, political orators
are no longer reliant on a description of what they said, by a print or
internet journalist. Johnson’s or Salvini’s videoed speeches appear imme-
diately above the story in La Repubblica or The Guardian—or they reach
their audiences via Twitter or Facebook, circumventing the need for the
mainstream media at all. Yet perhaps our age is different here. Remember
the mantra “Whatever Salvini does is right” (Camilli 2019). Similarly
it appears as if, despite various questioning of his character, as long as
Johnson ‘gets us out’, regarding exiting the European Union, many seem
to regard the nature of his character as immaterial. Ethos may not be
holding in our digital age, as a key ingredient.

The Erosion of Trust

The next point made by Leith (2012) could also be contested, in light of
the current environment, created by the exponential rate of change in the
media, thanks to the technologies. Leith (2012: 48) argues that: “Your
audience needs to know (or to believe, which in rhetoric adds up to the
same thing) that you are trustworthy…and that you speak in good faith”.
In this particular sense Post-Truth may be taking us into the realms of new
territory, denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influen-
tial in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief
(Oxford English Dictionary 2016). This is less about trust here and more
a willingness to believe what is said, whether the orator is trustworthy
or not. Trust seems to be a secondary issue in the current climate. The
Pew Research Centre (Simmons et al. 2018) carried out research in eight
western European countries, including Britain and Italy. They found that
Europeans with populist views would typically trust the news media less
than others and that in many countries they are more likely to get their
news from social media. In Italy 26% of populists trusted the news media,
compared to 34% of non-populists. In Britain it was 26–43%, respectively.
This also demonstrates a low level of trust of the mainstream media more
generally. This would suggest that British and Italian audiences are suscep-
tible to the filter bubble and would go directly to Farage, Grillo, Johnson
or Salvini on Facebook and Twitter rather than Corriere della Sera and
The Times . One-third of those with populist views would pay no attention
to the original source of articles they see (Simmons et al. 2018).
28 P. ROWINSKI

Trump and Johnson have persistently been accused of lying. This has
not reduced their poll ratings and popularity. Somehow their trustworthi-
ness does not seem to matter, in the age of Post-Truth and relativism. Yet
the erosion of trust in the media, is having a corrosive effect. The thrust
of this book, in defence of good journalism is this all does matter. Leith
(2012: 48) however then adds: “Your arguments will tend to prosper if
they are founded on the common assumptions of your audience; or in
special cases, if the audience is minded to defer to your authority”. There
is something about our age, perhaps created in part by the silos we live in
online with Facebook pumping at us reaffirmation of our particular view
of the world, that suggests we are more likely to defer to those authorities
not less, an assumption that is hard to qualify, but will nevertheless be
explored, in terms of qualitative critical discourse analysis of texts.
I return to the Salvini supporter (Camilli 2019): “Whatever Salvini
does is right”. This is far removed from the dialectic of Plato or the
discourse of Socrates. Maybe the technology has created another arena
for discourse. Sirani, the source of the quote, has been persuaded. Blind
faith has followed. Such blind faith also led Mussolini and Hitler to power.
Worrying times.
Another way of articulating the notion of common assumptions is to
describe them as common sense, much as Gramsci did. Gramsci (1978:
419) wrote about the philosophy of common sense: “the conception
of the world which is uncritically absorbed by the various social and
cultural environments in which the moral individuality of the average
man is developed”. Some believed what they wished to believe and some
common myths, explored later, were accepted. Gramsci (1978: 423)
argued: “common sense is an ambiguous, contradictory and multiform
concept, and that to refer to common sense as a confirmation of truth, is a
nonsense”. In the context of the very particular articulation of Euroscepti-
cisms in Britain and Italy, that common sense can mean a different form of
active forgetting, quietly airbrushing out both in word and deed, elements
of the historical record that reveal the incongruence of the argument or
the contradictions belying it, to create what appears to be consistent. If
you will, this can create a series of assumptions many can collectively buy
in to (despite them being deeply flawed). In reaffirming certain truths,
others (regarding the narrative of a country in Europe) can be side-
lined in what Nietzsche described as active forgetting (Heer and Wodak
2008: 4) Common sense can shroud the contradictions and inconsisten-
cies. It was noted in the words and deeds of Salvini and Johnson, that
 2 A VOYAGE THROUGH EMOTIVE RHETORIC … 29

they were often employing such a notion of common sense, albeit that
it was not articulated overtly, it nevertheless bunches a series of assump-
tions together, presenting a flawed yet for the audience, nevertheless a
compelling coherence.
Reaching your audience and meeting their expectations, seems to be
another aspect of Aristotle’s Ethos, as articulated by Kenneth Burke
(1969: 55): “You persuade a man only insofar as you can talk his language
by speech, gesture, tonality, order, image, attitude, idea, identifying your
ways with his”. The touch of the common man or woman: Marie Le Pen,
discussing French cuisine and pressing the flesh around a food market;
Nigel Farage having a regular pint of bitter in his local; Boris Johnson
travelling around London on his bike and getting Brexit done.
The notion of a truthful character, one can trust in the formulation
of rhetoric, resonates with aspects of the methodological approach, to be
employed later. Drawing on argumentation theory (Wodak and Reisigl
2001) will hopefully help the author to lift the veil on how strong polit-
ical orators and indeed mainstream media commentators (and sometimes
even news journalists) persuade, cajole and in many instances manipu-
late what appeals to the public, to their advantage, relying on the notion
they can be trusted or are somehow believed. After all, what they write
is common sense. Again I would stress, what would prove more effec-
tive would be to challenge this rhetoric and reaffirm the need for quality
journalism—rather than engratiating and amplifying the political rhetoric
of the populists. But that is easy to say and far harder to perform in a
cut-throat media market, where many mainstream news outlets are very
busy, fighting for space and time in the social media age. D’Ancona
(2017: 140) argues: “political disappointment is the handmaiden of Post-
Truth, a solvent of trust and a cue to further tribal huddling”. And as
the populists respond to publics disaffected by the shortcomings of the
political mainstream, it is likely to continue.
Wodak and Reisigl (2001) and Oberhuber et al. (2005) refer to
topoi, in which such argumentative strategies are more fully explored. In
argumentation theory, topoi can be described as parts of argumentation
which belong to obligatory, either explicit or inferable premises. They are
content-related warrants or conclusion rules, connecting the argument
with the conclusion and justifying the transition from the former to the
latter. In relation to Post-Truth, the path to this conclusion may be thin
on facts, but laden with persuasion and indeed the discursive construction
of common sense.
30 P. ROWINSKI

Wodak and Reisigl (2001: 71) argue there are violations of the rules
in persuasive, manipulative, discursive legitimation of say ethnicist and
nationalist discrimination, relevant to this study. Lurking in the hinter-
land of a previous investigation (Rowinski 2017), but arguably growing
stronger in the current turmoil, with the voices of the League in Italy and
until recently, the Brexit Party in Britain. Now the League has dropped
the notion of a separate north, embraced the whole of Italy and under
Salvini’s leadership, is the largest party in the country. In Britain, until
very recently, the new, dominant force driving Brexit was the Brexit party,
under the leadership of the charismatic Nigel Farage. The Conservatives
got the message, started to occupy the Brexit Party’s far-right Eurosceptic
territory and then trounced them and indeed everybody else under Boris
Johnson, securing the largest parliamentary majority since Thatcher.
Salvini, Farage and the current Conservative PM, Boris Johnson, all
employ their persona to good effect, all masters of ethos and reaching
out to their respective publics. All capable of wielding a quote, journalists
cannot ignore. The crucial thing is how those journalists frame those
quotes and if they are placed in a predominant position or conversely
in some instances, discredited, with further research establishing the lies
told, rather providing for it and legitimising the lying.
In argumentation theory, violations are called fallacies. The argu-
mentum ad verecundiam is the misplaced appeal to deep respect and
reverence. This fallacy entails backing one’s own standpoint, by means
of reference to authorities considered competent, superior or sacro-
sanct. The appeal to such authority is always fallacious, if the respective
authority is neither competent nor qualified, is prejudiced or quoted inac-
curately (Wodak and Reisigl 2001: 72) and, as an appendage to their
point, speaks inaccurately or untruthfully. A special ‘fallacy of authority’
consists of presenting oneself as an authority if one is not, falsely parading
one’s qualities. This fallacy violates several of the rules characterising and
discerning reasonableness in critical discussions (Kienpointner 1996: 26;
van Eemeren and Grootendorst 1994). One of the rules, number seven,
stipulates that: a standpoint must not be considered to be conclusively
defended, if the defence does not take place by means of commonly
accepted schemes of argumentation, which are plausible and correctly
applied. Another rule (number four) states that a standpoint may be
defended only by advancing argumentation relating to that standpoint
(Kienpointner 1996: 26; van Eemeren and Grootendorst 1994).
 2 A VOYAGE THROUGH EMOTIVE RHETORIC … 31

Mautner (2008), in analysing The Sun, noted that an argumentative

strategy was used to denounce immigration by linking it to crime. Again
such false correlations both in the oratory of populist politicians and their
political bedfellows will be the source of subsequent analysis.
Aristotle’s Logos, is what drives the argument forward, with one point
leading to another, resulting in the conclusion being the only right and
reasonable one to be reached. As Leith (2012: 57–58) noted: “Aristotle
remarks, shrewdly, that the most effective form of argument is one that
the audience is allowed to think it has worked out itself: one whose
conclusion, in other words, the listener reaches just before, or just as,
the speaker makes it”. The audience is pleased having anticipated the
point. It is worth momentarily returning to the definition of Post-Truth,
to establish any parallels.
Post-Truth became joint US-UK word of the Year in 2016: Post-truth
(Adjective): “relating to or denoting circumstances in which objec-
tive facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to
emotion and personal belief” (Oxford Dictionaries 2016: Post-Truth).
They explained further: “The concept of Post-Truth has been in existence
for the past decade, but Oxford dictionaries have seen a spike in frequency
this year, in the context of the EU referendum in the United Kingdom
and the presidential election in the United States. It has also become asso-
ciated with a particular noun, in the phrase post-truth politics ” (Oxford
Dictionaries 2016: Post-Truth).
The author will explore how controlling immigration is one of the
populist mantras of the current political creed in both countries and often
the oratory, as will be explored in greater detail, leads the listener or
reader to the same point: and therefore we need to control immigration.
The audience often arrives just ahead of the politician, in drawing that
conclusion.
In Aristotle’s Logic, the notion of proof is woolly, dealing with proba-
bilities rather than certainties, with the use of analogy and generalisation.
This creates scope for the use of metaphors, common in persuasive
argument. Simon Singh (2002) illustrates the different gradients of math-
ematical proof. An astronomer, physicist and mathematician are on a train
hurtling to Scotland. Having crossed the border they see a black sheep
standing in a field. The astronomer declares that Scottish sheep are black.
The physicist corrects him, saying “some sheep in Scotland are black”.
32 P. ROWINSKI

The mathematician in turn corrects the physicist, declaring that in Scot-

land there exists at least one field, containing at least one sheep, at least
one side of which is black.
Toye (2013: 14) offers an effective critique of Aristotle’s rhetoric in
that Aristotle insisted rhetoric dealt with proof, emphasising its depen-
dence on reason rather than emotion—yet simultaneously claiming that
ethos and pathos (the appeal to emotion) were themselves varieties of
proof, thus “elevating potentially manipulative techniques to a similar
status as logic”.
While a comprehension of rhetoric is clearly useful in providing a basis
for deepening our understanding of Post-Truth and the language used, it
is not the end point. That analogy is utilised by orators, does indeed give
them scope, not only to persuade and feed prejudices, but also to base this
on lies. The bar will be higher and more rigorous in subsequent analysis,
than that offered by the notion of Aristotle’s logic—because, returning
to the central thrust of this book, populist politicians must be held to
account by journalists and both parties should be basing their argument
on substantiated, corroborated fact—or you end up with a maelstrom
threatening the very tenants of democracy, as is the case with Brexit
Britain—and a media arguably starting to abrogate its responsibility, in
not holding those helping their circulation figures—to account.
To illustrate the point further, analogical metaphors will form part of
the subsequent analysis. In 1992, a popular metaphor was the European
train leaving the station without Britain. Former Prime Minister Margaret
Thatcher deemed this to be a misleading analogy. Thatcher countered,
that if the train was heading in the wrong direction (concerning European
integration), Britain was better off not to be on it all. Later British press
discourse would also conjure the metaphorical imagery of the train doing
better to go slowly and safely, rather than rushing headlong into disaster.
Thatcher warned that anyone dealing with the European Community
should pay careful attention to metaphors, arguing Britain had learned the
hard way by agreeing to apparently empty generalisations or vague aspira-
tions, Britain was later deemed to have committed to political structures
contrary to national interests, according to the former prime minister
(Thatcher 1993: 319). In the same country and dealing with the same
issue, the emotional pull of the analogical metaphor of Brexit being ‘oven
ready’ with Boris ready to ‘get it done,’ although simple was very effective
with a battle-weary public, desperate for closure on the issue.
 2 A VOYAGE THROUGH EMOTIVE RHETORIC … 33

Musolff (2004) argues that there are three serious claims about polit-
ical imagery that result from analogies: (i) metaphors and analogies that
either lead or mislead and commit users to certain practical consequences;
(ii) users may not even be aware of the commitments entered into, by
subscribing to a particular metaphor; and (iii) politicians (like Thatcher)
are necessary to minimise the impact of metaphors, by guiding the popu-
lace back to the realm of practicalities. That may also go for journalists
challenging the seductive power of populist emotive rhetoric.
Political metaphors are integral aspects of argumentative reasoning,
which typically aim to prove a contested issue and thus also legitimise
a certain course of action. Musolff (2004: 32) advances a similar posi-
tion to that articulated in argumentation theory (Wodak and Reisigl
2001). If metaphors, in this case, can be deemed to lead to conclu-
sions that bind politicians and states, they must function like warrants
in an argument. They must appear to give a valid justification for using
particular premises, in order to arrive at a certain conclusion. Musolff
(2004: 33–34) argues this unconscious conceptual framework is a form
of ‘argumentation-by-metaphor.’
Musolff (ibid.: 34–35, 37) argues that the family metaphor in America
and the married couple metaphor in the EU draw on normative suppo-
sitions, such as a family being organised according to the morality of
a strict father. The argument is that in traditional social settings such
presuppositions are deemed normal or true, yet as warrants in an analog-
ical argument, they take on a new significance because they are used to
vindicate contentious evaluative conclusions. For example: the father of
European unity must always be treated with unconditional respect; or we
must join the European train as quickly as possible.
Lakoff and Johnson (1980: 123) make the epistemological claim that
metaphorical thought is primary and metaphorical language is secondary.
Hence, if our social experiences and conceptualisations are organised, in
terms of metaphors, then politics as part of the social (as is indeed jour-
nalism), must also be perceived and constructed metaphorically (Musolff
2004: 2). A pervasive Euroscepticism stands at the centre of how many
Britons understand themselves (Gifford 2014). Increasingly this can be
said of many Italians also.
The argumentation analysed, is sometimes linked to lack of or misin-
formation. Nevertheless readers are led to certain conclusions through
34 P. ROWINSKI

emotive rhetoric, despite paucity of substantiation. Perhaps this is Post-

Truth. A minority of Britons responded to the perceived threat (some-
times articulated through hate speech) posed by immigrants (Lyons 2016;
Siddique 2016; Weaver 2016). Albeit isolated, some hate crimes were
committed, ahead of the Brexit vote. And now one of the key architects of
that Brexit victory, the current Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, is accused
of such hate speech and racism on the floor of the House of Commons,
as he prepares the country for what seems likely to be a no deal departure
(Proctor 2019). These are unprecedented times indeed.
The importance of Pathos in Aristotlean rhetoric is well articulated
by Quintilian (2015) when he argues that unless the orator can entice
the audience with delights; or the ability to plead; or even disturb, with
emotional appeals, just and true causes will not prevail with the public.

Post-Truth and the Intensification of Rhetoric

Garton-Ash (2005) argues some 22 million Britons—nearly three out
of every four daily national newspaper readers, “pick up a daily dose
of Euroscepticism” (ibid.: 31, 271). Garton-Ash (2005) argues distin-
guishing between fact and opinion in these newspapers has long disap-
peared. British governments and UK newspapers—often claim to speak to
and for the nation (Hallin and Mancini 2004: 242). Morgan (1995: 303)
argues British journalists cover Europe aware of “what will be considered
acceptable first to their London editors and then to the British public”.
Morgan (1995: 324) argues copy can attain a “direct, Eurosceptic inflec-
tion” from London-based editors. Weymouth and Anderson (1999: 5,
91) analyse Euroscepticism in British newspapers. They argue there can be
a deliberate exaggeration of the principles, beliefs and intentions of the
European Other, with the notable exceptions of the Scottish nationals,
The Herald and the Scotsman. Gifford (2014: vii) argues Euroscepticism
has become fundamental to constituting Britishness in the post-imperial
context—despite EU membership (ibid.: vii).
The question that has to be asked is, in true journalistic fashion, is
the one most pivotal to all manner of investigations in both academia
and journalism. Why? Why do the facts appear to matter so little to the
audience at this current juncture? What lies embedded in the zeitgeist that
means they are somehow marginalised?
Liberal rage can point too strongly at the likes of Trump. D’Ancona
(2017) argues that Trump is a consequence rather than cause. What needs
 2 A VOYAGE THROUGH EMOTIVE RHETORIC … 35

to be understood is the climate of disaffection among the public that has

created a platform for not only Trump, but also Johnson and Salvini.
Aaron Banks the businessman that bankrolled the Leave. EU campaign,
reflected on our times: “The Remain campaign featured fact, fact fact,
fact. It just doesn’t work. You’ve got to connect with people emotion-
ally. It’s the Trump success” (Worley 2016). It is the societal climate
that needs to be noted. It means that Kellyanne Conway, senior aide to
Trump, could say that: “There’s no such thing, unfortunately, anymore
as facts” (D’Ancona 2017: 13).
D’Ancona (2017) refers to the disappointment so many of the disaf-
fected have come to feel with the mainstream political class—and by asso-
ciation the mainstream media. Kaltwasser (2014: 470) argues populism
raises issues that are entirely legitimate and “we should avoid treating
populism as an irrational impulse”. D’Ancona (2017: 140) argues: “polit-
ical disappointment is the handmaiden of Post-Truth, a solvent of trust
and a cue to further tribal huddling”.
The consumerist age and the use of social media as integral to it, has
perhaps numbed the senses. D’Ancona (2017: 141) refers to the “partial
infantalisation of the public” the state serves. He goes on to lament the
reframing of public services as retail products and of patients, parents and
passengers as customers, blurring the boundary between the state and
the private sector, making citizenship increasingly indistinguishable from
consumerism. D’Ancona (2017: 142) argues:

in your neighbourhood; when you communicate with the social media

‘friends’ you never meet more than you see your real friends; when your
notion of the ‘public space’ is confined to the screen in your hand: all this
removes the sinew from citizenship. It encourages the passivity that is so
important to Post-Truth.

Martin Luther King wrote in his ‘Letter from Birmingham Jail’ (1963)
of how indifference is the greatest challenge of those who speak the
truth. Indifference is perhaps the greatest challenge journalism faces. King
wrote: “The Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom
is not the White Citizen’s Councilor or the Klu Klux Klanner, but the
white moderate, who is more devoted to ‘order’ than to justice…”.
D’Ancona (2017) argues that we have to be proactive, like the Occupy
movement, arguing we need a loose-knit alliance in response to Post-
Truth, shaking us out of our passivity. It can be argued that goes for
36 P. ROWINSKI

passivity and lazy Post-truth journalism as well, in my humble view. Davis

(2017: xii) asks why the usual human habit of seeking truth has in some
cases been overridden: “The premise underlying this approach is that it
takes more than a liar to create a false belief – the recipients of the lie are
often willing accomplices to the falsehood”. Yet again we return to the
Salvini example (Camilli 2019): “Whatever Salvini does is right”.
As this book journeys through the language of Post-Truth in the
media, any signs that demonstrate how the public maybe such willing
accomplices, will be investigated. When the media organisations give the
Post-Truthers a platform and are themselves also willing accomplices to
the falsehood, will also be examined.

The Filter Bubble

The passivity that could feed Post-Truth, as D’Ancona (2017) puts it,
needs further exposition. The game changer may be the “circumstances ”,
returning to the dictionary definition (Oxford Dictionaries 2016: Post-
Truth). Baudrillard (1994: 79) suggested 35 years ago that there is
exponential growth in information, but less and less meaning. There is
what film-maker, Adam Curtis, calls the filter bubble of contemporary
mediated digital content and its influence on forming and entrenching
opinion (Curtis 2016). As Laybats and Tredinnick (2016: 4) argue: “The
filter bubble of social media is perhaps only a mirror of the filter bubble
that individuals have always created for themselves by choosing to priori-
tise relationships and to consume information content that reinforces their
existing values, opinions and beliefs”. The difference is perhaps the scale
on which this is now possible, amplified very quickly, so “where infor-
mation proliferates freely, inevitably, so also do untruths” (Laybats and
Tredinnick 2016: 4). An Ofcom (2019) study found that half of the UK’s
adults use social media to keep up with the news. Appeals to emotion
can be amplified within seconds on social media. AC Grayling (Coughlan
2017) concurs, arguing that the circumstances have resulted in a coupling
of the 2008 economic crash and the anger and disaffection people feel and
the conduit of social media to channel that fury, with what he calls the
“I-bite” where strong opinion overshadows evidence, eclipsing the sound
bite. Everybody can play and this is a new celebrity.
D’Ancona reflected on his book at a lecture at the London School
of Economics (Lulie 2017). D’Ancona noted the paradox that the very
infrastructure that could be used to verify facts became the propagator
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good annealing a piece should never be hotter in one part than in
another, and no part should be hotter than necessary, usually the
medium orange color. Annealing, then, is a slow process
comparatively, and sufficient time should be allowed.
There are many ways of annealing steel, and generally the plan
used is well adapted to the result desired; it is necessary, however,
to consider the end aimed at and to adopt means to accomplish it,
because a plan that is excellent in one case may be entirely
inefficient in another.
Probably the greatest amount of annealing is done in the
manufacture of wire, where many tons must be annealed daily.
For annealing wire sunken cylindrical pits built of fire-bricks are
used usually; the coils of wire are piled up in the cylinders, which are
then covered tightly, and heat is applied through flues surrounding
the cylinders, so that no flame comes in contact with the steel. For all
ordinary uses this method of annealing wire is quick, economical,
and satisfactory. The wire comes out with a heavy scale of oxide on
the surface; this is pickled off in hot acid, and the steel should then
be washed in limewater, then in clean water, and finally dried.
If it be desired to make drill-wire for drills, punches, graving-tools,
etc., this plan will not answer, because under the removable scale
there is left a thin film of decarbonized iron which cannot be pickled
off without ruining the steel, and which will not harden. It is plain that
this soft surface must be ruinous to steel intended for cutting-tools,
for it prevents the extreme edge from hardening—the very place that
must be hard if cutting is to be done.
Tools for drills, lathe-tools, reamers, punches, etc., are usually
annealed in iron boxes, filled in the spaces between the tools with
charcoal; the box is then looted and heated in a furnace adapted to
the work. This is a satisfactory method generally, because the tools
are either ground or turned after annealing, removing any
decarbonized film that may be found; the charcoal usually takes up
all of the oxygen and prevents the formation of heavy scale and
decarbonized surfaces, but it does not do so entirely, and so for
annealing drill-wire this plan is not satisfactory. It is a common
practice in annealing in this way to continue the heating for many
hours, sometimes as many as thirty-six hours, in the mistaken notion
that long-continued heating produces greater softness, and some
people adhere to this plan in spite of remonstrances, because they
find that pieces so annealed will turn as easily as soft cast iron. This
last statement is true; the pieces may be turned in a lathe or cut in
any way as easily as soft cast iron, for the reason that that is exactly
what they are practically. When steel is made properly, the carbon is
nearly all in a condition of complete solution; it is in the very best
condition to harden well and to be enduring.
When steel is heated above the recalescence-point into the
plastic condition, the carbon at once begins to separate out of
solution and into what is known as the graphitic condition. If it be
kept hot long enough, the carbon will practically all take the graphitic
form, and then the steel will not harden properly, and it will not hold
its temper. To illustrate: Let a piece of 90-carbon steel be hardened
and drawn to a light brown temper; it will be found to be almost file
hard, very strong, and capable of holding a fine, keen edge for a long
time.
Next let a part of the same bar be buried in charcoal in a box and
be closed up air-tight, then let it be heated to a medium orange, no
hotter, and be kept at that heat for twelve hours, a common practice,
and then cooled slowly. This piece will be easily cut, and it will
harden very hard, but when drawn to the same light brown as the
other tool a file will cut it easily; it will not hold its edge, and it will not
do good work.
Clearly in this case time and money have been spent merely in
spoiling good material. There is nothing to be gained, and there is
everything to be lost, in long-continued heating of any piece of steel
for any purpose. When it is hot enough, and hot through, get it away
from the fire as quickly as possible.
This method of box-annealing is not satisfactory when applied to
drill-wire, or to long thin strands intended for clock-springs, watch-
springs, etc.
 The coils or strands do not come out even; they will be harder in
one part than in another; they will not take an even temper. When
hardened and tempered, some parts will be found to be just right,
and others will have a soft surface, or will not hold a good temper.
The reason of this seems to be a want of uniformity in the conditions:
the charcoal does not take up all of the oxygen before the steel is hot
enough to be attacked, and so a decarbonized surface is formed in
some parts; or it may be that some of the carbon dioxide which is
formed comes in contact with the surface of the steel and takes
another equivalent of carbon from it. Whatever the reaction may be,
the fact is that much soft surface is formed. This soft surface may not
be more than .001 of an inch thick, but that is enough to ruin a
watch-spring or a fine drill.
Again, it seems to be impossible to heat such boxes evenly; it is
manifest that it must take a considerable length of time to heat a
mass of charcoal up to the required temperature, and if the whole be
not so heated some of the steel will not be heated sufficiently; this
will show itself in the subsequent drawing of the wire or rolling of the
strands. On the other hand, if the whole mass be brought up to the
required heat, some of the steel will have come up to the heat
quickly, and will then have been subjected to that heat during the
balance of the operation, and in this way the carbon will be thrown
out of solution partly. This is proven by the fact that strands made in
this way and hardened and tempered by the continuous process will
be hard and soft at regular intervals, showing that one side of the coil
has been subjected to too much heat. This trouble is overcome by
open annealing, which will be described presently.
When steel is heated in an open furnace, there is always a scale
of oxide formed on the surface; this scale, being hard, and of the
nature of sand or of sandstone, grinds away the edges of cutting-
tools, so that, although the steel underneath may be soft and in good
cutting condition, this gritty surface is very objectionable. This trouble
is overcome by annealing in closed vessels; when charcoal is used,
the difficulties just mentioned in connection with wire- and strand-
annealing operate to some extent, although not so seriously,
because the steel is to be machined, removing the surface.
 The Jones method of annealing in an atmosphere of gas is a
complete cure for these troubles.
Jones uses ordinary gas-pipes or welded tubes of sizes to suit
the class of work. One end of the tube is welded up solid; the other
end is reinforced by a band upon which a screw-thread is cut; a cap
is made to screw on this end when the tube is charged. A gas-pipe
of about ½-inch diameter is screwed into the solid end, and a hole of
¹/₁₆- to ⅛-inch diameter is drilled in the cap.
When the tube is charged and the cap is screwed on, a hose
connected with a gas-main is attached to the piece of gas-pipe in the
solid end of the tube; the gas-pipe is long enough to project out of
the end of the furnace a foot or so through a slot made in the end of
the furnace for that purpose.
The gas is now turned on and a flame is held near the hole in the
cap until the escaping gas ignites; this shows that the air is driven
out and replaced by gas.
The pipe is now rolled into the furnace and the door is closed, the
gas continuing to flow through the pipe. By keeping the pipe down to
a proper annealing-heat it is manifest that the steel will not be any
hotter than the pipe. By heating the pipe evenly by rolling it over
occasionally the steel will be heated evenly. A little experience will
teach the operator how long it takes to heat through a given size of
pipe and its contents, so that he need not expose his steel to heat
any longer than necessary.
There is not a great quantity of gas consumed in the operation,
because the expanding gas in the tube makes a back pressure, the
vent in the cap being small. This seems to be the perfection of
annealing. A tube containing a bushel or more of bright, polished
tacks will deliver them all perfectly bright and as ductile as lead,
showing that there is no oxidation whatever. Experiments with drill-
rods, with the use of natural gas, have shown that they can be
annealed in this way, leaving the surface perfectly bright, and
thoroughly hard when quenched. This Jones process is patented.
 Although the Jones process is so perfect, and necessary for
bright surfaces, its detail is not necessary when a tarnished surface
is not objectionable.
The charcoal difficulty can be overcome also. Let a pipe be made
like a Jones pipe without a hole in the cap or a gas-pipe in the end.
To charge it first throw a handful of resin into the bottom of the pipe,
then put in the steel, then another handful of resin near the open
end, and screw on the cap. The cap is a loose fit. Now roll the whole
into the furnace; the resin will be volatilized at once, fill the pipe with
carbon or hydrocarbon gases, and unite with the air long before the
steel is hot enough to be attacked.
The gas will cause an outward pressure, and may be seen
burning as it leaks through the joint at the cap. This prevents air from
coming in contact with the steel. This method is as efficient as the
Jones plan as far as perfect heating and easy management are
concerned. It reduces the scale on the surfaces of the pieces,
leaving them a dark gray color and covered with fine carbon or soot.
For annealing blocks or bars it is handier and cheaper than the
Jones plan, but it will not do for polished surfaces. This method is not
patented.

OPEN ANNEALING.
Open annealing, or annealing without boxes or pipes, is practised
wherever there are comparatively few pieces to anneal and where a
regular annealing-plant would not pay, or in a specially arranged
annealing-furnace where drill-wire, clock-spring steel, etc., are to be
annealed.
For ordinary work a blacksmith has near his fire a box of dry lime
or of powdered charcoal. He brings his piece up to the right heat and
buries it in the box, where it may cool slowly. In annealing in this way
it is well not to use blast, because it is liable to force all edges up to
too high a heat and to make a very heavy scale all over the surface.
With a little common-sense and by the use of a little care this way of
annealing is admirable.
 It is a common practice where there is a furnace in use in
daytime and allowed to go cold at night to charge the furnace in the
evening, after the fire is drawn, with steel to be annealed, close the
doors and damper, and leave the whole until morning. The furnace
does not look too hot when it is closed up, but no one knows how hot
it will make the steel by radiation: the steel is almost always made
too hot, it is kept hot too long, and so converted into cast iron, and
there is an excessively heavy scale on it.
Many thousands of dollars worth of good steel are ruined
annually in this way, and it is in every way about the worst method of
annealing that was ever devised.
To anneal wire or thin strands in an open furnace the furnace
should be built with vertical walls about two feet high and then
arched to a half circle. The inports for flame should be vertical and
open into the furnace at the top of the vertical wall; the outports for
the gases of combustion should be vertical and at the same level as
the inports and on the opposite side of the furnace from the inports.
These outflues may be carried under the floor of the furnace to keep
it hot.
The bottom of the door should be at the level of the ports to keep
indraught air away from the steel. The annealing-pot is then the
whole size of the furnace—two feet deep—and closed all around.
The draught should be regulated so that the flame will pass
around the roof, or so nearly so as to never touch the steel, not even
in momentary eddies.
In such a furnace clock-spring wire not more than .01 inch in
diameter, or clock-spring strands not more than .006 to .008 inch
thick and several hundred feet long, may be annealed perfectly. The
steel is scaled of course, but the operation is so quick and so
complete that there is no decarbonized surface under the scale.
This plan is better than the Jones method or any closed method,
because the big boxes necessary to hold the strands or coils cannot
be heated up without in some parts overheating the steel; all of
which is avoided in the open furnace, because by means of peep-
holes the operator can see what he is about, and after a little
practice he can anneal large quantities of steel uniformly and
efficiently.
 VIII.
HARDENING AND TEMPERING.

For nearly all structural and machinery purposes steel is used in

the condition in which it comes from the rolls or the forge; in
exceptional cases it is annealed, and in some cases such as for wire
in cables or for bearings in machinery, it is hardened and tempered.
For all uses for tools steel must be hardened, or hardened and
tempered. The operations of hardening and tempering, including the
necessary heating, are the most important, the most delicate, and
the most difficult of all of the manipulations to which steel is
subjected; these operations form an art in themselves where skill,
care, good judgment, and experience are required to produce
reliable and satisfactory results. It is a common idea that all that is
necessary is to heat a piece of steel, quench it in water, brine, or
some pet nostrum, and then warm it to a certain color; these are
indeed the only operations that are necessary, but the way in which
they are done are all-important.
An experienced steel-maker is often amazed at the confidence
with which an ignorant person will put a valuable tool in the fire, rush
the heat up to some bright color, or half a dozen colors at once, and
souse it into the cooling-bath without regard to consequences. That
such work does not always result in disastrous fractures shows that
steel does possess marvellous strength to resist even the worst
disregard of rules and facts.
On the other hand, the beautiful work upon the most delicate and
difficult shapes that is done by one skilled in the art cannot but excite
the surprise and admiration of the onlooker who is familiar with the
physics of steel, and who can appreciate the delicacy of handling
required in the operation.
 There are a few simple laws to observe and rules to follow which
will lead to success; they will be stated in this chapter as clearly as
may be, in the hope of giving the reader a good starting-point and a
plain path to follow; but he who would become an expert can do so
only by travelling the road carefully step by step. The hair-spring of a
watch, or a little pinion or pivot, so small that it can only be seen
through a magnifying-glass, the exquisitely engraved die costing
hundreds or thousands of dollars, and the huge armor-plate
weighing many tons, must all be hardened and tempered under
precisely the same laws and in exactly the same way; the only
difference is in the means of getting at it in each case.
Referring now to properties mentioned in the previous chapters,
we have first to heat the piece to the right temperature and then to
cool it in the quickest possible way in order to secure the greatest
hardness and the best grain. In doing this we subject the steel to the
greatest shocks or strains, and great care must be used.
The importance of uniformity in heating for forging and for
annealing has been stated, and it has been shown how an error in
this may be rectified by another and a more careful heating; when it
comes to hardening, this uniformity must be insisted upon and
emphasized, for as a rule an error here has no remedy.
There may be cases of bad work that do not cause actual
fracture that can be remedied by re-heating and hardening, but these
are rare, because even if incurable fracture does not occur the error
is not discovered until the piece has been put to work and its failure
develops the errors of the temperer.
If the error is one of merely too low heat, not producing thorough
hardening, it will generally be discovered by the operator, who will
then try again and possibly succeed; but if the error be of uneven
heat, or too much heat, the probabilities are that it will not be
discovered until the piece fails in work, when it will be too late to
apply any remedy.
Referring to Table I, Chap. V, treating of specific gravities, it is
clear that all steel possesses different specific gravities, due to
differences of temperature, and that these differences of specific
gravity increase as the carbon content increases; it follows that if a
piece of steel be heated unevenly, internal strains must be set up in
the mass, and it is certain that if steel be quenched in this condition
violent strains will be set up, even to the causing of fractures.
The theory of this action, as of all hardening, is involved in
discussion which will be considered later; in this chapter the facts will
be dealt with. When a piece of steel is heated, no matter how
unevenly or to what temperature below actual granulation, and is
allowed to cool slowly and without disturbance, it will not break or
crack under the operation. If a piece be heated as unevenly as, say,
medium orange in one part and medium lemon in another, and is
then quenched, it will be almost certain to crack if it contains enough
carbon to harden at all in the common acceptance of the term, that is
to say, file hard or having carbon 40 or higher.
This fact is too well known to be open to discussion; therefore the
quenching of hot steel, the operation of hardening, does set up
violent strains in steel, no matter what the true theory of hardening
may be.
Referring to Chap. V, to the series of squares representing the
apparent sizes of grain due to different temperatures, similar results
follow from hardening, with the exceptions that the different
structures are far more plainly marked, and the squares should be
arranged a little differently; they are shown as continuously larger in
Chap. V, from the grain of the cold bar up to the highest
temperature; this is true if a bar has been rolled or hammered
properly into a fine condition of grain. Of course if a bar be finished
at, say, medium orange it will have a grain due to that heat—No. 3 in
the series of squares. Then if it be heated to dark orange and cooled
from that heat it will take on a grain corresponding to square No. 2,
and No. 1 square will be eliminated.
The series of squares to represent hardened grain will be as
follows:
The heat colors being the same as before, viz.:
1. The natural bar—untreated.
2. Quenched at dark orange or orange red.
3. “ “ medium orange—refined.
4. “ “ bright orange.
5. “ “ dark lemon.
6. “ “ medium lemon.
7. “ “ bright lemon.
8. “ “ very bright lemon or creamy.

Heats 6, 7, 8 will almost invariably produce

cracks although the pieces be evenly heated.
 These squares do not represent absolute structures with marked
divisions; they are only the steps on an incline, like the temper
numbers in the carbon series; thus, the carbon-line is continuous,
but the temper divisions represent steps up the incline. So with the
series of squares, the changes of grain or structure are continuous,
as represented by the doubly inclined line; the squares being only
the steps to indicate easily observed divisions. The minuteness of
the changes is illustrated by the fact that in a piece heated
continuously from creamy to dark orange and quenched, differences
of grain have been observed unmistakably on opposite sides of
pieces broken off not more than ⅛ inch thick.
In practice the differences due to the colors given in the list above
are as plain and surely marked as are the differences in the structure
of ingots due to the different temper carbons already described.
In this hardened series each carbon temper gives its own
peculiar grain; in low steel, say 40 carbon compared to 1.00 carbon
or higher, No. 3 will be larger and No. 8 will be smaller in the low
temper than in the high—another illustration of the fact that low steel
is more inert to the action of heat than high steel. All grades and all
tempers go through the same changes, but they are more marked in
the high than in the low steel.
The grain of hardened steel is affected by the presence of silicon,
phosphorus, and manganese, and doubtless by any other
ingredients, these three being the most common.
It is in the grain of hardened steel that the conditions described in
Chap. V as “sappy,” “dry,” and “fiery” are the most easily and
frequently observed, although the same conditions obtain in
unhardened steel in a manner that is useful to an observing steel-
user. But it is in this hardened condition that the excellences or
defects of steel are brought out and emphasized.
When a piece of steel is heated continuously from “creamy,” or
scintillating, down to black, or unheated, and is then quenched, the
grain will be found to be coarsest, hardest, and most brittle at the
hottest end, and with the brightest lustre, even to brilliancy, and to
become finer down to a certain point, noted as No. 3 in the series of
squares, or at a heat which shows about a medium orange color;
here the grain becomes exceedingly fine, and here the steel is found
to be the strongest and to be without lustre. Below this heat the grain
appears coarser and the steel is less hard, until the grain and
condition of the unheated part are reached. This fine condition,
known as the refined condition, is very remarkable. It is the condition
to be aimed at in all hardening operations, with one or two
exceptions which will be noted, because in this state steel is at its
best; it is strongest then, and it would seem to be clear without
argument that the finest grain and the strongest will hold the best at
a fine cutting-edge, and will do the most work with the least wear,
although a coarser grain may be a little harder, the coarser and more
brittle condition of the latter more than counterbalancing its superior
hardness.
The advantages of this refined condition are so great that it is
found to be well to harden and refine mild-steel dies, and battering-
and cutting-tools that are to be used for hot work, although the heat
will draw out all of the temper in the first few minutes, because the
superior strength of the fine grain will enable the tool to do twice to
twenty times more work than an unhardened tool.
The refining-heat, like most other properties, varies with the
carbon; the medium orange given is the proper heat for normal tool-
steel of from about 90 to 110 carbon. Steel of 150 carbon will refine
at about a dark orange, and steel of 50 to 60 carbon will require
about a bright orange to refine it.
This range is small, but it must be observed and worked to if the
best results are desired.
A color-blind person can never learn to harden steel properly.
In studying this phenomenon of refining, the conclusion was
reached that it occurred at or immediately above the temperature
that broke up the crystalline condition of cold steel and brought it
fairly into the second, the plastic condition. Farther observation led to
the conclusion that the coarser grain and greater hardness caused
by higher heats were due to the gradual change from plastic toward
granular condition that takes place as the heat increases. Later
investigations have given no reason for changing these conclusions.
When the phenomenon of recalescence was observed and
investigated by Osmond and others, different theories were
advanced in explanation.
Langley concluded that if recalescence occurred at the change
from a plastic to a crystalline condition, then the heat absorbed and
again set free during such changes would account for the visible
phenomenon of recalescence.
Again, if it should prove that recalescence occurred at the refining
point, the conjunction of these phenomena would indicate strongly,
first, that refining does occur at the point where this change of
structure is complete in the reverse order, from crystalline to plastic;
and second, the first being true, recalescence would be explained as
stated, as indicating the inevitable absorption and emission of heat
due to such a change.
 Langley fitted up an electric apparatus for heating steel, in a box
so placed that the light was practically uniform, that is, so that bright
sunlight, or a cloudy sky, or passing clouds would not affect seriously
the observation of heat-colors.
Pieces of steel were heated far above recalescence, up to bright
lemon, and then allowed to cool slowly; in this way recalescence was
shown clearly.
It was found to occur at the refining heat in every case, shifting
for different carbons just as the refining heat shifts.
Immediately under the pieces being observed was a vessel of
water into which the pieces could be dropped and quenched. After
observing the heating and cooling until the eye was well trained,
pieces were quenched at different heats and the results were noted.
It was found that in the ascending heats no great hardness was
produced until the recalescence heat was reached or passed
slightly; and in the descending heat excessive hardening occurred at
a little below the recalescent heat, although no such hardening
occurred at that color during ascending heats. This apparent
anomaly is due simply to lag. If, in ascending, the piece be held for a
few moments at the recalescent point, no increase being allowed,
and then it be quenched, it will harden thoroughly and be refined. If,
in descending, the cooling be arrested at a little below the
recalescence for a few moments, neither increase nor decrease
being allowed, and then the piece be quenched, it will not harden
any better than if it be quenched immediately upon reaching the
same heat in ascending.
Time must be allowed for the changes to take place, and lag
must be provided for.
These experiments show that refining and recalescence take
place at the same temperature.

AS TO HARDNESS.
 Prof. J. W. Langley showed by sp. gr. determinations that steel
quenched from 212° F. in water at 60° F. showed the hardening
effect of such quenching, the difference of temperature being only
152° F.
Prof. S. P. Langley, of the Smithsonian, proved the same to be
true by delicate electrical tests, and these again were confirmed by
Prof. J. W. Langley in the laboratory of the Case School of Sciences.
A piece of refined steel will rarely be hard enough to scratch
glass. A piece of steel quenched from creamy heat will almost
always scratch glass. The maximum hardness is produced by the
highest heat, or when temperature minus cold is a maximum; the
least hardness is found by quenching at the lowest heat above the
cooling medium, or when temperature minus cold is a minimum—the
time required to quench being a minimum in both cases.
What occurs between these limits? Is the curve of hardness a
straight line, or an irregular line?
Let a piece of steel be heated as uniformly as possible from a
creamy heat at one end to black at the other, and then be quenched.
Now take a newly broken hard file and draw its sharp corner
gently and firmly over the piece, beginning at the black-heated end.
The file will take hold, and as it is drawn along it will be felt that the
piece becomes slightly harder as the file advances, until suddenly it
will slip, and no amount of pressure will make it take hold above that
point. The piece has become suddenly file hard.
Next try the same thing with a diamond; the diamond will cut
easily until the point is reached where the file slipped, then there will
be found a great increase of hardness.
From this point to the end of the piece it is observed readily by
the action of the diamond that there is a gradual increase of
hardness from the hump to the end of the piece to the creamy-
heated end. Attempts were made to measure this curve of hardness
by putting a load on the diamond and dragging it over the piece; but
no diamond obtainable would bear a load heavy enough to produce
a groove that could be measured accurately by micrometer. An
examination of such a groove, through a strong magnifying-glass
revealed the conditions plainly; the groove of hardness may be
illustrated on an exaggerated scale; thus:

The next question was, Where does this hump occur, and what is
the cause of it?
Careful observation showed that it occurred at the point of
recalescence, at the refining-point. This word point must not be
taken as space without dimension in this connection; it is used in the
common sense of at or adjacent to a given place. There is of course
a small allowable range of temperature above any given exact point
of recalescence, such as 655° C. or 1211° F.
By superimposing Langley’s curves of cooling and of hardening
(see Trans. Am. Soc. Civ. Eng., Vol. XXVII, p. 403), the relation
between recalescence and the hardening-hump is obvious.
 It is safe to say that experience proves that the refined condition
is the best for all cutting-tools of every shape and form.
It seems to be obvious; the steel is then in its strongest condition,
and when the grain is finest, the crystals the smallest, a fine edge
should be the most enduring, because there is a more intimate
contact between the particles. That a steel will refine well, and be
strong in that condition is the steel-maker’s final test of quality.
No steel-maker who has a proper regard for the character of his
product will accept raw material upon mere analysis; analysis is of
the utmost importance, for material for steel-making must be of a
quality that will produce a certain quality of steel, or the result will be
an inferior product. This applies to acid Bessemer and open-hearth,
and to crucible-steel especially; the basic processes admit of a
reduction of phosphorus not obtainable in the others.
In making fine-tool steel a bad charge in the pot inevitably means
a bad piece of steel. It may happen also that an iron of apparently
good analysis will not produce a really fine steel; then there must be
a search for unusual elements, such as copper, arsenic, antimony,
etc., or for dirt, left in the iron by careless working. The refining-test
then is as necessary as analysis, for if steel will not refine thoroughly
it will not make good tools. Battering-tools, such as sledges,
hammers, flatters, etc., should be refined carefully, for although their
work is mainly compressive they are liable to receive, and do get,
blows on the corners and edges that would ruin them if they were not
in the strongest condition possible.
The reasons for refining hot-working tools have been stated
already. Engraved dies for use in drop-presses where they are
subjected to heavy blows are undoubtedly in the most durable
condition when they are refined, but they are subjected not only to
impact, but to enormous compression, and therefore they must be
hardened deeply. When a die-block is heated so as to refine, and
then is quenched, it hardens perfectly on the surface and not very
deeply, and it is quite common in such a case to see a die crushed
by a few blows: the hardened part is driven bodily into the soft steel
below it, and the die is ruined; thus:

To avoid this, such a die should be heated to No. 5, or a dark

lemon, and quenched suddenly in a large volume of rushing water.
It will then have the enormous resistance to compression that is
so well known in very hard steel, and it will be hardened so deeply
that the blow of the hammer will not crush through the hard part. This
is the best condition, too, of an armor-plate that is to resist the
impact of a projectile.
It will be brittle, a light blow of a hammer will snip the corners, but
it cannot be crushed by ordinary work. Dies made in this way have
turned out thousands of gross of stamped pieces, showing no
appreciable wear.
To harden a die in this way is a critical operation, because the
strains are so enormous that a very trifling unevenness in the heat
will break the piece, but the skill of expert temperers is so great that
they will harden hundreds of dies in this way and not lose one if the
steel be sound.

HEATING FOR HARDENING.

A smith can heat an occasional piece for hardening, in his
ordinary fire by using care and taking a little time. Where there are
many pieces to be hardened, special furnaces should be used.
For thousands of little pieces, such as saw-teeth or little springs,
a large furnace with a brick floor, and so arranged that the flame will
not impinge on the pieces, is good.
The operator can watch the pieces, and as soon as any come to
the right color he can draw them out, letting them drop into the
quenching-tank, which should be right under the door or close at
hand.
For twist-drills, reamers, etc., a lead bath, or a bath of melted salt
and soda, is used. The lead bath is the best if care be taken to draw
off the fumes so as not to poison the heaters. Because a bath of this
kind is of exactly the right color at the top it is not to be assumed that
pieces can be heated in it and hardened without further attention.
Thousands of tools are ruined, and thousands of dollars are
thrown away annually, by unobserving men who assume that
because a lead bath appears to be exactly the right color at the
surface it is therefore just right.
A dark orange color surface may have underneath it an
increasingly higher temperature, up to a bright lemon at the bottom,
and tools heated in such a bath will have all of the varying
temperatures of the bath; then cracked tools, twisted tools, brittle