“Secret Service Plot” or “Drunken Night”? Accounting Strategies in a Resignation Speech and Their Uptake in Media Reports in Three Countries

Abstract In this article, former Austrian vice-chancellor’s H.C. Strache’s resignation speech and its media coverage in Austria, Germany, and the German speaking part of Switzerland are investigated. Strache resigned after the publication of a secretly recorded meeting with an alleged Russian oligarch during which he (and his closest political collaborator) discussed illegal ways of party funding. The analysis shows that Strache applies justifications (presenting him as victim of a plot) as well as excuses (presenting his demeanor as the normal behavior of a drunken male) in his resignation speech. These seemingly contradictory framing strategies, however, are shown to fit both into the right-wing populist rhetoric repertoire. Analysis of the media coverage of the speech shows country specific differences although media in all three countries did not adopt Strache’s framing strategies. The article also discusses the merits of integrating different data sources and methods in contrastive socio-pragmatic research.