The Power of Metaphors and Metaphors of Power: Some Notes from Social Media.

In the most classic definition, metaphor consists in transferring to an object a name that is proper to another. In this sense, metaphor is based on a principle of substitution. In substituting one element for another, however, metaphor rewrites reality, making us see it from another point of view. In this sense, then, metaphor becomes a tool of additive knowledge and not a substitute: if it merely replaced one conceptual entity with another that is similar to it, it would be redundant and tautological. In this recreation of reality, metaphor creates a violation of referential presuppositions that risks finding the epistemic vigilance of the receiver unprepared. This situation is particularly frequent in digital public debate, where the illusion of proximity and of democratic, horizontal participation obscures the social and sociolinguistic asymmetry of the participants. Metaphor, which in ideal dialogical contexts has the power to revitalise the knowledge process, becomes instead a tool for intentionally increasing the communicative asymmetry. In this contribution I intend to show, through the analysis of texts from the digital environment, the contexts in which metaphor is intentionally used in an abusive and manipulative manner, that is, contexts in which metaphor serves the exercise of power.