8. Implications

Excerpt

The last five chapters have presented and discussed the analysis data from specific inauguration speeches for Russian and American presidents in discrete time periods. This chapter is organised in the same way as the results chapters. Firstly, the non-verbal external factors of all of the speeches under analysis are discussed, followed by the non-verbal internal clues, and then the textual clues. The discussion then brings together the identified techniques and critically compares and analyses them by time period (1981–1999, 2000–2018), by the country (USA, Russia), and by the speaker. Before proceeding to that discussion, it might be useful to reiterate the PPR techniques definition adopted in this study: “PPR techniques are the verbal and non-verbal elements of political communications, as well as the visual, audio, procedural management elements of political acts which are aimed at facilitating the achievement of desired political outcomes”. PPR techniques can be found in all political actions, events and communications. However, their identification is a challenging task due to their subjective, intuitive, creative nature and the lack of reliable methods for detection and analysis. This study has developed a method of analysis to overcome these challenges. The following discussion, drawing on the data generated in the previous five chapters, is the fruit of this innovative method. …